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| WARNING: LONG READ, but worth it i think...it's in story format
3 HOUR COLDS
i've always had a knack for being able to shut down and destroy a
cold whenever i felt like i was getting one...hence..i call them 3 hour
colds, b/c they never last long..i consider it my skill.
today tho, as i was going through my classes..my body started
feeling weak..and my body started getting cold....in the OCH012
room...i was freezing my buns off and nodding away while professor Paul
Walker lectured on about some boring Mass Liturgy stuff.
When class was over, i burst out in the 92 degree heat and
man, i tell ya i've never felt soo good in that kind of hot weather. I
was still a teeny bit cold. Maybe it's a little taste of how Esther
Lim felt! I never understood how she could love the hot weather, but here I
was absorbing that experience. But no doubt, i was getting sick. I'd
rather have the sore throat cold rather than the body-draining feverish
type of cold...but this was the latter. After a meeting for intramural
sports captains (flag football for gcf!) and a small hot chicken noodle
soup from the pav, i was on my way home.
My brother had gone to the ER a week before for food
poisoning, and I couldn't help but wonder if I got something similar.
The reason was because I had thrown up this morning after drinking this
crystal light drink mix in a nalgene bottle that hadn't been used in a
while (maybe i didn't clean it as well as i thought). Maybe I had been
food poisoned, and all of a sudden, thoughts of the ER swamped me. I
called my mom and told her what's up.
Now you must understand, what i've been going through of
late. With all the rush of the beginning of the semester, I had
already somewhat tired and was easily frustrated. It was somehow
extremely difficult to read the Bible even though I knew it was
something I had to do. I sometimes feel like my nervous system is
disconnected. What I know I should do rarely gets translated into
action. I was feeling inadequate about worship leading, inadequate
about this and that. And that made me frustrated. i was BLAH. I knew it wasn't right, but it felt so
good to justify myself with my own reasonings. I felt like love had
taken a back seat, a major back seat to the things I wanted to do. In
essence, I felt like quitting. I could not wait til 2nd semester
rolled around....and...and.. *breathe*
Anways, back to real time..
Upon arriving at home, I
took some advil, checked my email, sent an email to the flag football
squad and chit chatted a little. Then I opened the Bible to 1
Corinthians 12 and 13, and read that, since it's so much easier to cry
out to God when you're weak. Then around 7:45 pm, I put up a sign
outside my door that read "I'm pretty sick....sleeping..." By this
time, my body was cold and I had put on huge baggy sweat pants and a
sweatshirt. Last but not least, i put on socks! Socks are crucial. I
never wear them around the house, but i thought i'd be a fool to not
wear socks.
7:45. I get into bed and pull my hood over my head and put my
sleeping bag, which serves as my blanket, up to my face. I think to
myself, "This kind of fever is gonna put me out of commission for the
next few days. God, help me." Then I thought, mannn, I always ask God
for this and that and to help me. I'm pretty selfish in that way. So i
said, "God, if I die or live or whatever, be glorified." Then I
thought, uhhh maybe I shouldn't say die...haha. Then I decide to ask
God to heal me by tomorrow, and cap it off saying to myself, "It'll be
some sort of miracle if i'm all healed tomorrow, but God is God so it's
possible." After some tossing and turning, this worship song goes
around in my head, but i forget what it is. then i think i fall asleep.
I sorta wake up and I'm incredibly hot. I kick off the
sleeping bag, and i'm surprised that I can kick in the first place.
After laying still for a moment, i check the clock. 8:45 PM. UGH....i
only slept an hour! which proves how I really can't take naps at all
even if i tried. But, it's weird, i feel my face and it's not burning
anymore. I poke at my chest and it doesn't ache. Weird. I sit up, and
i flex my muscles, and they seem pretty fine.
Then I think, NO WAY. Can it be true that God reached down
and yoinked the 2 days of torture that I would have to go through and
threw it out the window? Hey, only God can do that. Haha. I was
happy, and extremely grateful. But there's got to be a lesson for
this. There always is. I remember reading 1 corinthians 13, the
passage about love. I felt convicted.
By the way, it's not like i'm 100% better, but dude, it feels
like i'm 400% better than what i was before. God spoke loud and clear
through my very brief sickness. My body's weakness symbolized my
weaknesses and my inadequacies that I was being angry or frustrated
about. Humility is the path back to being in tune with God. This
experience was humbling. The glimpse of joy I felt of being healed so
quickly and in a miraculous way made me think. 1 Corinthians 13. Love
is.....(and you can fill in the rest). I felt renewed and the thoughts
of last night dissipated.
Sometimes God has to put you through a trial for you to come
to your senses. He needs to show you that He is God and you're
nothing, but you're greatly loved. That's how I felt. Well, so much
for my 3-hour colds that I could beat. God owned me with his 1-hour
fever. Haha. Funny stuff...
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| Sometimes emotions seem to be expressed better with a sad ballad playing in the background. Just like in the movies, the teary farewell is that much more felt by everyone in the movie theater just because of the music.
I found myself toying with that notion one night saying goodbye to my grandma, who i may or may not see again. She always gets choked up on tears whenever we say goodbye. Beats me sometimes. I do sympathize with her, but somewhere in the back of my mind, I'm like, "maybe i'd feel it more genuinely if there was some music in the background."
THE POWER OF MUSIC
take away music, and hollywood movies are pretty bland. The climax is dull-ified...the tear-jerking scenes are now cheesy and dumb...Majestic scenes are now a royal flop....Titanic's no longer a hit...Gladiator is no longer as macho as it is...my beloved Black Hawk Down is now just a heartless show of military action...THIS IS WHY I LOVE MUSIC...it's got POWA (jamaican accent)
THE DECEPTION OF MUSIC
now this is where i get into trouble..not with you guys...but with myself too...because i want to deny this...but i can't help but believe its somewhat truth....in regards to Worship...i believe music has the ability to deceive oneself of true worship during praise time...how??
well music brings out emotion...is emotion worship? When this super cool minor chord strikes our hearts and sends tingles down our spines and gives us goosebumps..and all of a sudden our emo-ness springs loose and we're crying and we want to cry and etc. No doubt that the spirit can break someone to the point of crying, but can it be through music? It says in the Bible that David played his Harp or somethign like that and it calmed Saul's tormenting spirit. Also, music can be joyful and bring out joy. God can be pleased with someone who rocks out on their instrument as long as they are worshipping. How do I account for that? Uhh, no clue.
I don't know. I won't be a judge of this or that or say music often misleads us in worship. Matt Redman once banned singing from his congregation to prove that worship is not only singing songs to God. What a beast...
I think many times our only times of "worship" are only on Sundays and Friday nights during the 30 minute period when musical instruments are being played by people and the lights are dim...
As many of you know, I love playing songs in different ways that make me go ooh..and ahhh...haha. It gives it a different vibe and feel...and it makes me happy. Haha. I should however be well aware of worship being more than the music. Because when the music fades, and all is stripped away, and I simply come before God..what's really there?
Ah, what the heck, reading this over makes me wonder what the heck goes on in my mind...hahaha..
i'll just leave it as...IF I HAVE A WORSHIPFUL HEART...then who cares about Emo-ness, musicality, blah blah...yes..yes....that's what i must go for....so i can stop bombarding my head with endless raging debates such as this....
thanks for reading (or not reading and you just scrolled to see how long this entry was...haha i don't blame you..i sometimes do that)
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