Alice Meynell 

When You lead me to the valley of vision
I can see You in the heights
And though my humbling wouldn’t be my decision
It’s here Your glory shines so bright
So let me learn that the cross precedes the crown
To be low is to be high
That the valley’s where You make me more like Christ

Let me find Your grace in the valley
Let me find Your life in my death
Let me find Your joy in my sorrow
Your wealth in my need
That You’re near with every breath
In the valley

In the daytime there are stars in the heavens
But they only shine at night
And the deeper that I go into darkness
The more I see their radiant light
So let me learn that my losses are my gain
To be broken is to heal
That the valley’s where Your power is revealed

Young and naive was when I first met
The person that would make my heart first fret
Time went by- two, three years,
Waited, hoping that one day he would hold me dear
Pain was the only thing that came my way
I recovered; time was the only price I had to pay

Then came a young, handsome boy
Who strung me along, loved to play coy
Presented him with a quiet exterior, just because
I hated me; I hid myself, ashamed of who I was
Hidden smiles, disgustingly sweet words
With that again, my heart stirred
Long calls, private dinners
How he made me feel like such a winner
Then what a surprise it was, to find
That I was only second in his mind
Heartache came my way, yet again
The anger is still too much to contain

A few years passed and what do you know
I met someone slightly out of my mold
Quiet, our talks were rather small
But his “love” for the Lord is what made me fall
Thinking back on it now, I was probably blind
To my disappointment, he really wasn’t that much of a find
When things went horribly wrong, all he could do
Was keep quiet, didn’t fight for what was true
A man who cannot speak to protect
Was defintely sure to neglect
I felt no pain because you see,
I just gave up, I realized he wasn’t the one for me  

“Oh how happy, content would I be
If I found someone who loved and cared for me.”
In this thought I had made quite a grave error
For I had forgotten about the One who promised me forever

I have forgotten that dirty, disgusting filth such a I,
Was saved by Him who paid the ultimate price- suffered, died
How could I have forgotten the bloody hands and feet
He who was slain on the cross so that the Father and I could meet
Why do I deserve this amazing grace
And the pleasure of seeing His beautiful face?

Years of searching for a love that was always there
Years of searching for someone who would just care
Misled, foolish my heart will always be
Forgetting that I will always be loved, cared for by the One who died on the tree

Unlucky in love I may always be
But I know now that my Savior’s love is enough for me. 

I hate it, yes, absolutely hate it, when people judge me because of my tattoos. If I even sense a hint of judgment on your part, I won’t be that nice of a person to speak to.

When I first got the one on the right, my aunt said these exact words to me: “You got a tattoo? Do you know that that’s against the Bible? Don’t you know that your body is a Holy Temple?” blah blah blah. Then she proceeded to grab her Bible and show me the verse which was not only in the Old Testament but did not prove her point as to why I could not get a tattoo. My cousin grabbed my wrist, glared at me and said, “YOU GOT ONE?” A lot of people, over the years, have given me the “I can’t believe you call yourself a Christian and you have tattoos” look which not only makes me angry but makes me want to deck them in their faces.

Do you people even know the significance of these tattoos? Why I got them in the first place?

Coram Deo. “Before the face of God.” 
When I tell people what it means, they all have the same confused faces on. What does it mean, their faces ask me. I didn’t elaborate because I never felt the need to and no one really asked me to my face. Well let me elaborate on it a bit on my blog then.
I knew that I wanted a tattoo. At first it was because I thought it was cool but then I realized that there was no point in getting one if it wasn’t glorifying the Lord. I decided against it at first but still did my research, asking a handful of pastors questions about tattoos, doing research on the web…which took about two years.

Then I came across an article written by R.C. Sproul:

Recently a friend asked me in all earnestness the same question. He asked, “What’s the big idea of the Christian life?” He was interested in the overarching, ultimate goal of the Christian life.

To answer his question, I fell back on the theologian’s prerogative and gave him a Latin term. I said, “The big idea of the Christian life is coram Deo. Coram Deo captures the essence of the Christian life.”

This phrase literally refers to something that takes place in the presence of, or before the face of, God. To live coram Deo is to live one’s entire life in the presence of God, under the authority of God, to the glory of God.

What better way then to worship and glorify the Lord by acknowledging that my entire life is in the presence, under the authority, and to the glory of God? To remind myself constantly of my acute awareness of his sovereignty and in the submission of my life to the Lord, I decided to get it.

χάρις. Charis. Grace.
It is because of His grace that I am here today, that I am the person that I am. I was running my hell bound race but because of His grace, He pulled me out and now I am running towards eternal life with Him in heaven. I was a mess before He saved me. I am absolutely nothing without His grace. Really, need I say more? Do I need to further explain why I got this one?

I hear this question a lot: Won’t you regret it when you have grandchildren?

No. Absolutely not. What is there to regret when I feel that what I have inked on my body is glorifying the Lord for what He has done in my life?

A lot of people that I know have been recommending this documentary.
Honestly, I’ve never thought about watching it until tonight.
Being the history nerd that I am, I was intrigued by how the documentary started off…and caught quite off guard when it went in a direction that I never expected it to go to.

Come back to my blog, that is.

It’s been a couple of months since I decided to temporarily shut it down because of certain issues that had to be dealt with and my lack of inspiration.
After coming back from England, however, I realized that I needed another outlet of expression other than my Moleskine so after countless hours of asking myself, “Should I? Should I not?”…

I decided that I most definitely should.

When you find a man
Who transforms
Every part of you
Into poetry,
Who makes each one of your hairs
Into a poem,
When you find a man,
Capable,
As I am
Of bathing and adorning you
With poetry,
I will beg you
To follow him without hesitation,
It is not important
That you belong to me or him
But that you belong to poetry.

- Nizar Kabbani
(Translation by Bassam K. Frangieh & Clementina R. Brown)

It’s every woman’s nightmare. It’s an obsession that won’t go away. What am I speaking of? Well, I’m talking about weight, of course. In today’s society, being overweight has got to be the worst thing ever. Society’s definition of beauty is totally different from, let’s say, the 19th Century when being overweight was a sign of wealth and prosperity. Overweight women didn’t have a problem gettin’ a man unlike now a days. This isn’t an entry complaining about how unfair the world is because, trust me, I’ve been using that excuse for 12 years already. I just wanted to share with you my journey as a woman that is insecure about her weight but at the end of the day, is striving to do what she can about it.

Life’s tough for an overweight person. I learned that at an early age. When I was a baby, my parents worried because they said I didn’t eat enough. The only thing that I would eat was my mom’s chicken soup (totes deelish, by the way). After I went to Korea in Kindergarten and came back, my family complimented me on my newly acquired fat. I lived in a carefree manner and discovered my love for food. Fourth grade is when my parents began to worry. It didn’t help that at that age, I discovered that chips cost 25 cents a bag. They constantly told me to eat less (but giving me HUGE portions of food..I mean, really?) and seemingly every week, my mom would find a new diet that would help me lose weight. I hated every single diet that she put me on. The one that I remember very clearly was this DISGUSSSSTING banana shake diet. UGH I MEAN THE HORROR. I cried every time she forced that crap down my throat. And guess what? I DIDN’T LOSE ANY WEIGHT. Sigh, Korean moms will believe anything that Korean infomercials say.

After I graduated the sixth grade, it got progressively worse. Those were the worst years of my life. No joke. Do you know why those were the worst years of my life? Let me give you a math equation to sum it up for you:

Junior High School + Puberty + Boys = Raging hormones

Seventh grade was a whole new ball game. You find out that the opposite sex is not as disgusting as you once thought and you start to fit into that…that mold. You know. You want to become more feminine. You want the boys to notice you. You learn how to flirt. All that sort of crap. It was horrible. I was the least feminine out of all my friends and it didn’t help that I only seemed to be friends with girls that boys wanted. Boys would make fun of me all the time. I remember one guy screamed “EARTHQUAAAAAKE” as I ran by. It didn’t help that my dad was simultaneously giving me emotional trauma that will take me a while to forget. So it’s only normal for me to become a very sensitive girl when I entered 7th grade. I felt unwanted at home, I felt unwanted by boys, and I thought God was the same. To hide my hurt from feeling so unwanted, I decided to become mean and aggressive. No asswipe, whether girl or guy, was going to call me fat and get away from it. I began rebelling against my parents and technically became some sort of a bully. I mean, I didn’t terrorize the school but I sure did make the lives of some absolutely miserable. However, even with that shield, it didn’t help. Hurt still came my way through many forms.

I went through the same things in high school (minus the bullying) but it was emotionally and mentally different from junior high school. Because of the two hellish years of junior high school, I was worn out and started to started to accept what everyone was telling me as the truth. I became overly insecure, sensitive, and disgusted of myself.
(But you know what? When I look at my pictures from high school now, I get pissed off. Douchebags made me feel like I was freaking obese. Yes, I was on the chubby side, but really? You people must have been outta yo’ damn minds. Ugh. UGH! Stupid idiots.)

Losing weight is so hard. It’s so so hard. I’m 21 years old and I’m still struggling with what I was struggling with when I was in the fourth grade. But this year, I had an epiphany. Instead of complaining about it all the time and victimizing myself, I actually want to do something about it. I’m going to the gym and I’m trying not to eat out as much. I quit trying to comfort myself with food and telling myself that the inside is all that matters because as much as the personality is important, being healthy is important as well. Living LIFE is important. This is the prime of my life. I can’t be overweight almost all of my prime years. I need to live a healthy life.

Yesterday, I heard an overweight acquaintance of mine ask my friend about me and my weight issues. She asked her, “Doesn’t Sunnie worry about her weight? Isn’t she insecure? Doesn’t she want a boyfriend? Doesn’t she get lonely? Where does she get all that confidence from?”

First of all, that is the worst thing an overweight person can say to another overweight person. Don’t put me down because you want to feel better about yourself. Second of all, I want to tell her yes, I do get lonely. Who the hell doesn’t? Yes, I am still insecure. Who the hell isn’t? Yes, I do want a boyfriend. Who the hell…I mean, come on! That should be so obvious.
But my motivation isn’t men. After all these years, I realized that that is THE WORST motivation to have. You know, one of those “I’m gonna lose weight, show myself off to all those idiots that hurt and rejected me, and I’m gonna laugh in their faces” revenge scenarios. Or the “when I finally lose weight, I’ll get a man” scenarios. My motivation is to live for the glory of God and to do that, there are certain things that I need to do and that’s to get healthy. I don’t want diabetes or a stroke preventing me from doing what He wants me to do. I don’t want to have trouble breathing when I’m climbing a mountain to get to people in a mission field because I’m overweight. Thirdly, I want to tell her this: I don’t know where the hell I get my confidence from. Honestly, I don’t even think I have confidence. But I think that other than my appearance, I have other good qualities about myself. Not to gas myself up but I can be funny, I can be nice, and I don’t think I’m all that bad. Appearance isn’t everything. It’s a mistake if you think it is. You think if you lose weight, you can get a man? I don’t think so. You’ll probably have to deal with a lot of other insecurities that spring up after you lose the weight. Losing weight for any man is a big mistake. Get it straight.

You’re hurt. I get it. So am I. But isn’t it about time that you did something about it?
Stop complaining and just do it. Stop victimizing yourself. Stop putting other people down to make yourself better.

Do something about it. Get healthy.

I had heard a song on one Sunday and I was looking for on youtube to share the audio and came across an animation someone had done instead. Like the walls of Jericho, it came tumbling down…and down..

I can’t say that I’ve fallen for His pursuit but this ever nudging and tugging at my heart is beginning to force me to do something. Dang, I just realized that I’m really stupid. This scenario, this exact scenario, is what I go through all the time and I know what I’ll eventually do at the end…but I can’t help it. I’m a stupid sinner.

You held out Your arms, I walked away
Insolent, I spurned Your face
Squandering the gifts You gave to me
Holding close forbidden things
Destitute, a rebel still, a fool in all my pride
The world I once enjoyed is death to me
No joy, no hope, no life

Where now are the friends that I had bought
Gone with every penny lost
What hope could there be for such as I
Sold out to a world of lies
Oh, to see Your face again, it seems so distant now
Could it be that You would take me back
A servant in Your house

You held out Your arms, I see them still
You never left, You never will
Running to embrace me, now I know
Your cords of love will always hold
Mercy’s robe, a ring of grace
Such favor undeserved
You sing over me and celebrate
The rebel now Your child

We romped until the pans
Slid from the kitchen shelf;
My mother’s countenance
Could not unfrown itself.