Jihyunshee’s Weblog

What if someone -
right as her hand was extended -
came up alongside Eve
smiled,
and said softly,

“Nah. I don’t think you need it. I think we’re gonna be just fine.” 

I know you’re making me a mountain,
Making me a mountain, 
That cannot be shaken.
You are making me a mountain, 
Making me a mountain,
That cannot be moved.  

The best friend was here this past Memorial Day weekend.
To say that we had fun is a severe understatement. We had so much fun it took me a full day to recover from all the H, and that’s not just because we had chicken and rice at the epic halal cart twice in three days. It is also because we made the trek to the East Side to ride the Roosevelt Island Tram. In case you were wondering, it is totally worth it.

Seeing that I haven’t seen her for a full year, and I probably won’t see her for a full year or so, it was marvelous and I was rather sad to see her go.

All things considered it’s remarkable that we are still friends. I hadn’t seen her for clear over a year, but we still manage to email each other once a week or so – and usually over some unofficial combination of the serious and silly things. I’d say that’s pretty remarkable for two rather busy people with two very different lives. One faith, yes, but two different lives in two very different cities.

In fact, we email each other so much that once she got here there was very little that we needed to recap to each other. And it didn’t feel like I hadn’t seen her in so long, in fact it felt rather like I had seen her a few weeks ago.

I wonder if this is what it means when we say that love endures all things.

I had a most fantastic lunch-outing with J. and S. We visited a place I had been looking to visit for quite some time – Taïm – and then we took our falafel sabichs to Washington Square Park and talked about living and breathing and serving and working.

I really hope we all get to live out our dreams. Not because they are inherent interesting.

I just hope they – my friends – get to live them out, because I know how much they love God.
J and S and I were talking about this over our falafels. It’s not so much so that they nor I need to feel fulfilled by our occupations.
It’s just that when we see ourselves – the kind of servants we hope to be within the church universal and the world in need – and the seat we’d like to fill as we watch God restore the love that’s been all mucked up as of late – when I hear those dreams -

more than any particular occupation I hope they become that person when they grow up.
And indeed I hope they are rapidly becoming that person even now.

I was talking with J about this at last night’s prayer meeting. When we want God, we will never disappointed. No matter the outcome of our meager lives, we will always get what we want, because what we want is a Who. The mystery-revealed, eternally existant, miracle-defined Divine.

I really hope we all get to live out our dreams, because I know that at the heart of them is Christ and glory divine.

For yours is the kingdom,
Yours is the power,
Yours is the glory, forever Amen.

I was waiting for the M7 with P. to head home when I saw a man waiting at the bus stop with his wife. He was holding their coffee and their bags from a day of shopping, and she was sitting in her motorized wheelchair.

They didn’t really say anything to each other – I wonder now if she – the wife – wasn’t actually able to.

I do remember though – how he – the husband – looked at her, as she sat, waiting for the bus. I watched how he boarded the bus ahead of her, folded the disabled seating section up, and found a seat close beside her. His facial expression never once changed.  When they got to their stop, the whole bus seemed to get quiet. he followed her out of the bus,

all the while looking at her like she was the most beautiful woman in the world,
and that he was the happiest man alive.

It wasn’t the kind of jumpy happy – that ecstatic happy that you see whenever two kids seem to laugh loud enough or smile big enough. It was that peaceful kind of happy – the kind of peaceful that has been stretched out by difficulty and smoothed out by experience to the point where you don’t need to explain it anymore.

That is a man who loves his wife.

You took my mourning, and turned it into dancing
You took my weeping, and turned it into laughing
You took my mourning, and turned it into dancing
You took my sorrow, and turned it into joy

Guide me now, O Great Jehovah
Prisoner in this barren land
I am weak, but thou art mighty
Hold me in thy powerful hand
Bread of Heaven, Bread of Heaven
Feed me till I want no more
Feed me till I want no more

When I tread of Jordan
Bid my anxious fears aside
Bear me through the swelling current
land me safe on Canaan’s side
Songs of praises, songs of praise
I will ever give to thee
I will ever give to thee

You, LORD keep my lamp burning – my God turns my darkness into light. 
Psalm 18:28 

Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
Romans 5:2-5 ESV