The Man Who Bombed and The Country's Outrage

It has been 1 year, 11 months, and 21 days since the death of Osama Bin Laden.

It has been a few days since the capture of Dzokhar Tsarnaev, aka the Boston Bomber.

For the days leading up to his capture, my eyes were glued on my computer screen going through as many articles as I could trying to figure out who was responsible for the Boston Marathon bombing. I shouldn't be surprised, but reddit was the greatest help for me (and I never used reddit before). I wanted to find out what kind of person was responsible for such an awful event. I've only seen one picture of a victim and it was enough to make me sick and not want to look at any more. It was a picture of a person with half his leg blown off. I couldn't look anymore.

The news that Dzokhar was captured alive came as great news. Half of me wanted him to suffer and realize how many lives he has negatively impacted. But, the other half of me didn't want that. 

Yes, he committed a despicable act.
Yes, he killed and injured people.
Yes, he forced a major city to shutdown.
Yes, he is a 19-year old sicko.

But, I can't seem to be overjoyed.

Yes, I do want him to be arrested.
Yes, I do want him to face justice.
Yes, I do wish all the victims didn't have to suffer at his hands.
Yes, I do despise this kid.

But, what would Jesus do?

This article helped me remember why I wasn't overjoyed. It reminded me of my blog post about the death of Osama Bin Laden. What does the Bible have to say?

Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked? declares the Sovereign LORD. Rather, am I not pleased when they turn from their ways and live?- Ezekiel 18:23

Rather than wishing the worst upon this individual, doesn't God call us to love and forgive? How are we supposed to love someone who causes harm to others?

Jesus would love and forgive this man. How are we going to put the name of Jesus on our backs when we call ourselves Christians if we can't even do as He did? 

Pray for Boston. 
Pray for the victims and families of those affected. 
Pray for the healing of the wounded. 
Pray for the departed souls. 
Pray for angry people around the world for an understanding heart. 
Pray for the forgiveness of Dzokhar Tsarnaev.

Vision and Weakness

What a blessing last week has been. It's been three days since I've come back from Vision Conference. I wasn't sure if I wanted to go when my friend told me about it two months ago. But I am so glad that I went.

The conference featured two amazing pastors, Rick James and Peter Ahn. Rick James blessed us with biblical context which we could apply to our every day lives. Peter Ahn wasn't afraid to show his transparency and shared with us personal stories that rocked our souls. He also shared a lesson in evangelism that answered so many of my questions about the topic. It seemed like both pastors somehow directly answered questions everyone was holding in their hearts which I find to be mind blowing. Every plenary that the pastors spoke at left me amazed at how questions I've long had have been answered.

What's the most important thing I can take out of this conference?

It's that I shouldn't be afraid to be broken and weak. I shouldn't be afraid to rely on God for the times I'm down. I've been a very independent person. Whenever I face an obstacle in my path, I only use my own power to hurdle it. I've only relied on God a few times and those were things that weren't in my control.

There's so much that I've experienced and learned at Vision Conference that I cannot possibly put them down in one blog entry.

The lone bad thing about conference was the lack of campus representation. Most of the people at the conference were there with people from their college campus. There were three people from Syracuse there. I'm all for going back next year at the moment. But I hope more Cuse people will be there next year. Gotta start up a Syracuse group there.

Keep On Survivin' and Free Writing in the Mornin'

It's 6 AM right now and I, for whatever stupid reason, am not sleeping. I should be snoozing away. Judgement day didn't happen and I'm sure there's a paranoid preacher out there locking himself in a shelter somewhere.

I should be sleeping to wake up for church. A goal I set for myself this summer is to grow spiritually away from college. It's weird. I came into college thinking it'd be a spiritual desert away from my home church. That was my biggest challenge first semester of freshman year: prioritizing church above all else. I've been reaching it (can't say I've accomplished it).

However, the moment I go home, I am no longer motivated to go to church. Maybe it's because I've grown to like the smaller church atmosphere at school. I go to a super church at home. Super in the sense that it's huge. I roll my eyes every time I begin to think of all the cliques and socializing that is more apparent than God Himself at my home church. I don't grow spiritually there. Am I giving it a good honest chance? Maybe not. I already have this bad image of my church in my head.

I've kind of lost track of what I'm saying. But it's 6 AM and my brain is scrambled eggs right now. Back to growing spiritually this summer. One of the reality checks that's hit me in the head is that despite my eagerness to serve, I lack the wisdom to go with it. I think I'm solid when it comes to the Bible. I mean, I know my stuff but I can't spout out verses for everything. Solid. Not great, not terrible, but just solid. I'm still developing my views on certain topics that are touchy subjects in Christianity. I can offer my opinion, but I can't give you a definite answer.

This is quite the informal post I'm putting up. I actually had a whole different topic in mind. I'll save that for my next post. I guess I just rambled on with the hype over the end of the world passing by. My stomach won't stop growling, so I'm going to eat a doughnut (donut?) and sleep for 2 hours. What was I thinking making a blog post at 6 in the morning? I'm not delirious right now. Just free writing. Ok, not complete free writing since I kind of looked back to fix spelling errors. I may have missed some grammatical thingermabobs here and there. Cross my fingers I didn't because I need to sleep and can't afford to look back and read this all over again. Good night/morning?

Hysteria and the End of the World

The end of the world is apparently coming in three days.

I was not aware of this at all until just now. I've seen signs of "Christ is returning" and "The Rapture" but I've been ignoring them thinking it was more "I'm going to force my beliefs down your throat" kind of Christians.

But I did not know the prediction was May 21, just three days away. What happened to all the December 21, 2012 mumbo jumbo?

This is what I found online:

The first proof is based on Genesis 7:4, when God said to Noah: "Seven days from now I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe from the face of the earth every living creature I have made."

When God referred to seven days, he meant both seven days and seven thousand years, because "one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." The flood occurred in 4990 BC. Seven thousand years later is 2011.

How do you get 7000 years from seven days? That's just assumption. If you're going to quote Genesis, why not quote what the Bible says only two chapters later?

And I will establish my covenant with you, neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth.
- Genesis 9:11

Boom. Take that Harold Camping (that's the preacher who predicted this May 21 thing). The second reason is even worse than the first.

The second proof looks at the significance of the number of days between the Crucifixion and May 21, 2011.

There are 722,500 days between these dates. 722,500 is a significant number because it is composed of the significant numbers 5x10x17x5x10x17. Five signifies redemption; ten signifies completion; and 17 signifies heaven. The numbers represent the day of redemption (5) and the end of the Christian era (10) and the ascent to heaven (17) -- and these factors are doubled for added significance.

Really? Why multiply it only twice? Why not three times? I'm pretty sure three is a significant number in the Bible as well. That's the amount of times Peter denied Jesus. That's how many times Jesus prayed in Gethsemane before he was arrested. That's how many days it took for Jesus to resurrect. So why two? Why not multiply those three numbers three times? Again, mumbo jumbo.

It's like those statisticians saying Player A is the first player to record at least 32 points, 17 rebounds, and 14 assists in a single game. Of course he's going to be the first when you make it to the exact number of his stats. Not sure if I made my point clear there. Numbers can be played with is what I'm trying to say I guess.

So to anyone who is worried about impending doom, I say don't worry. This thing will blow right by just like Y2K did.

The Man Who Died and The World's Celebration

My nap was rudely interrupted by drunk white girls chanting "USA! USA! USA!" outside my window and singing (quite poorly and even messed the lyrics up) Star Spangled Banner. I thought it was some drunk frenzy of patriotism. Leave it to Facebook to catch me up on everything.

Osama Bin Laden has been "found" (or killed...I don't know which one) dead.

The thing that gets to me is all these people rejoicing. I don't think I had one shred of happiness when I found out. Yeah, I live in New York City. I was a couple of blocks down from the World Trade Center. I even wrote a paper two months ago about the effect that the War on Terror had on the city. So, I can't even say that the man who died didn't affect me.

But, I will repeat it: I don't think I had one shred of happiness over his death.

I was beginning to think I just had no sense of patriotism. The man who our country deemed the most wanted man is finally dead. Only a small handful of people on the social networking sites were publicly ashamed of people's rejoicing. I'm sure there are more people, but they didn't make it public. Then, my friend posted a link to a blog on another friend's Facebook status (which was rather weird since he was describing Bin Laden being killed like it was Call of Duty). For those too lazy to click and read, I'll try my best to condense it.

Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked? declares the Sovereign LORD. Rather, am I not pleased when they turn from their ways and live?
- Ezekiel 18:23

In a nutshell, if I applied this verse to the current situation, then it would have been most pleasing to God if Bin Laden repented and lived. We rejoiced over the death of a man. God wept. That's how the blog put it.

I don't care if that man who lost his life today was the world's most heinous of men. I just can't rejoice like how probably 90% of Americans are rejoicing.

Just some food for thought.

Followers and Retreat

Thanks to the people who have started following me this past week. Getting new followers is like being eight years old again and opening Christmas presents, which I no longer receive. It's especially exciting when the amount of followers nearly doubles. Doesn't say much if I only had 8 followers prior to the "surge" of new followers, but I'll take what I can get. So keep spreading this blog!

So I just came back from a retreat here in Syracuse. I was told when I was younger never to start a sentence with "so". I remember I was told that when my teacher circled that sentence on my book report on Charlotte's Web. Anyways, it was a blast despite it being cold and trekking to the dining hall wasn't the most joyous journey, especially at eight in the morning. I didn't get to meet a lot of new people like I did last year. But, I suppose that's what happens when you're no longer a freshman. I did get to know some people I already knew a bit better. I also got to spend one last time with my family group (even if not all of them were there) which meant so much more than I let on.

There was this one amazing moment that happened during the morning devotion. We separated from our retreat groups and allowed ourselves to have an hour to ourselves to pray and reflect. I don't know why, but I started wandering towards the lake. I saw this dock far into the distant. I tried walking towards it, but was stopped by a cluster of trees halfway. I figured I wasn't supposed to wander off this far so I turned back. I soon found myself standing by the shore/edge (no idea if shore only refers to the ocean) of the lake.

No idea why, but I suddenly remembered this story about an old lady in the World Trade Center during 9/11. On the morning of the terrorist attacks, she claimed to have heard God's voice which told her to quickly leave the building. She obeyed the voice and made haste out the building. After she was out of harm's way, the first plane hit the first WTC building. Wow!

I became so desperate to hear God's voice just once. I looked up into the sky and I just begged to hear His voice just once. I cleared out all my thoughts and just stood still. Now, let me tell you this. It was extremely calm weather. I felt nothing on my skin except the sun beating down on me and the cold winter air. Nothing more than that. All of a sudden, as soon as I cleared my thoughts, a gust of wind started blowing against me. Out of instincts or something like that, I quickly removed my hood. This is the amazing part. I'm not exaggerating. It felt like the wind began blowing into my ear.

At the point, I was so ecstatic that I didn't know what to do. I was overflowing with joy. I don't know why. I connected this to God's voice. I suddenly felt much calmer. To this point in time, I still have no idea if it was God's voice or not. I didn't hear any words. But, that feeling of calmness was definitely there. I felt like things were going to be alright. Maybe it was God telling me to relax and stop worrying about the little things in life.

I could go on much longer about my experience at winter retreat. It was truly a blessing.

Permit and Passion

Well, I can finally cross this off my "to-do" list after what seemed like an eternity of "I'll do it next week". I finally got my driver's learner permit. Well I don't actually have in my hands the actual permit. They said it'd be in the mail in two weeks (I'll be long gone by then).

I know everyone has been telling me that the test would be easy. But I didn't want to risk being the failure among my friends. Yeah, they were right. I breezed through it in like two minutes. Now to work on getting my licence and a car...not like I'll drive anyways with the subway system and buses right there for me to use. But I guess if worst comes to worst and the MTA raises the fare to $3, driving wouldn't be too bad.

I visited Jon Tam's church this past Sunday (I told him I'd go the week before, but the iPhone's alarm clock app sent thousands snoozing away on that Sunday morning). What a great day to visit. There was a guest speaker, Dr. John Piipo, and the words that came out of his mouth just woke me up from this dry spiritual routine I was getting myself into this break. My prayer life has declined, my Bible reading has become almost non-existent outside of Sundays, and I was feeling like I wasn't being the best Christian I could be.

Dr. John Piipo started off in quite the unusual fashion. He pulled out a conductor's baton and led us all in singing the chorus of Chris Tomlin's "How Great Is Our God". This went on for longer than I would have liked. But then he tied in his message with the little activity and I felt like I was being revived from the dead. The message was long (well, longer than what I had to hear at my home church) and I don't think I could go into detail about his message. Part of it is because I can't do it justice. I can't explain like he could.

The voice spoke to him a second time, “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.” Acts 10:15

Plus Dr. John Piipo plays the electric guitar and he's old. How cool is that?

So what's new? I got myself a new cap. A customized cap. My sister went into a enthusiastic frenzy when I showed it to her. It has my (and her) initials on the front (SH). On the back, it has our signature trademark name (which I insist that I came up with first): shuanged. It's also the username for my blog and pretty much everything I use now.

That's her hand by the way.

Christmas Being Christmas

Merry Christmas to all!

The holidays are normally spent with family and friends. I honestly don't remember the last time my family actually ever did anything for Christmas. That happens when your parents are Asian and aren't Christian.

I stopped receiving presents on Christmas a few years ago. It used to bother me. But, I realized it's not about the presents. Remembering and putting Jesus Christ above all else is all that matters even if I forget at times.

Though, there is one thing I would like to ask for this Christmas season. Well, there was one thing. And that's just to see all my close friends that I don't get to see often while I'm away at college. For the most part, I've seen most of them and I am truly grateful for each and every one of them.

Feasting with my friends that I've know since forever. The Family Pan.

Happy (belated) birthday Elaine!

Well, I'm not really into the whole photography thing, so those are pretty much the only pictures that I can use, ha! I hope everyone has an amazing Christmas spent with their loved ones.

Here's an interesting read on why an X is used to replace "Christ" in "Christmas".

Hungry Hippos

My first semester as a family group leader has come to an end. I am truly appreciative of everyone in my family group and the people I have met through it. Was the job easy? No way. But the beauty of it is that I grew as a Christian through it. I felt I could have done things better, but we all think that. Not one person can look back and say they've done everything perfect and to their content.

I wish I could upload a lot of pictures from my family group this semester. One thing that we didn't get to do was take a picture of everyone with their drawing. It's a long story, but for an ice breaker, everyone drew/cut out something and made something out of it. They all wrote down stuff like spiritual goals.

I think I'll just leave them up there for the rest of the semester. Awesome, isn't it?

Thanks to my amazing family group members who made this card for me. It means a lot. I love the hippo Jane drew. If anyone from my FG reads my blog (which I doubt, but hopefully), you guys are awesome and I was truly speechless when you guys surprised me with this.

Thank you so much Hungry Hippos.