I feel pretty silly making a xanga post, seeing as how mine has died for the most part. But I needed some outlet to reflect. Something to hold onto I guess. Hallelujah to the world of verbal processors.

Things have been kind of crazy in my life lately. Lots of ups and downs. For the most part, I'm okay. I'll live. I'll survive, and somehow God will prevail. But there's been a little bit of stumbling around in it. And I'm not sure what it all means, but I know that it's a process of refining gold - removing impurities that remain after the smelting process. Did you know that pure gold is generally too soft for most practical applications? Other metals are nearly always added to it to form alloys. Metaphors galore in that.

Anyway, I thought I'd write... some things down.

I haven't been able to figure myself out lately, and just when I think I've got it... WHAM! It's been a lot of ups and downs and things mixed in together, and I don't quite understand myself really, but let me try and describe?
Partially, I I feel like I was running and running towards God and striving, and then suddenly, I just stopped. I just stopped and was like, "What am I doing? I'm tired. I don't know if I want to do this anymore." Why that happened or how that came about, I don't know.

Then I beat myself up because I could feel myself falling. I was just like soooo BLAH and there was this one night where I was like, "I want to give up and just quit. RAWR! I want to be done for a while." And it was just a big cycle because I was telling myself, "Ying, that is SUCH an awful thing to say because... you know the truth. You KNOW the truth and how can you turn away from all that?" And then I proceeded to continue to beat myself up being just so disappointed and upset with myself, knowing that I could be better and stronger but... wasn't. I felt terrible, and it was shameful, yes. And then I scolded myself for not having God or the cross by sufficient enough for me. Not always a bad thing, but I'm told that I hold high standards for myself and expect things of myself. And I beat myself up over it because I wasn't meeting those standards/expectations. Take it from me, but beating yourself down is never the solution to anything.
But I can't help that I felt that way. And honestly, it's normal. And I shouldn't beat myself over it.
A friend told me "Ying, you're beating yourself up for struggling with sin. But you haven't even done anything yet." (I paraphrased, but that's basically what was said.) And I was like "yeah... haha true. I'm kinda being silly.... sorta. lol" But it made sense. I'm human. I don't think I can put myself above sin or temptation. I can surely rise above it (with Christ, of course). But sin and temptations will come to me. But I was MAJORLY panicking in my temptation. And it's great that I don't want to fall, but yooooo chillax!
In all fairness though, it was scary being closer to the falling-into-sin line than I would like to be.

Maybe I was running, looked around, and realized that there was no one else around me and stopped. Or maybe I was just running and got tired. I'm not sure.
Maybe I haven't been encouraged very much in my journey, so it was a lonely road of running. And I just felt lonely and alone, and there was no one around me striving for the same things. Tired of putting in effort in places and feeling like it doesn't make a difference.
Maybe it's a lack of feeling loved.

Perhaps it all comes down to relevance that caused me to stop suddenly.
I didn't feel like anything I did mattered. Not being able to see fruits of your labor. Feeling irrelevant. Pastor Josh gave a sermon about relevance last week, that was really good. He said that there can be a lot of things people can say to hurt him, but THE worst (or one of the worst) would be calling him irrelevant. That his sermons, his care, his efforts, that anything he does or who he is... is irrelevant. It doesn't matter. So perhaps I felt irrelevant. I felt like everything I'd been striving towards wasn't having any effect. It didn't matter. Take me out of the equation and it wouldn't matter.

There have been moments where a spiritual attack will arise. At least I'm aware though so then I can ask for prayer from other people. Because I know I can't fight it alone.

Anyway, God really does answer prayers. In very unexpected ways, but yet… totally amazing and brilliant and awesome as well. But He blessed me with making my relevance known. Letting me know that all this time I spent trying to do Godly things and striving towards Him... it was worth it. To hear my roommate finally say, "I can call myself a Christian now." Wow... God is great. Although it still doesn't change the storm I'm going through, I have a peace of mind. I have purpose. It was all worth it.

And even though I can't say how this storm will play out or how God will bring me out of this mess. I may stumble around more than I'd like, but... I can really give this up to God knowing that whatever happens... it'll all be okay in the end. I don't need to punish myself. I have fulfillment. I've made a difference. I invested in something that is eternal. It's all going to be okay for her. It's funny. I don't need any credit for it though. If she turned to me and said, "none of what you did made a difference and it didn't really matter." Haha, I would be totally okay with that because the end result in the same. She got there, and that's all that matters. =) WIN.

*edit*

I think I used the term "sin" really lightly in this entry. Please replace "sin" with "being disobedient to God," which some people would say that it's the same thing. Idk, "being disobedient to God" just seemed like a better term to use.