| warning, this is a long post. i'd only read this if i were bored and wanted to kill time. haha. it was just me processing everything that went on this past year.
It’s been seven months since I’ve posted anything about
myself. (the last entry doesn't count cuz it wasn't me. haha, that was sophie using my computer). There are several reasons for this. First, my fear of writing. I’ve
probably written no more than 10 papers my whole college career and my writing
skills since high school haven’t gotten much better. I could probably
articulate my thoughts better in an excel spreadsheet.  no joke.
And second, I didn’t have much to write about. My life this
past year has felt like a blur. I started off the year so filled with the
Spirit and within the first week of school, I let ministry and people please
get in the way of spending time with God. (here begins my blurb for this year)
I let myself think that the more I met everyone’s needs, the more people liked
me, the better reputation I would have and further, the better reputation that
God would have since I’m representing Him as a “Christian,” as if He really
needed my help to make Him look good in the first place. I lost sight of the
most important thing—my relationship with Him. I was pretty dry on revelation
and barely survived spiritually this year by living off other people’s
revelations of Him. He was always on the top 5 in my priority list, maybe even
top 2, but He wasn’t #1, and that made all the difference for me this year.
Because I wasn’t living from a place filled with His Spirit
all of the time, I switched into Christian routine mode when I compromised my
daily times with Him. I knew all the right things to do, all the right things
to say to people, but inside, I often felt like a hypocrite because I knew that
I was talking about a God that I had so little knowledge of. I lost the depth
and the joy of the relationship I once had with Him in the past. My life became
about doing more, achieving ministry goals, and making sure that everyone was
happy. As long as people liked me and I was at peace with everyone, I was fine
and tried to let people know that I was doing well on the outside.
On the inside, I was frustrated with myself, dry, and lost,
but few people would have noticed because I thought I had to look like I was
strong and had my life intact. But like the lost sheep in Luke 15, I had
wandered so far from where I was at the beginning of the year and I couldn’t
find my way back. I seriously felt like a ministry machine. Even on my spring
break trip to New York,
I didn’t feel like I was fully there with my friends. It was really weird, like
I had stepped out of my body for a bit and was just watching Anita go through
the motions of life.
Thankfully, by His grace, I hit a wall a couple of weeks
into spring quarter and stopped most of my activities. I was an emotional wreck
for the next three weeks. During that time, God allowed all the people pleasing
to backfire on me. I soon learned that pleasing one person displeased another
and felt like many of my relationships suffered in those three weeks. Looking
back on the year, I realized that I compromised my integrity and my
relationship with God in the name of “serving others.” As a result, I lived out
of my own strength and found that my strength was not sufficient to genuinely
love others from a pure heart. I ended up hurting a couple of close friends and
allowed bitterness to take root in my heart. I thought that the world hated me
and felt so beat up and broken by the consequences of my mistakes that I never
wanted pick myself back up again. With time, I eventually got a little better
and learned a lot of life lessons. God showed me that pain is a part of life
and that it was pointless to live life shelled up and emotionally hidden from everyone.
He was shaping my character and making my heart soft again.
As painful as it was during those three weeks, I really
enjoyed the fact that I was able to experience emotion again. I think cried
more in that period than I did the whole year. Haha. Even with those lessons
learned, my relationship with God didn’t reach the depth that I desired cuz I
let busyness slowly creep into my life again.
(Oops, going back to the second point of why I didn’t blog
this year, it’s cuz I was so low on revelation from God. I think God only gives
me grace to write when I write out of revelation.
Which leads me into PART 2…my recent trip to Kansas City.
This part is probably more for my sake than it is for your
reading enjoyment cuz writing helps me process everything that happened. I’m
currently on the plane back to LA right now and trying to kill time. Haha.
I was pretty spiritually dry prior to KC and somewhat
dreaded my trip here knowing that I’d be going to so many Christian events. The
last thing I wanted to do was to be fake or be horribly miserable when I saw
everyone else enjoying God while I reminisced about my good ol’ days with God. However,
God was good and this ended up being one of those landmark times in my life.
Each day was usually packed with some sort of God-lesson. I think I learned the
most from the people around me, especially my two traveling buddies, Doris and
Jessica. The more vulnerable I was around them, the more I was able to receive
from them.
CAMPUS AMERICA
This was a mini-conference held by the leaders of
24-7prayer.com for college students who have a heart to start houses of prayer
on their campuses. Coming into the conference, I really didn’t have a burden on
my heart for prayer. I mean, it’d be nice to see 24/7 prayer, but my heart was
so dry that I couldn’t be as excited as everyone else. However, after meeting
so many cool Jesus-loving people from different parts of the US and hearing
their testimonies, my heart began to soften. All of their testimonies had the
same theme of, “God is so awesome. We just prayed and God did all of the work.”
It was really freeing to hear from them cuz I was so jaded from doing ministry
out of my own strength and not seeing much come out of it. They had so much
faith and talked about God all the time. The whole time I kept on thinking, “I
remember those days when I could talk about God’s love so easily and genuinely.
How did I stray so far from having a childlike, faith-filled heart?” It’s true
how hanging around certain people can influence you. (I love Katrina, Allison,
Brian, Ashley and everyone else). Seeing how they experienced God made me
hunger for the same thing.
Another cool thing about this week was that we (Jess, Doris,
and I) got to live with Wendy Andrews (co-leader of 24-7) and her roommates. We
stayed in a cute house full of twentysomething year-olds who were so passionate
about God and justice. They were seriously the friendliest people ever and
really set an example of roommates who truly loved and served each other. They
were also really positive all the time and that made it really pleasant to stay
with them. After being with them for a week, I was pretty convicted on how critical
and negative I am. Haha. I gave Jess and Doris
permission to call me out on that for the rest of the trip…and they did.
I really need ppl to remind me.
THE CALL
After Campus America,
26 of us drove from Kansas City, Missouri to Nashville,
Tennessee for The Call. On the
way there, I had a good talk with Amantha from Georgia. I was sharing my frustration
about seeking Him and not feeling His presence and she told me that living out
of His Spirit doesn’t necessarily mean that I’ll feel Him all the time since
emotions are from the soul. It’s about living in the TRUTH of the Word and
declaring His promises even when I’m dry. (As an “F” in the Myers-Brigg test,
this is always my concern, that if I don’t feel His presence, something is
wrong with me.)
At The Call, I was still feeling really dry but I forced
myself to keep pressing in. At one point in the afternoon, I got down on my
knees and prayed, “God, you know I’m trying to find you and that I’m so dry,
but I’m gonna keep on praying until I find breakthrough, so whether you meet me
now or not, I’m gonna keep going,” and after that, I felt like something broke.
I felt more free and less distracted.
The part about The Call that impacted me most was the part
about abortion and adoption. My heart has always been burdened for pregnant
teens, children/orphans, etc. During this prayer focus, I started crying
uncontrollably and my heart became even more burdened. I’m not for abortion,
but it doesn’t mean that I’m anti-women either. I want to ask God for creative
ways to sincerely help women find other options whether they are teenagers or
in the working world. I know this sounds really idealistic, but I don’t want to
just say “end abortion” without finding some sort of practical solution for the
woman and the baby. Perhaps God will lead me somewhere in this direction in the
future, who knows?  I realized that my passions are more complex then I
thought…business, helping women (pregnant, eating disorders), orphans, church
planting, and international stuff. Eh…it’ll all come together somehow.
IHOP (Intl House of Prayer)/ CCN and PC planning
I’ve always listened to IHOP teaching online, but living in
the IHOP environment is a different story. Because of Jaeson’s crazy
connections, we met so many awesome awesome people (from All Nations, Daniel
Lim, Keolanis, Millers, and others) on the trip and I learned sooo much from
each of their stories.
The overall conclusion from my time here is that I need to
be immersed in the Holy Spirit and go soooo deep with Him if I wanna be
successful in this life. He is my sustenance and life flows only through Him. I
also need to have a “Sacred Trust,” which is a time that I devote to God during
the day whether I feel like seeking Him or not. Why can’t I just seek God when
I feel like it? It’s cuz people aren’t reliable. (Daniel lim’s influence here)
I don’t trust myself to always “feel” like seeking God. A Sacred Trust isn’t a
form of legalism, instead, it’s an expression of my devotion, commitment, and
faithfulness to God.
I’m really glad that I was able to end my trip with IHOP. At
first, I dreaded spending time in the prayer room when all I could pray was,
“Break through this hardened heart and help me to want to desire you.” But by
the end of the trip, I felt like my heart began to soften. I’m off the plane
and at home now, and my mom just commented on how I’ve changed. Haha. She was
like, “I guess your time at KC really worked. You’re nicer now and more
patient, not like this past year. You’ve softened up.” I think the difference
is that I’ve spent time in His presence. Even after this week, I feel like I’ve
just barely scratched the surface with knowing God. The hard part now is to go
deeper amidst all the distractions. Nate Ngai (ran into him at IHOP) reminded
me that going deep at a conference is the easy part, but maintaining it is the
challenge. My mom gave me the analogy, “losing weight is easy, but keeping that
weight is hard.” Hahaha. I love my mom. At this point, I’m sorta scared that
I’ll go back to how I was before. I can already feel the distractions coming
…gotta catch up on my food network shows, facebook, shopping, etc. I guess
that’s where the Sacred Trust thing kicks in. God, grow my dependency on You
and help me know the depths of your love. Keep me steady and faithful.
My new favorite line is, “Give me oil in my lamp, keep me
burning.” I used to think that this was the cheesiest song ever, but the phrase
is slowly growing on me.
Now this is random stuff that I learned from CCN people on
the trip. I’m tired of writing in paragraphs. Lists and bullet points are
better. 
-on the first night, I told Doris
that I was super dry and she said, “anita, keep praying for a real and
authentic relationship with God. I don’t think He’ll deny that prayer.” (and
it’s true, He heard)
- I was inspired by Jessica’s honesty and sensitivity to the
Spirit. She takes God’s convictions really seriously and puts them into action.
She interceded for me a lot and prayed that God would tenderize my heart
-Doris, “I want to live out of my passions and joy” …so do I.  not out of people pleasing and routine.
-Benson’s faithfulness. Even though it’s his job to do all
the planning and logistical stuff, he really did it with a servant’s heart and
a good attitude. I probably would’ve complained if I had to drive everyone
everywhere, take multiple trips to the airport, etc.
-Sam who took over Benson’s job of driving. He was really
patient with us. Oh yeah, and he bought all of us ice cream after The Call when
our fast ended, can’t forget that. Haha. Good one.
-Aaron and Rachel- super hospitable people who cooked for us
on the last night. I saw their heart and was encouraged by how much they love
to serve people.
-Peter’s testimony from his missions trip in Argentina.
“Even though we did a lot of work, it wasn’t tiring because we ministered from
God’s presence.”
-Sam Lee’s love for the lost which was expressed in his
passionate explanation of a CPM …Biblical obedience to the Word of God. Deut 6.
-Jaeson calling us back to a place going deep with God and
being disciplined in seeking His face. Always challenged by his hunger and
desperation for God.
-Anthony- remembers everyone’s name and information. Hahaha.
I think this is super meaningful when it comes to meeting new people and
showing them that you care by being a good listener. The only thing that suffered on this trip was my health. As
of now, I am completely sick of fast food and eating out. I love Kansas City bbq, but I
don’t think I could eat it three times a week. Also, after the fast we went
crazy with sweets and we ended up going to Sonic at least twice a day to get ice cream. Fun times…and flabby times. hahaha. My body
needs to go thru detox now. 
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