Here's to you and I!

This past week & graduation weekend has been too much.

Too much laughing. Too much crying. Too many hugs; too many good-byes; too many cheers.

I moved out of Ann Arbor today, and am now sitting in my room in South Lyon.

I'm in a bit of a funk right now.

But! The serious funk aside, I would just like to say:

We could just go home right now or maybe we could stick around for just one more drink. Get another bottle out, let's shoot the breeze, sit back down for just one more drink.

Here's to us, here's to love, all the times that we messed up. Here's to you, fill the glass, cause the last few days have gone too fast, so let's give 'em hell, wish everybody well. Here's to us!

Class of 2012, cheers!

For today, goodbye. For tomorrow, good luck. And forever, Go Blue!

bcl.

And that's how a p.m. shindig is done!

April 17th, 2012.

What a day.

It was the first. The last last. The best. The worst.

I had slept too late the night before, & woke up too early the morning of.

Sleepy and emotional about undergrad and LIFEgroup ending that day, I started the day off in an unfortunate wow-everything-sucks-at-6-a.m.-grogginess. Jet off to Lansing to listen to angsty teens present world-changing ideas in front of a panel of old people with my friend Mandi, who was kind enough to drive me (Mandi, you will never ever read this. But thank you!). Then, bad news.

Got dropped off to Mason Hall for my very last college class ever, pulled up my g-mail and, bad news. Good news! More bad news. Followed by some sad news. Something exciting! Bad.

Walked home. Good! Bad. Happy! Sad. Angst.

(For more intimate details regarding all the happenings on this oscillating day, ask me to share my journal entry with you! Which I probably will never actually show you, HA.)

By the time I showed up at Viscount #17 for lifegroup, I was emotionally confused. At least my tan still looked good.

But actually, the entirety of this post was never supposed to be centered around me. I wanted to write about my beloved 2011-2012 senior year lifegroup, JARHEADS.

First off, everything about this night was just so good. On the car ride to 178 Easton Dr., South Lyon, I had the pleasure of enjoying an in-car concert, free of charge! Bryan, Barbara, Maria, & Albert graced me with their angel-voices. Especially Albert, who sang an incredible rendition of Aerosmith's "I Don't Wanna Miss a Thing." Windows down, radio loud, I knew it was going to be a good night.

Upon pulling up onto my driveway, who should come out to greet us but my mom, who's even smaller, and way cuter than me. And Findora! My dog, who's even smaller, and way cuter than my mom.

We hurried to make ourselves at home while the rest of the lifegroup filed in, one car at a time. Bryan started the fire in the backyard fire pit, errbody took lots of photos with Finny, and everyone enjoyed copious amounts of tuna dip and almond butterfly cookies. We did some brief worship, paired off to do an even briefer Bible study (which Jessica and I took to mean girl-chat in my room), and then everyone tag-teamed a lifegroup timeline poster. We ate dinner, which was super tasty. In fact, Jessica whispered to me at the end of the night that the only thing that could've made the dinner better was if we had some hot dogs.
 
Outside, we huddled closely together around the fire pit. I witnessed the most successful and high-speed game of "Boom Chicka-Boom-Boom" of all time; we played Bo's "Affirmation Circle" game, cuddled, worshiped, talked, laughed, threw glances up at the starry sky, and made s'mores, obviously.

 Then Bo and Nayoung ushered us back inside for presents!

They presented us with.. jars. (I love Mason Jars!) ("Awww")
Then Nayoung pulls out these incredible flip calendars for all the graduates (applause)

Then I, in a couth manner, turned off all the lights and Barbara emerged from hiding with glowing gifts for the leaders (very wild applause)
Then, Jessica stood up quietly and said, "And these are for the missions people," as she handed out large, autographed Nalgene bottles to everyone (medium applause)
 Then, Nayoung comes forward and presents Robby and Richard with Jarheads stickers for their gee-tar cases (the wildest applause of all)
And then, Nayoung remains forward and yells out, "Just kidding! There's more!" and she and Bo proceed to hand out Jarheads journals to everyone (very wild applause)

Afterwards, we discovered Bo's attractively long model legs, took a thousand photos (the kind worth more than 1,000,000 words), laughed and hugged and participated in an extended jam session, complete with multiple pianos, guitars, and tiny bongo drums.

Truthfully, when I look back at the ride that this lifegroup has taken on the Jar-bus, (or, if you're really sleek, the jaa-car), and all the nights that we've spent in the Jar-cave, and all the fun Jarbecues (complete with hot dogs) that we've enjoyed, I can only stand amazed at God. What started out as a group of awkward, though admittedly strangely loud, strangers, transformed into a family before my very eyes. I have enjoyed getting to know each and everyone single one of my Jar-fam members, and I'm more than blessed.

The car ride home that night was just as eventful. We resumed singing really loudly (except for Jing, who sang at regular decibel, and refused to get any louder), and more hilarity ensued. There are, however, two specific moments that I would like to document so as to remember them forever and never forget:

As we're driving towards Maria's house..
Albert: Oh look! Somebody got pulled over by a popo!
[the intonation of "popo" was similar to that of "grandma" in Chinese]

Listening to Flo-Rida's "Low" on the radio; lyrics: "she turned around and gave that big booty a smack, ayy!":
Bryan, who had been singing along and dancing excitedly: (smacks dashboard)
Albert: Oh my gosh Bryan just slapped my car. That's not good."

What a perfectly sentimental, happy way to say good-bye.

As Jade said that Bithiah said, "THIS IS THE BEST DAY EVER!"

Minus the 80 hotdogs that Bo chose to hoard for himself. Ruuuuuuuuuude.

Aaaaaand that's how a p.m. shindig is done!

Thanks for the laughs, the hugs, & the prayers. My prayer for every one of my beloved brothers and sisters is that you will continue to grow in your knowledge, love, intimacy, and likeness of Christ. When things are hard, turn to Him with faith and trust; and when things are good, testify to his goodness and grace. Never stop serving those around you; you do it so well! I pray that we will all continue to strive to do the ordinary things with an extraordinary love for God and his people. And that we will always strive to become as popular as Albert Wu.

I will miss you, Jars.

Cheers!

bcl.

Grad Night 2012: my turn!

For those of you who were unable to attend grad night:

I wish that I could have shared my testimony with you in person, but if you read this with my voice, you've.. got it. I read off the paper anyway. I even wrote in the introduction, jokes, etc.

Seriously, you didn't miss a thing.

Here we go!

Hi, for those of you who don't know me and who I'm sorry to not know, my name is Bithiah, and I'm here to join my brothers and sisters in bragging about how good our God is.

When I think back about all the ways that God has proven himself to be faithful and sovereign, able and powerful in my life, truly, I can only stand amazed at Him. My whole life is a testimony of God’s faithfulness.

But, since I only have 3 minutes of stage-time, I will share about just one lesson that God has taught me throughout my last 4 years here. And it’s that our God’s love is truly a love of another kind.

For as long as I can remember, I have been fiercely independent, adamant about what I want and what I believe. I was always a bit of a fighter, and I worked hard to get what I wanted. I clung to my successes and found myself angry and discouraged at my failures. Coming into college, I always tried to do the right things, say the right words, and be the right person. Having grown up in the church, I knew what the Bible asked me to do and I knew what other people expected of me. I tried my absolute best to achieve all of these things. I wanted so badly to do it right—to be teachable, wise, selfless, loving, smart. I tried to be the nicest, the funniest, the kindest, the most patient. And I’m embarrassed to say that in the beginning, I actually thought that I had a shot at all of that.

So I was a very eager freshman. I attended all of the life group meetings, I went to all the church gatherings, learned how to worship with arms uplifted, learned how to pray at the speed of light, and I honestly thought that things were going so great. I was experiencing God in new and exciting ways, and I was hungry for more growth. I had come into college thinking that I already knew and loved God, but it turns out that I didn’t understand anything about how God loved me back.

As the semesters flew by, I found myself increasingly struggling to maintain my upward trajectory of growth. I began to meet people who were better than me—smarter, prettier, kinder, more talented… and I was devastated. Suddenly aware that I wasn’t as ‘ahead of the game’ as I had thought starting college, I tried to fix it. I tried to attend even more church gatherings, to meet up with even more people. But the more I tried to clean up my act, the bigger the mess I created. The harder I tried to love and serve people, the more I hurt and disappointed them. The harder I tried to right my wrongs, the more I wronged what few rights I had left. The faith that I had tried to build up began to crumble, and I never even saw it coming. I had never realized that my rapidly-crumbling foundations were built upon grains of sand—grains of righteous acts and outward tasks. I couldn’t understand why the God that I had known all my life would suddenly stop growing me, or why my perfect church attendance or involvement in ministry was no longer resulting in me feeling loved, joyful, and secure.

At that point, God intervened. He began to show me that I had missed the point of it all. For so many years, I had understood God’s love for me to be a generic, distant one. I knew that I would always be loved as much as I deserved to be, or as much as I was able to earn, just like everything else in my life. And I had tried to grow as a Christ-follower believing that. But God began to speak to me in a quiet voice, to whisper his love to me. Unfamiliar with that gentle voice, I resisted. I tried to tune Him out as I pushed onward with school and with church. And for all the months and years following, God pursued me relentlessly. Feeling unlovable and undeserving of his patience or gentle grace, I couldn’t understand or accept this love that God was offering to me. I felt as if I could see God holding out his love, extending his hand toward me, but when I tried to reach out to take it, I caught sight of the filth on my hands, and embarrassed and ashamed, I hurried to shove my hands back into my pockets. And for months, we stood like that. God with his arms outstretched, and me, fearful and unwilling to show him my own open hands, and terrified to let Him love me. I was convinced that if I remained in my twist of independence, self-hatred and insecurity, God would eventually give up and leave me alone. He wouldn’t bother chasing me if I kept running away from Him, right? I wanted to grow as a Christian and do all the Christian things without having to vulnerably accept God’s love for me on a personal, intimate level. I was comfortable and satisfied with the distant and generic love that I always felt from Him. But God was not.

Through life groups, friends, my ministry teams, and other brothers and sisters, God pursued me. And I fought all of them. I tried to do everything on my own, and was frustrated and terrified at my inability to do so. I watched my own patched-up life begin to break off, bit by bit, and I started to feel lost in the clutter. Through all this time, I saw God standing there, beckoning to me, calling to me continuously. And over time, finally, God began to catch up to me. He chased me through Junior year, a particularly difficult year for me. He ran alongside my family as we struggled along. He chased me overseas. He tirelessly sent other people into my life to share His love for me with me. And despite my best efforts, I could not outrun God’s love. I wish that I had time to tell you every way that God pursued me, and I wish that I had the time to tell you how He slowly, patiently overwhelmed my hardened heart with his gentle love, and how even now, He is still telling me daily how much He truly loves me, and how beloved I am to Him despite my disbelief and resistance at times. Slowly, over the last 4 years, I saw my Abba Father walk closer and closer toward me, and I felt my tense, defensive shoulders begin to relax and lower themselves as I learned more and more about the amazing extent to which He has loved me. God taught me that regardless of what I do or don’t do, He cannot love me more and will not love me less.

God has demonstrated the truest extent of his character to me by his unrelenting pursuit of me. His love is unconditional. It’s kind, patient, and gentle. But His love is also powerful, overwhelming, all-consuming. It hits with a mighty force and tonight, I can call that love my very own.

And though I stand before you a serious work-in-progress tonight, and still hugely imperfect, I can confidently say now that I have heard God call me “daughter,” and I can testify that God’s love truly is a love of another kind.

I’m thankful for our God, and for my time here. And what an amazing journey it has been. And so, in true HMCC fashion, let me just end this testimony with: “PTL!”

bcl.

The Return! And also, Australia.

Hello Blogosphere!

I have not posted in months.. but please, let me assure you that the thought/idea/inspiration has crossed my mind at several moments over these past few months. And I've wanted to, but--

Never mind.

No more excuses. Who's reading them anyway?

I have decided that I'm wanting to make time to read for pleasure (I need to get going on my To-Read list, eh? (See below)) again, and to write!

Yes, I want to write. Even if I don't feel like I have anything to say. Because that's never true. I always have something to say. There's always too much to be said.

I have been thinking about my gap year next year. I want to go to Australia. I wonder if God will open that door for me.

Maybe then I can pick up the accent. Could I rock that?

It's good to be back. See you soon!

bcl.