Sweetkat's Weblog

Being rejected twice.

sweetkat — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 10:31:16 +0000

I am adopted. Before I Came to Korea I met one of my birth sisters and my birth mother. I felt a connection to them but it was a distant one but we stayed in contact. I refused to get to know my other birth sister for she was very negative towards the first sister. The first sister is mentally disabled and has the mind of a child and therefore doesn’t have the mental capacity to defend herself. Having always been the underdog in my life, I felt bad for my first sister and was not going to encourage this negativity to continue. So i explained to her in a letter that she needs to work on her relationshp with her sister before I will get to know her. This conversation was months ago. But for reasons unknown to me my birth mother has removed me from facebook on my birthday.

Nothing says rejection than your own mother denying your birthday.

I now have a website. mychocolatediaries.com. I decided to write about happy things chocolate than dwell on the negativity of Korea. Enjoyl.

God has a plan for everyone.

sweetkat — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:18:44 +0000

When I came to Korea, I felt that it was God leading me here. I grew spiritually and became closer to him and learned alot about myself. I took adventures with Him alone and discovered some of the great land he created. My mistake though is believing that everyone has the same path as I do. I find myself giving them the advice and guidance God gave to me and that isn’t necessarily God’s plan for them. So I am learning to step back and let God guide people rather than me. For I do not know best, only HE does.

Foolish to focus on the things God ignores.

sweetkat — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 04:05:36 +0000

Today I woke up so stressed. i prayed to God about my stress and when I woke up I had the answer but yet I still felt the stress. WHy stressed? Because I was overwhelmed by the tasks given to me at last minute and I didn’t know where I would be able to have the time to complete them. This was handed off to me just as I felt despair as I can’t seem to control my fifth and 6th grade afterschool class. I have tried everything but I can’t seem to get them to pay attention. So I prayed to God before I went to bed, I gave him my despair and agony. Unfortunately I did not confess my despair but I think he heard me. For the first thought when I woke this morning was a solution to my stress. God answers my prayers but not always in the way I want Him too. I woke up and i felt anger for a moment that my coteacher was not accepting responsibilty for this task. This too I left with God. I am nowhere near being Jesus like but I am closer to God than I have been for a while and it feels good. I need to remember this when I feel stressed and I am a work in progress. Now please God give me courage and strength and enable me to find the words to lead the classes this afternoon. Let my behaviour model your image in me. Let me be patient and loving and kind and slow to anger. Forever yours Lord. Amen

Is God’s plan right for my life? Change your mindset.

sweetkat — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 00:08:14 +0000

We live in a world saturated with self-help books. We are a generation of people looking to fix ourselves. It is not any different with our Christian community. We just seek self improvement through Christian authors. But during this selfish mission, do we ever stop to ask what is God’s plan for my life? Have we ever thought that we are just as we should be or how God has planned for us to be? It is his guidance we should be seeking rather than the advice of another sinner most likely going through the same journey we are.
So we look at our life and we say hmm is God’s plan right for our lives? Again, this is selfish thinking. We should be asking what is God’s plan for our life and are we on the right path. These are questions we should be taking to God so that we can rightly live the life He wants for us.
Until we accept God’s role in our lives is the most important, we won’t ever truly receive the life he has for us. And do you really think the life you are cultivating for your self is better that the life God wants to cultivate with you?

No limit to God’s forgiveness

sweetkat — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 00:13:17 +0000

When driving, I often have a mouth of a sailor. Especially driving in South Korea. I went through a period of rebellion and self delusion in my 20s that to this day I can’t erase the bad memories of. I have had broken and strained relationships with family, friends and ex lovers. I have been negative in my thoughts and in my actions.

To all this, God forgives. As long as I own up to my bad actions. I have done many bad things or things that do not demonstrate godliness. But through it all God’s grace and forgiveness has never faltered. When I feel, as I have felt recently, like my relationship with God is distant and strained, He is still with me. It is my sin that is causing the distance. God wants me to confess so he can become close to me again. And when He is with me, I am truly blessed. Why do I let the distance ever arise? It is from my own need to control my life and think I know what’s best. Clearly, I do not but it is a struggle that I will have the rest of my life. I was afriad this time that the distance could not be repaired. But slowly, my heart is melting and I again am welcoming God in my heart. I have done many wrongs that have taken a toll on my spirit and my body. To all this, God forgives.

Blessed is the Lord. I will rejoice and be glad in Him.

Anxiety is a barrier to God

sweetkat — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 02:02:46 +0000

During my time with God today, we looked at anxiety. I will be the first to admit that I am a very anxious person. I worry about everything. Today’s study really reached out to my heart. This book by Charles Stanley is excellent. At one point he asks if i have lost interest in life. And it is true I have. Then he says its up to me to take action to break that hold that worry has over me. I up until now, have surrendered to it. It has taken a toll on my mental health. I have gained weight, and nothing has given me more than a sliver of pleasure in months. It is important in this tsudy to realize that God will help me but I have to acknowledge all that I have allowed to develop in my life. Now it is up to me how i am going to counteract my response of worry and anxiety.

This is the hard part. Worry appears to have been built into my nature. But this is not so. God says that I have chosen to worry and that there is a better answer. What is this answer? It is to trust him. It is to confess my anxieties and worries to him. To rest in him, cast my cares upon him and he will take care of them. As long as i don’t do this, and rely on my own devices, my health will suffer. I have accepted him as my Saviour along time ago but I haven’t let myself reap the benefits of such a relationship. I love God but its hard for me to believe that he will take care of all my worries. I still believe this even though:
1. he saved me from certain death when i was 13.
2. he answered my prayer to take away my exbf when I was too weak
to end that relationship
3. when i was still haunted by memories of him, God answered my prayers for escape and brought me to Korea where I became closer to him.
4. God was there when i was anxious about my parents financial situation. When I stopped worrying about it, my parents took initiative and resolved the issue on their own without my interference. I had listened to God’s voice who told me not to interfere even though it had caused friction between my parents and I for some time.

So even after these examples..why is it I can’t trust him? I should and will remind myself of all these blessings everytime I am hard on myself for not achieving goals and learn to trust my cares upon him.

It is an uphill battle but with God on my side, I can do it.

My date with God, number 4

sweetkat — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 01:48:14 +0000

There has been a barrier been built up between God and I. Completely on my side of course. I have been stubborn and self determined. Once again, I forgot that I cannot completely control my life and the lives of others around me. So today’s lunch was a nice and relaxing one.
For the first time in a long time, I could hear God’s voice calling to me again. I could hear him instructing me on where to go with my life. It was nice to hear him again clearly. As I sat there and ate a wonderful lunch and gave thanks for it, I read my bible. I got some stains on it and I realized God enjoyed this. WHy? For several reasons. First, the Bible is now starting to look like it is well used. Why wouldn’t God be happy that its used? It means I am seeking his guidance in my life. Second, it also is testiment to my enjoyment of Him and the BIBle along with the food he has provided me. I am enjoying my time with Him along with His works.
My new saying is this God prefers a messy Bible to a Bible with dust on it. I can guarantee you this Bible will not have dust on it.
Also, yesterday’s lunch I was satisifed with less food. I listened to God instead of my own’s desire and did not eat four pieces of cheesecake.

Self-image: What God wants for us.

sweetkat — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 00:55:12 +0000

Today’s date with God really got personal and struck me at the core of what I am struggling with. Sin does attack your self image if left unconfessed. I think about all the sin I’ve committed and then try to remember the last time I left it with God. Then I think of how stressed out I have been and burned out and I realize there is a direct correlation.
Thanks to this Bible study workbook by Charles Stanley, called Becoming emotionaly whole, in chapter 4 it outlines traps that deteriorate our self image. During this lesson, I can almost clearly pinpoint my current downhill spiral.
A year and a few months ago I was helping run a small grup at church.
I became very involved with the Bible and with the bible study. But the lack of commitment of people in the group became discouraging for me. I was overworked, overtired and underrewarded. I felt that if i could commit so much time to God, then everyone should. So I became self-righteous and left the group, determined to complete the study on my own. But as I left the group, my commitment to God became weaker and weaker, until I too was not devoting my time to God,
Then I started to sin more, my focus being less on GOd, i stopped conffessing my sins to him. So the little pile of guilt of sin, became a mountain and overwhelming. This caused a lot of stress inside me and lead me to depression. I blamed all this stress on my surroundings and people around me when I should have been looking to God to reveal the source of my downfall.
The last trap was comparison. I started comparing myself to everyone in everything. I started eating more, gaining weight..looking at the thin people around me feeling awful. I started comparing people’s jobs, thinking I didn’t have it as well. I couldn’t get happy about anything.
Except for the weight issue, I am happy with my job and satisfied so at least this portion is almost over. But I have become obsessed with my weight and heartbroken at my lack of success. The only success I can say I have made is the amount of exercise i do weekly and even daily.
But the most i got out of this study today was this..our healthy self image is derived from how we treat others. Are we generous? Are we kind? Are we humble? Are we loving? If you have notice most of this blog has been about me. This is testiment to how far I have fallen. I aim to be a better giving, more loving and generous friend, sister, daughter, fiance and employee to everyone around me. This starts today. It is a work in progress to be continued.

Faith vs Fear: A True Story

sweetkat — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 23:49:54 +0000

So I read from my daily devotional bible today. And what was in it really reached out to me about so many areas of my life. First of all, it was talking about how fear comes with adversity. I was thinking about this. I become extremely stressed during adverse times and I fear that i won’t recover. But that is because I am relying on my own understanding.
It is during these times that we should try to use faith in a new way. Faith tells us that God, not ourselves, is in control and that all things work together for a greater good. Perhaps then during the times when I am stressed, I should remember this and channel my thoughts in this manner instead of the more destructive manner my thoughts have been as of late.

God and my emotions

sweetkat — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 00:38:20 +0000

I have been unhappy for quite some time now. And I am sure its correlated to the distance between God and I. So I decided to do something about it. I am doing a bible study now called Becoming Emotionally Whole by Charles Stanley.

As an aside, I enjoy Charles Stanley immensely. I discovered him during a small group study and have now read several of his books. He is bible based and not popularity based as some Christian authors are. Each book I read points out a bible truth that has affected my life in some way.

So this book is the same. I am writing this blog today to try and acknowledge all the emotions that have been running through me lately.
Anger has been a frequent one. I am an angry driver. I am living in a foreign country where few people outside of the Westerners here speak english. Their driving is insane and they don’t have the same driver’s training as we do in my home country. My anger towards them comes from an unhealthy level of self righteousness and impatience. I am not proud of my response while driving and i am not sure how the passengers in my car feel but I do feel embarassment for my behaviour in front of them.
I also feel anger towards someone who seems to ask a lot of me without me getting a lot in return. This is a selfish attitude and I am ashamed of it. But the way she approaches me gets my back up, I become very stubborn. I don’t think this person is a bad person. A bit abrupt and lackign in some social graces but the problem is within myself. I have struggled this for years because it seems it is in my nature to give more than receive. And I am happy to give. But the other part of my nature, the selfish part always nags me about not receiving. THis part i would say is caused by Satan. I suspect that this nagging is what I need to learn to ignore and overcome. Then a lot of stress would be relieved from my body.
I am angry about my weight gain. I have been working out straight for the last 3 years and i have gained weight not lost weight. This is due to my emotional eating due to the stress i have caused in my life. I am accepting responsiblity for the stress because of how i have chosen to respond to irritators. But i feel so out of control with my weight and disappointed that my hard work has come to nothiing. I refuse to use the standard excuse ‘muscle weighs more that fat’ because I know that this is not my case.
I have been angry about my family but my prayers for my father and mother were answered and they don’t depend on me so much. They made bad decisions and were making me feel like i had to clean up their mess. My mother finally took accountability and now they are in a better place.
I feel disappointment in my brother and his wife. I had not been home for christmas in 3 years and they couldn’t visit for a special Christmas dinner. I felt let down and disappointed for his wife cannot go a day without her mother. I felt she would have been understanding about this being important to me but I guess i was wrong. Again, it is not her fault. I didn’t communicate how important it was for me. I felt they should have already known.
There are many more emotions I could type here. But notice in most of the irritators I didn’t turn to God. I didn’t ask him for a healthy respond. I relied on my own understanding which didn’t solve anything and caused more stress.
These are the challenges I am facing. THrough the Bible study, I hope to address and learn how to ask God for his help in these stressers and others in my life. Believing in God is easy. Learning to trust, and continue to trust in God and surrendering my understanding for his is the hard part. TO be continued.