Horseback with J Shan, D Lowe, Penguin, and Justin Chien in Rosarito, 2 wkends ago. Feasted on lobster earlier. 

First time Danny and I have changed motor oil ourselves, 2 wks ago. 

At Markus' going away party, with Steve really wrestling to try to throw each other into the pool. 

Han (IRPS, Feb) pulling jiujitsu on me, why am I always the one getting picked on? 

July 4th: Santa Monica with Pat, Tina, and Rainbow's crew. 

The mural my sister painted in Guatemala (May '04) expressing the exploitation of coffee farmers. 

Heavenly Man

It has been a while since I've posted, so I'll try to include pics above of what's been happening.

I went to the "Heavenly Man" testimony revival of Brother Yun over the past 2 days. He had amazing testimonies of fasting for 70 days or miraculously escaping from jail in China. It was easy for me to be skeptical of his claims on an intellectual level until he prayed for me. He asked us to kneel down as he placed his hands on Ben and my head. I experienced his passion for the Lord and a contagious fire in his heart as he spoke. I still don't know if the outlandish claims in his book are true, but I was impacted and changed. No matter what, his book is an encouragement to me and what helped make me depressed last night.

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So happily depressed

I generally have this happy-go-lucky attitude in life where nothing really bothers me. But if I don't let myself ever feel hurt, then it becomes hard to experience joy.

God had brought me to a place last night where so many externalities in my life were going wrong. I made a list: (1) I had felt like he was leading me to DC to a sweet job, but I'm stuck in SD. My classmates will all have meaningful summer internships and I would be embarrased to have nothing. (2) I have girl issues. (3) I don't even have a temp job these days, and I bum around bored. (4) I had a strange night last night where a few good friends and I got into a skirmish ending with a bit of damaged pride. (5) I still live with my mom. (6) I'm in major school and credit card debt. That list may not sound like much to the reader, but items (1) and (2) are falling apart and they are a really big deal to me these days. I felt like such a loser, and normally I just brush it off and I'm totally fine.

I let myself feel this frustration and hurt and placed it before God. I realized that those closest to God's heart are often the broken prophets not the "perfect" Christians. Brother Yu, the girl in China who wrote Canaan songs, and my Beijing house church pastor usually seemed pained by this world, their sin, and persecution. But they found hope in Christ, and not in worldly circumstances. I laid down my self-confidence (that I have a lot of) for God-confidence and it was hard, but beautiful, because I was happily depressed.