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| 1. When things are looking up and you wanna just cruise, hold your breath because there's no such thing as a done deal.
2. When things are looking down and you wanna throw in the towel, never give up mm..never surrender. (with an assist from Galaxy Quest...nvm.)
3. having too much success sucks you of joy. (i.e. see Yankees)
4. too much failure just sucks. (i.e. see '02-'05 mets)
5. too much failure breeds irrational fear. (i.e. see mets)
6. success is not a privilege, it's largely a gift. so enjoy it when it happens.
7. life, like the baseball season, is a marathon. when you're in the midst of a 6 game losing streak, and you think all is lost, 7 games and 7 wins later you'll look back at that moment and smirk at you're short-sightedness. relax.
8. #7 is a lot easier said than done.
9. your love for something grows proportionally to the amount you've suffered with them.
10. a shared love and passion between strangers quickly makes new friends.
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| If your house was on fire, and you could only grab one thing, what would you take with you?
I remember answering this question with a friend of mine a while back, and my answer was my box of pictures, letters and mementos from over the years. I figured, clothes and other material things could always be replaced.. but pictures and the like? they're one-of-a-kind. irreplaceable. priceless.
So last week, i reformatted my hard drive and before doing so, i transferred all of my personal files (emails, pictures, videos, documents, records, etc.) to an external drive. unfortunately, i screwed up somewhere along the process, and there's a chance that i might've lost my files. wonderful.
update: disaster averted. was able to recover my files. apparently people make programs for fools like me. thank you Mr. Norton Partition Magic.
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| simple pleasure #7: cruising late at night on a warm summer (or spring?) evening, with the windows down and music blasting.. (ridiculous singing optional)
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| "i feel like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. one moment i'm at peace in trusting that God is in control and the best is yet to come. but then in an instant it vanishes and i'm petrified that the thing i need the most is falling further and further away from me. i'm at a crossroads... but what is God to me if i abandon Him now? at the point of crisis, where will i stand?" - journal
i remember writing this a few years ago when i was going thru what might be called a "crisis" of faith.. a crossroads. up till this point, i couldn't recall ever being more stretched and challenged in my faith than at this time. and as i was toiling thru this, i couldn't help but to continually recall the story of Abraham and Isaac, where God told Abraham to surrender and sacrifice his one and only beloved son Isaac in an act of obedience, worship, and trust.. in some way (tho to a lesser degree obviously), i felt like i was in an "Abraham moment", where God was asking me if i would surrender the thing i cherished the most and trust Him.
maybe i'm Captain Obvious, but i found that it's a lot easier to read it as an impersonal story, to be read only to glean new insights or principles of faith. but when you're experiencing a taste of it first hand, things get a lot more complicated. when the risk and costs become real and (seemingly) irreversible, your faith is tested at the most fundamental level.. where will you stand when it really counts? you find out for real whether your house is built on rock or sand...
at the end of the story, God restores to Abraham his son who he was intent on losing, and more than that, the reward of Abraham's trust and faith was a reforged assurance of God's faithfulness and goodness at the deepest of levels that perhaps could not have been otherwise obtained.. i wanted to make that experience my own, and so as scared as i was, i lept.
that was over a year ago, and honestly, i couldn't really tell you how "well" i responded to that moment. i made a conscious decision to take the big gulp, the leap of faith, and "surrender" to God.. but when it comes to the day-to-day things, it was always a little hazy to me on what that exactly looked like.. but regardless, i took this experience, and learned and grew much from it.. but now i wonder if this "episode" in my life has yet to have reached its ending... i thought it did, but maybe there's still more to experience and learn.. because a few nights ago, when studying thru the discipline of "Obedience to God', this story of Abraham and Isaac came up yet again.. and as my pastor was explaining to me the obedience that Abraham displayed and the obedience that God desires of us, my heart began to race and something inside of me was shaken at its core.
"ken, what is your Isaac?", my pastor asked. man, here we go again..
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| so if you've spoken to me in the last several months, and if you've asked me what's new in my life, chances are i probably told you that i started taking brazilian jiu jitsu lessons. not only that, i probably looked more excited talking about it than Caffeine at the foot of the dinner table.
usually, people react to this revelation with a look of mild bewilderment. that look is then usually followed up by one of the following questions..
Q. you're taking what?
A. brazilian jiu jitsu
Q. what's brazilian jiu jitsu?
A. mm.. it's kind of like a mix between judo and wrestling?
Q. do you have to be brazilian?
A. no.
Q. oooh, show me some moves!
A. umm...
Q. what the.. what's wrong with you??
A. haha.. don't knock it before you try it!
Q. is it a good workout?
A. uh huh.. at the end of my first class, i thought i was going to throw up.
Q. are there girls in your class too?
A. mm.. yeah, there's this one girl who comes to class once in a while.
Q. did she beat you up??
A. *awkward silence* no. (NO)
so how in the world did i find myself here? some of my friends are obsessed with snowboarding.. others, obsessed with basketball. and still others, with diet coke. well, apparently mine happens to be rolling around on the ground with other guys on sweat-stained gym mats. go figure. haha. *shrug*
in any case.. i guess jiu jitsu has always been something that i've been utterly fascinated by from watching it on tv.. and it's something that i always wanted to try out, but honestly doubted that i would ever gather the gumption to actually try. it seems like most people have a "list" of things they want to do in their lifetime. maybe it's backpacking thru europe, or skydiving, or doing a 360 on a snowboard, or *fill in the blank*. i don't really think i have that many things on my "list", or if i even have a list for that matter. but if i did, i'm happy to say that my list just got shorter. =]
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