Luke 20 and Update B

oops sorry that previous post was the original draft... for some reason my updated one didn't post. Anyway, here is my updated version! some extra reading if you'd like haha.


Hey LG!

Sorry for the late post. A quick update on my break - I got some time off to spend back in Canton with my family. We hung out, ate, watched more movies than I remember...nothing special, but it's something we do every holiday. Honestly I could not think of anything to summarize or make sense of for my break until tonight, when my roommates and I shared updates with each other over dinner. I'm always pretty bad at reflecting and piecing together dots, so I'm very thankful for tonight.

One thing I'm learning about myself is that I'm much slower at learning lessons than most. I say this relative to my peers. One of my biggest insecurities is being left behind in the dust because I'm not growing or learning things fast enough - "fast enough" being a standard determined by my peers around me. So this break I felt like God was continuing His work in my family of pulling me away from my idolizing of them - something many of my friends had seemed to learn a while ago. Long story short, it made me live in ignorance of how much God is really doing right now in my family (who are all not Christian). Anyway, I don't want to go too much in detail and write a novel so ask me in person and I'll share more with you :)

My assigned chapter was Luke 20. In "the resurrection and marriage," Jesus explains along the lines of how, in our lives right now, there is marriage, but after death it will not exist. I remember hearing that the purpose of marriage is to, to an extent, replicate the relationship God wants with us. But as humans, no matter how much time you spend with another person, you can only get to know a person so well. There will always be that blockage... it's almost like this is the best we can do. It doesn't even come close to the actual relationship God that should be perfect. But when we are with Him in heaven, there won't be a need for marriage anymore because we will actually be with God. Just my take on this part of the passage that for some reason stuck out to me.. don't worry, my mind has not been dwelling extensively on this topic :P

See you guys soon!
Jessica

Luke Chapter 23

Happy New Year! I’m grateful to have spent the holidays with family and friends in Florida. I usually only take off 4 days or so during the holidays, but this year I was able to spend almost two weeks away which was nice and much-needed. This gave me enough time for my annual reunion lunch with friends from high school as well as some time with my parents and sister. I also attended the Outback Bowl which was held in Tampa this year so it was great to bring some of Ann Arbor home with me. As for our group readings, I have Luke Chapter 23 which chronicles Jesus’ trial, crucifixion and burial. Even though I know how the story ends, and it is a necessary end, it always saddens me to read how little evidence was required to crucify Jesus. On top of that, the fact that people were so eager to see him die that they would rather have a murderer go free is equally sad. To apply this to life, I definitely struggle with trusting God at times which in a way is putting him on trial. Even though I have plenty of evidence of his faithfulness, I am too quick to doubt Him and think he is responsible for wrongdoing (read: things that aren’t going the way that I want.) Similarly, choosing things that are not from God whether it is wrong behavior or mindsets is a betrayal of what I know to be true which is not that different from the attitude of the people who turned their back on Jesus in exchange for freeing a murderer. I hope to continue to grow in my faith this year and more easily identify those instances where I am choosing not to believe the truth. See you Wednesday!

cheers to 2013!

hi everyone, happy new year! just wanted to write short update on what i've been up to. i spent christmas at my grandma's house in okemos/e.lansing and my family joined me there. i had to return to AA for work on the 26th, but then went to chicago for the weekend. i got a chance to catch up with some old friends and it was a refreshing time. one friend is someone that is a UM alum and has served at our church. as i was sharing w/ her about what this past year of 2012 was like for me, she responded almost in awe of how much of God's faithfulness was evident in my life. at that moment i think God was telling me to always remember what He's done in the past and to always be reminded of how good He is no matter what i may go through. i also realized how important it is to share our lives- both the good the bad- b/c other people can point things out that we sometimes become blind or numb to. it was also encouraging because this friend is continuing to grow in her relationship w/ God and she was sharing about how thankful she was for her time at our church b/c it laid a strong foundation for her as a Christ-follower. it was so encouraging to have heart-to-heart conversations like this and we both left there more convinced of how God is always actively working in our lives! i'm starting off the year with feeling very thankful for genuine friends that are truly a gift from God. i'm grateful that i have sisters in my life that have journeyed with me for many years and who are all still trying to live for the Lord. it's definitely a blessing to have people who accept you the way you are and who you can grow together with. below are some pics of my friends and i as well as a couple cool ones from the shedd aquarium that i wanted to share :) i'm always reminded of how amazing our Creator is when i see beautiful sights, scenery or things of nature that only our almighty God could have designed. i'm thankful that God created each of us uniquely and perfectly the way He intended and that we are a new creation in Him! reflecting on all that God has done in one year throughout 2012 gives me greater anticipation of what He has in store for 2013!

friends from undergrad and roommates throughout grad school :) one has moved away, so it was great to be together again!

my best friend from back home who i got to visit in chicago. even though we've known each other for almost 20 years, it's so funny how some things don't change and you pick up where you left off each time.

my fav picture from my visit to the shedd- it's nemo! haha

what unique and colorful fish! love it! -Erica

Cost of Following Him - Luke 9

Hello Team 242,

I hope everyone is starting off the new year in a meaningful way.  It was meant for me to post this on Christmas Eve (that's why it's about Luke 9...back-tracking a bit), but I completely failed.  Honestly, I knew and remembered the date that I was supposed to post this, but I just didn't do it because I was just so exhausted both physically and mentally coming out from the three-month-training and I want to maximize the time when I was at home for Christmas in Nevada to regroup myself and stay away from the Internet/computer.

On the very end of Luke 9, verses 57 through 62 describes the cost of following Jesus.  The past three months have been the most challenging time that I've ever when through in the 23 years of my life (I know this sounds silly...pretty sure that I'll face even more difficult situations than this) because this was the first time that I've ever felt loneliness.  I really enjoy doing things by myself.  I'm one of those people who really enjoy being away from people and take time to meditate on my thoughts.  I'm definitely not a people's person; I can be at times, but I don't prefer myself to be that way.

Training was very difficult because in addition to spending two months in Missouri and a month in Iowa by myself, there weren't anybody who I could directly relate to.  I've went to church on Sundays to meet God and experience the community over at those two places, but the community that I had over there, it was very difficult for me to relate to those people primarily due to age gaps.  In the beginning, I never knew it would be that difficult for me to relate to different people due age because even at work I do things with people who are much older than I am.  However, as I got more engraved with the community over there and started to share personal things with them, I could feel that "invisible gap" because our lives are in different stages and the things that we go through are very different in life.  With all this, I started to feel lonely.  As the days went by, I was so engraved in loneliness to the point where I couldn't focus on God, along with feeling physically exhausted from having 12-hours days every day.

Last year around this time, I made a two-year commitment to stay behind post-graduation, primarily because I wanted invest in couple of younger sisters who I was having close relationships with and be more involved in the community by serving the church.  However, as the new school year started and the real work life has finally begun, by being away from the community for three months due to training, I started to doubt God's purpose and vision.  When I first started praying to seek answers from God last year, God gave me answers through giving me financial stability by offering me a place to work and being able to develop closer relationships with sisters.  Despite all this, I was forced to be sent away for lengths of time.  I started asking questions such as "am I on the right path?  Is this truly the vision and conviction that I received from God?"

On the other hand, however, I learned something meaningful.  The three months that I was forced to be away from Ann Arbor and the community really showed me how I often underestimate the community that I have here in Ann Arbor.  In addition, I think I had a really good "preview" of the life that I'll be having if I would've left Ann Arbor right away after I graduate.  An older sister who I feel very close to mentioned to be before how it breaks her heart whenever she sees people leaving Ann Arbor as soon as they graduate and after some time later when she looks at their lives again, they're struggling and not following nor journeying out for God.  I honestly never knew what that meant until I spent this past three months away from my spiritual home.  My work schedule is really hectic and intense.  In fact, all of my travelling schedules are tentatively set for rest of 2013 and it will be really difficult for me to take off weeks at a time, especially in the summer for vacation, due to the new launch for the program that I'm working on.  But, if I have to go through all this so I can be with my spiritual family here in Ann Arbor and more invest my time and resources to God, I'll gladly suffer through it.

Sorry for the jumbled up thoughts and long texts.  I've never meant this to be a long post, just full of text but I guess it just ended up being like this, my apologies.  Anyhow, I hope all you wrap up this week successfully, and I'm very excited to be back in life group this upcoming week.  See you all soon :)

Luke 19 - Fate and free will

So Luke 19…

  Three different stories and I will focus on the one that happens in our everyday life where fate shakes hands with our free will and… life happens.

  This is the beauty of life I guess. You wake up in the morning you have no clue how the day will be. Well chances are you will have a day just like others. But there is a chance that fate will put something on your way. And now it is your turn to catch the moment. It is all up to you and it is all up to fate. Reminds me of Jesse McCartney's song “Best day of my life”. Just take a moment and listen to it!

  Let me give you an example. I think it was 2 months ago when I stopped by sweetwaters coffee shop to say hi to my friends. I saw a girl that I barely recognized. She was sitting at a table with her friend. I was like I think I know her so I walked towards her table and said hey I think I know you from somewhere. And guess what she was a friend of Paul Saunders. We talked and she invited me over to her life group. If that coincidence didn’t happen (fate) or if I didn’t choose to talk to her (free will) well I would not be writing here now. I didn’t have a nice Christmas card Jerry gave me with a Frisbee game drawing on it (picture) and I would not be in that white elephant gift exchange party! Amazing right? Well you can think about your own lives. The moments that happened and you chose to do something. How it changed your life and how it would be different if you chose otherwise. The same thing happened to Zacchaeus when he met Jesus.

  This is why I love life!

 

Luke 18

Hi all,

I hope everyone had a good break!! It was encouraging to read other people's blogs over the break and I'm late on my turn... haha sorry. I may ramble a little because I'm not very good at sharing things in written form that's not related to chemistry.

Anyway, Luke 18 was full of little stories that I often heard about, from "the pharisee and the tax collector" to "the rich ruler" who asked Jesus how to get into heaven and was told to give up all possession. Of all these stories, the one thing that really spoke to me was verse 15. To save you time of looking it up, here it is. In ESV, it says "Now they were bringing even infants to him that he might touch them...." So I used to relate more to the following verses where Jesus tells the disciples that we need to be more child-like to receive the kingdom of God. But this time, verse 15 spoke more to me and that's because I understand a little bit about why people were bringing even infants to Jesus. 

Often, when I go to new places or try new foods or find new things, I always think of Justin (my husband) and my parents (close second...) because I like to share the experience with them.  Since I got two cats, that desire to share things increased exponentially and I'm always in a look out for getting them the new best thing. We even had a little Christmas gift opening just for Rita and Teddy. And here's the picture of my cuties with their new toys.

My point is that when I read this verse, I was thinking how great was Jesus to these people that they were bringing their infants to share the experience and so that they will be blessed as well. And although I cannot fully understand the extent of parents' love to their children, I do understand that people including me like to share "good things" with their loved ones. And here is the best thing: Jesus!

So my hope for this year is to share Jesus with all the loved ones around me, especially family members and friends who have not met Jesus personally.

Having Faith - Luke 17

Happy New Year everyone! I hope your holidays were merry and bright. As for me, I was pretty busy working and taking care of family, although I did enjoy the extra time off.

While reading through Luke 17, one of the passages that resonated with me was verse 6, when Jesus talks about having “faith as small as a mustard seed.” As I sometimes struggle with my own faith, it is encouraging that even a small bit of faith in God is enough to keep going. Sometimes, it can be easy to let the daily hubbub of life get in the way of my spiritual life. But I need to persevere and keep going forward.

The passage about the ten who were healed of leprosy is another passage that I can relate to. It is a reminder that Jesus healed those who were sick. Recently, my mother underwent surgery to remove a tumor. Thankfully, the surgery was successful and her recovery is going well. It was heartening that my mother kept her faith in God during this ordeal.

As we start the new year, may we remember to keep our faith in God and to trust in Him.