At the end of the day God is not merely an inference, the end of an argument, the conclusion after we have cleverly aligned the evidence. But if you begin with this God, the testimony to his greatness in what we see all around us is heart stopping.
D.A. Carson
It's a new blog. I might actually spend time to make this one look nice, although I feel like most people use feedly or some blog reader so not sure if it's necessary. But yes, new blog, but same URL. For you readers. The old one can be accessed at thoughtsfromaboy.blogspot.com.
It's time to move on. Why? Because I did something I consider to be super manly, and it's related to my first post. My first post from thoughtsfromaboy.blogspot.com revolves around family. This past Sunday, I talked to a man whom I haven't talked to for almost 5 years.
5 years... I mean a couple emails last January, but an actual talk in person.
Wow. But why is this manly? Cause I made the first move to possibly fix a relationship, and to be honest, I believe the long path to recovering family will happen.
I entered in this dinner/talk with a mix of apprehension/confusion/bewilderment. I wasn't sure what would happen. I just knew that we needed to talk, and if it ended with neither one of us willing to talk again, then so be it. But the main motivation for talking was Christ. I honestly, would have been content never communicating with him again, but Christ declares otherwise. In order to show love, I needed to act. And I'm glad I did.
After stupid small talk for an hour, I dropped the bomb. And I quote, "So what am I to you?" Haha. In hindsight, a loaded question that was probably unfair, but it got straight to the point, we needed to discuss our relationship. Because I had issues that I told him, and he never responded to, and he had issues with me that he'd never voiced. Of course it got slightly heated at the beginning. What do you expect? Two stubborn people that are convinced that they are right going at it, but after a bit, it was one of the most heart-breaking eye opening conversations, I've ever had. Mr. RM (I'm not yet at a point where I can call him father), has gone through a lot. A lot of things in his life, and a lot of self-hatred and an inability to forgive himself. (After the conversation I was just like... sigh I guess we are more similar than I thought, or perhaps a universal human/asian human trait?)
For roughly 22 years, he's hated himself. Now I've spent a lot of time hating myself, but after coming to Christ and over the past year learning what it means to find peace/joy in Christ and breaking that cycle of self-hatred (well slowly breaking), my heart broke for him. No more details of what he went through cause it's none of your business haha. Maybe you can ask me in person. But this man never told a soul how he felt.
I've learned I need community. I've got a band of brothers who when the world falls upon me, they will be there for me. I will always treasure that, but he's been alone. Of course you can make the claim, well it's his fault, but that doesn't address his pain.
In fact I asked him, "Are you happy?" With ultimately a "No." in response.
YOU HAVE NO FREAKING IDEA, how much my heart broke. I was so confused afterwards. I literally screamed in my car out to God with just a cry of how do I react. What do I do now?
Plus side, we talked about the gospel. We talked about God. And I told him about my desire for seminary and missions.
But still, even now I'm sort of dumbfounded. I need time to just sit and unpack it all, but sadly this week has been too busy for that and will continue to be busy.
In short though, there will probably be more posts unpacking this, and I've arbitrarily decided that I'm a man. Do I still screw things up? Yes. But I feel like over the past couple months, I've been changing. I know some changes are for the better, not sure if the others are tho... haha. TBD. Will I still act like a boy at times? Sure haha. But... I do hope to really embrace being a man for whatever that means to some. 2014, big things going down man.
Random note: Got to take pics at 4th Year Valentine's Banquet. So many pics... and so many ways I could have done it better, but practice makes perfect. If you're a fourth year reading this, I apologize, it might be a little bit.
