Counterfeit Love

The concept of love has plagued me for years.

This is obviously a strange statement, as love is what powers my very existence nowadays. I’ve had some truly miraculous moments these past weeks where I’ve felt God looking straight at me in the eyes, saying, “I love you more than you can imagine.” It’s incredible when I look back, and see the ways my current life of redeemed love negates the years of pursuing a counterfeit love—

the kind that leaves you empty, lied to, and numb.

We went to Bangkok this week, so I could say goodbye to my team that has been here the past month, and maybe pick up some corn tortillas and cheese at the Siam grocery center (things that are severely lacking here in Northern Thailand). As we made our way through the city, traveling by long-tail boat and fuchsia taxi cabs, I found myself as enraptured with Bangkok as the first day I had arrived in Thailand. The endless shopping, glittering hotels, smiling faces, and sensory-grabbing details left me wide-eyed and in an old, familiar place I’ve spent years in.

Debilitating comfort.

For the next couple days I trekked my way through a strange concoction of the modern and highly exotic—all the while my thoughts resonating a newfound idea, I love this place, I love this place, I love this place.


I loved the friendly faces.
I loved the deflated Baht.
I loved the ceramic-topped temples
And shopping
And food
And art
And beauty.


Walking past the various street vendors in Bangkok, you touch the Thai silk pashmina scarves, you feel your heart thud as men stare at your hair and eyes. You make your way into the biggest, most spectacular malls you’ve ever seen, eat the finest of international delicacies, and pay the equivalent of a few American dollars to do so.

It’s beguiling, and hypnotizing.








And for a few moments, you forget why you came here in the first place. You forget about God. You lose yourself in the neon lights and zipping tuk tuks. You fade with the sunset over the Wat Arun temple and blend into the coming darkness.


Like any other place in the world, evening eventually fell upon Bangkok. As our taxi took us back to the hotel, I watched as the gold-laden temples lost their glittering luster underneath the hot Indo sun. The brightness that bounced off street windows withered, and richly-colored lights proclaiming Orchid Lounge, Playskool Plaza, and Bedbar! took their place. As the team tucked themselves into their last night in Thailand, I felt God telling me to stay awake a while longer.

So I sat myself down on a small, red-velvet couch in the lobby, prayed, and waited.

Tiny, beautiful girls began making their way into the Great Residence, stiletto heels clicking on the marble floors as they walked towards various hotel rooms. They came on the arms of young, strong men, and old, fat men. One particular man, grotesquely big and eyes dark with empty passion, had a girl holding on to each of his hands. As I sat stiff and cross-legged on the couch, I felt them stare at me in quiet curiosity for a brief moment. He then lead them to their next destination for the evening; they turned away from me and stroked his neck and shoulders with honey-sweet laughter and sardonic smiles.

With each couple that made their way through the hotel, I felt a stark emptiness fill the building, the distant voices of young women giggling covered by the dark silence that followed shortly afterwards.

And isn’t that how it always is? You get the short thrill of pleasure that comes along with a worldly life—the high in purchasing something you don’t need with money you don’t have, the ecstasy in the passionate pursuits of a lover, the serotonin-enriched nights with a drink at hand—and as quickly as it happens, it’s over.

And then, emptiness.





It was there that I was left with my own troubled past, my own youthful years spent pursuing beauty, accolades, men, and things to fill the void in my heart,

the expanding obscurity and shadows that slowly covered God’s light and truth from within me.

I thought those days were far behind me, but I still got lost in the counterfeit love of Thailand. Darkness tickled my senses with a sweet aroma, and for some fleeting time, it masked the pungent stench of death and destruction that lie beneath it. For a while, I believed the lies the darkness told me.


"It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery."
Galatians 5:1

"God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your soul is required of you; and now who will own what you have prepared?'"
Luke 12:20

"For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God. However you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you."
Romans 8:5-9

"Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever."
1 John 2:15-17

But God does not abandon those who seek His kingdom; and while my own weakness brought about old, painful memories and desires, the Holy Spirit filled me during this trip and reminded me of true, lasting, all-fulfilling and all-redeeming love. "You are from God, little children, and have overcome them; because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world."
1 John 4:4

I sat in what should’ve been painful, ugly, solitary nostalgia that night. And while my heart broke for Bangkok—for those empty people with worthless dollars and sex and laughter—my soul was overwhelmed with the Holy Spirit. I used to see myself in the darkness of those girls’ eyes. I used to find my worth through men’s approval of my outward beauty. I used to escape my loneliness through physical affirmations. I used to clamor for ways to fill the void that found its way into my soul every sunrise.

And now, the Spirit is like blinding, relentless sunshine
Breaching every shadow
Crushing all iniquity
Overcoming all of my weakness and sin.

Undeniably, if I was left to my own devices, I probably would’ve allowed evil to finish off the self-destruction I started so many years ago. But love has won over my heart. Christ has shown me that while wickedness rules the dust of this earth, His kingdom of heaven cannot be conquered by evil.

So I tell all of you reading this and who know Jesus in your heart: REJOICE! The Spirit of God has filled your soul, and NOTHING can negate the love and redemption that dwells alongside a relationship with Him. He is pursuing you like a lover; He will bring you not short-lived ecstasy, but

rich,
unadulterated,
unfailing
joy and peace.

God loves you. Even when you forget He does. Even when you turn your back on Him. Even if you close your eyes at His efforts to show you. Even when more darkness fills your soul than His light.

He loves you.
And He’s more powerful than you give Him credit for.
He can crush your doubts and fear.
He can alleviate your sorrows and struggles.
He can wash your past clean.

And if you let Him change you, his Spirit not only brings eternal brightness into your life, but reflects for all to see around you. Through Jesus Christ’s sacrifice, you are the temple that glorifies God’s purpose and love for His creation; don’t allow the counterfeit loves of the world to make you believe otherwise.

Rain and Refugees

So it’s been twelve days since I’ve written anything, partially because there’s barely enough time for us to really soak in anything here, but also because we’ve seen so much in the past few weeks it’s a daunting task to put any of it into words. I thought I’d go through a couple stories over the next few days; it’s taken me quite sometime to figure out what I’ve seen, and there are some stand-out experiences I wanted to share with y’all.

The day I waited for my team (Casey, Katie, Kristina, Jessica, Tyler, and Emily) to drive from Bangkok to Mae Sot I got the chance to visit a Burmese refugee camp on the border. As gray skies and water drops the size of marbles filled the horizon for what felt like the millionth day in a row, the group I was traveling with got the low-down on the camp. As one of the largest camps in Thailand at 150,000 registered (and upwards of 100,000 unregistered) refugees, Mae La holds a long history of fear, uncertainty, hunger, and homelessness. People of various Burmese ethnicities have fled from Myanmar to escape from one of the most oppressive and terrifying dictatorships modern history has ever seen. I don’t even know where to start with the stories we’ve heard about this regime; just think murder, rape, torture, human sacrificing, and Satan worshipping, and you’d get the foundations of what’s been driving Thwan Shwe and his military.

To get to a Karen tribe tucked in the back of the Mae La camp, we rode in the back of a truck along what felt like the real-life version of the Indiana Jones ride—complete with muddy potholes, fording through rivers, and me thinking over and over, “my parents would kill me if they saw what I was doing right now”. We eventually arrived at the bible school our Karen friends attend, completely drenched and clothes splattered with bright orange mud. Everyone stared at us with a combination of curiosity and laughter as we swish-swooshed through their lessons for the day. We got a tour (I completely forgot his name, but this Karen guy was totally awesome and told me that one day I get to give him a tour of California) from one of their students, and he showed us through the elementary schools and ramshackle huts that were scattered along the dirt paths of the camp.





For what was supposed to be a temporary place of refuge, the people living In Mae La had definitely created a new community; most of the kids and young adults there had grown up in this part of the camp their entire lives. Just like most of the experiences I’ve had here, I was amazed by these people’s ability to thrive with so little. Kids ran through the muddy puddles with their school books in tote, mothers rocked and fed their babies from the porches of their huts with smiles on their faces, shop workers waved at us as we passed by. At one point, they had the entire bible school (of about 400 students) sing worship for us—and if you want to be knocked off your socks with what will probably be the music we’ll listen to in heaven, I’d strongly suggest paying them a visit.

In the middle of our tour, we stopped at the “handicap ministry”, which consists of mainly of victims who’ve lost limbs, their hearing, and/or their sight from the landmines scattered along the Burma forests. Our group sang worship music for them, and as Rachel’s beautiful voice reverberated off of the tin roofs, I had a hard time not losing it. Seeing these men and children with their sewn-up arms and legs and eyes gutted from their faces was a reality check that destroyed my world. Oh my God, my God, this is for real, I kept repeating in my head. These chosen people of God were being wiped out off the face of the planet, and I was right in the heart of their exile. And at that moment, all we could give them was a song of praise, lyrics of redemption and hope. I prayed over them, reminding them of their eternity with Christ; I knew in those words that one day I’d see them whole and in their glorified bodies, surrounded with heavenly treasures no one on Earth can imagine of. The man with no eyes smiled as we closed our thanks to God. It was a moment that will stay burned in my mind forever.

Our visit could’ve ended there, and I would’ve left feeling completely humbled our experience in Mae La. But God wasn’t finished with us yet, and at the end of our visit, the Karen people surprised our group with one of the most incredible lunches I’ve ever had. And as the third, maybe fourth course of rice, pork meatballs, vegetable salad, and noodles made its way to our table, I couldn’t help but feeling this horrible weightiness in my chest. Here I was, enjoying the hospitality and gifts of people who had next to nothing—and they served us with joy. I asked our tour guide how anyone could be so kind, and he told me with a serious face: “We are proud to have friends from the West who are willing to come and listen to our story. We hope that our friends we make will go back to their homes and tell their families of the Karen people, our faith in Christ, and our fight for peace.”


It’s this kind of stuff that continuously strips you of your privileged mindset, that breaks your heart into a million different pieces, and that makes you question what kind of faith has been driving you for the past couple decades.
It makes you question what faith even means—like when people tell you to have faith you’ll do fine in finals, that you’ll get the job you applied for,

and on the opposite side of the world there’s a group of people who have faith their God will save them from genocide.
Needless to say, I’ve fallen in love with the Karen people. And I hope you all are ready to be bombarded with their story when I get back, because I’ve got a responsibility to fulfill.

☺

The Last Shall Be First

It’s hard to know where to start. We’ve only been here a little over a week, and as of tonight I feel like God has already chipped off the majority of my surface and left my raw emotions to soak in the unadulterated truth to what is happening here in Northern Thailand.

The first few days here were met with mostly pointing and ooo-ing, as I put together the images and experiences of a wild, untamed jungle trying to fake its way as a Westernized, second-world nation. There was Bangkok, with its scuttling tuk-tuks, beautiful temples, and street food; and here, Mae Sot, adorned with brightly-painted houses and lush greenery clamoring its way out of make-shift neighborhoods and streets. Everything here is a clash of the familiar and bizarre; nothing is anything I’ve expected or experienced, but most of it is manageable and adaptable to.

But overwhelmingly, above the bustling cities and ridiculously amazing Thai food, there is Life Impact. Lana, Cindy, Larissa, the staff, the missionaries, and the beautiful, innocent children.

These doe-eyed angels who raise the arms up to you, who snuggle up beside you like a parent they’ve been raised by.

These Burmese kids, dirty and covered with lice and sores, who hold onto their younger siblings as they make their way through a sludge-covered trash dump.

And you look at all these little things, you look into their big brown eyes, and you know they’ve seen far worse than you ever will. You know they have stories that can hardly be heard without losing it, much less stood to be told. You look at them, you hold their hands, you carry them in your arms,

And your heart breaks like it’s never been broken.

And the gospel washes over you like a flood, and for what may be the first time in your life, you understand. You understand Jesus and the people he spent his life with, his ministry with. You understand his heart for the poor, the hungry, the sick. And not in a, let’s-volunteer-at-the-soup-kitchen-on-Christmas kind of way, but in a way that makes you want to spend every waking moment showing these children and families Christ’s love and sacrifice for them. Everything you used to think was a big deal suddenly isn’t. The clothes, the accolades, the achievements and goals and statuses and associations are all like a bunch of bad jokes.

Much of the people fleeing to this part of Thailand are Burmese, escaping a genocidal hell-hole in which hundreds of thousands of people have been tortured, murdered, and displaced from their homes. The Karen ethnicity, a group in Southern Burma whom are predominantly Christian, have experienced the brunt of this war, losing thousands of their villages and families to ruthless, unimaginable killings by the Burmese military. The men have their limbs cut off before being shot. The women are raped and equally tortured. And the children—if they aren’t brutally murdered in the same fashion—are kidnapped and forced to become child soldiers or prostitutes. For the past week, I’ve been listening to the stories of the families and children who’ve escaped, while also being able to physically stand at the border of Burma they’re crossing over. I see hordes of Burmese men, women, and children take boats across the river to come live here in Thailand, in refugee camps and trash dumps. I see the girls, with their yellow make-up brushed across their face like army paint, holding skinny children who will most likely start working at a factory or begging on the streets once they get here. And the men, with old jeans and dark, weathered skin who look like they’ve traveled too far, seen too much in their recent life. And here I am: pale, privileged me, thinking how stupid it is that I’m standing here with my pockets full of money, my hair freshly washed, watching all of these families settle in a dump because it’s better than where they came from. Here I am, right in the middle of all this struggle and tragedy and heartache.

It does things to you.

I’ve realized in my short time here that becoming born-again isn’t simply through a request for Jesus to come into your heart. It’s a continual process of losing yourself, of humbling yourself, and of showing the same kind of love Christ came to give. Matthew 20:16 has been on constant repeat in my head; as I watched the kids from the dump sing worship songs the other day, rejoicing and praising a God of redemption, compassion, and glory, the truth of that verse resonated through every bone in my body.

So the last will be first, and the first will be last.
So the last will be first, and the first will be last.
…The last will be first, and the first will be last.

My prayer for us is that we be last in the weeks and years to come, so that He may be lifted higher. May the blessings we’ve been given in our lives may not be in vein, but be spread in hopes to bring God’s kingdom here among us. May we not merely stand on the border of human pain and suffering, but stand with them. May we face rebirth everyday as we allow God to break away our multitude of sorrows and sins, and sculpt us into His vessels of love, compassion, and beauty.

The Joy in Losing Roots

When I looked at all my belongings packed up in the back of my dad’s truck one month ago, I remember feeling a numbing, unbelieving tidal wave of shock coming towards me. As I drove behind him along the stretch of 5 freeway back home, I didn’t cry. I didn’t lose it. I just felt…dead. Like San Diego was this weird life force I couldn’t find anywhere else, a place of comfort and sunshine and kindness I would never be able to have again.

We got to Huntington, and in one blurry day I unpacked everything I owned, all 15 boxes of clothes and photographs and books and final papers.

Yes, I had allowed myself to become rooted for the first time of my life.

Yes, I was now being torn from the ground.

For the entirety of my young-adult life, I had vowed I would never let myself get comfortable, I would never have to deal with painful goodbyes—and I had failed miserably the moment I ran alongside the Scripps trails overlooking La Jolla shores, the Thursday night I walked into Upper Room. But as I put my boxes of nostalgia in their new space, I certainly wasn’t going to allow myself to feel the aftershocks of my rebellion.

But memories don’t disappear with the speed of ripping off a band-aid. Life doesn’t work that way. Your brain doesn’t purge itself in catharsis, your heart doesn’t let go of the happiest years it’s had. And for a while I was left wondering if all of that, the debilitating comfort and routine I found 100 miles south of here was a pursuit worthwhile.

Almost everyday this past year I made my way down to Bird Rock, and I’d thank God endlessly in my journal for having me come here. How did I end up in a place of such incomparable beauty, filled with such incredible people? It was certainly not by my own accord, as my selfish and narcissistic tendencies should’ve landed me anywhere but here. Nevertheless, I am grateful that I never—not for a single, fleeting moment—took advantage of life in La Jolla.

I’m trying to do the same in Orange County, but it’s not the same. My family is here, which is the area’s overwhelming redeeming quality. Crystal Cove is still here, which evokes memories of my long afternoons under the Windansea sun. However, I can’t seem to get past everything else. Walking around in South Coast Plaza, trying to find some cheap cargo pants for Thailand, all I could feel was a constant, clamoring desire to escape. The perfectly sculpted women with their off-the-runway Tory Burch purses and collagen-plumped lips. The two-hundred dollar blouses, clicking of Louboutin heels on Italian ivory marble floors, children scuttling alongside their moms with frappaccinos in their little hands. This place is truly a bizarre anomaly, a city filled empty mansions on the sea, of lifeless people, of loveless relationships and disproportionate incomes.

But I couldn’t be more thankful to have been uprooted here.

Because here I am, being constantly reminded of allowing God to move us where we glorify Him most. In my near-perfect life in San Diego I was able to enjoy the fruits of a place that upheld both a rich, diverse culture with wonderful, love-driven people. I could easily see myself settling down there, getting married in Balboa and taking my kids to Mission Bay in the summer. I could lose sight of the rest of the world there, and find utter contentment in a 372 square-mile bubble.

But at this moment in my life, that is not the person He has shaped me to be.

I was not built for settling. I was not meant for roots. I was made for exploring, wandering, serving in places far and unknown and unreached. Tomorrow, God is taking me to a place I’ve dreamed of for years, and I get to love, serve, and grow in the way He has prepared my life for. I may not get to root myself anywhere, but I get to plant seeds everywhere. I may not call one place home, but God gives me new members of my family every place he leads me to.

God’s gift to me of singleness, of rootlessness, is a wonderful thing. It has taken me too long to really grasp it. But throughout this process of understanding I have been brought back to one of my favorite passages. In Matthew 6 Jesus reminds us not to get caught up in petty worries, in the self-gratifying pursuits of this world, and to follow Him always. “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well, (Matthew 6:33)”, Christ commands us.

I am certainly no source of wisdom, and I have little lasting advice to give anyone; but I do encourage all of you to question where you’re at, to be willing for God to take you places you are completely out of your element in.

Do you live where you live because it is most comfortable, or because it is where you most glorify God’s kingdom?

Is God calling you to uproot, to spread His love in new places?

Is He asking you to leave a relationship to focus your attention fully on Him?

Are you on the path you’ve chosen for yourself, or the path that God has planned for you?

Earlier this past winter, a friend took me to Del Mar at sunset, where she told me that God loved me more than I could imagine—and while I couldn’t see it every moment, He had a plan for me that was more fulfilling than one I could make for myself. Months later, I wish I could tell her how right she was; that the life I would’ve picked for myself six months ago wouldn’t allow me to fully enjoy the extent of His love right now. There is a great joy in losing yourself; there is eternal life in our Father’s will and desire for us. God loves you. And if uprooting yourself is what needs to happen to experience that, then I strongly suggest grabbing your shovel and digging to China. Or in some cases, Thailand.

Graduation, June-gloom, and Making Things New

Sitting backwards on a train, staring at the hazy horizon of marine layer. The endless stretch of palms and beach grass look out of place in this listless weather, the straight line of tracks seems to take us to some alternate reality in which meteorological normatives have been ruptured by a long-past nuclear apocalypse.

Floating radioactive ash, covering the windows of this Coastal Express, filling my brain with a vexing mix of doubts and glee, loss and new-fangled quests.

Like the palm trees sprinting away from me, I am out of place. Kicked out of the bubble, away from the boundaries of comfort and routine.

A forty-fifty-something middle-level exec is sitting across from me, and he’s throwing trail mix into his mouth and going on about a recent acquisition in his company, and his leather man-bag looks like it’s going to explode from the graphs and portfolios crammed in its pockets. “It’ll be interesting to see what happens with this new examiner in charge…” he goes on, and on, and he uses the word “stuff” in every sentence, which is ironic because he’s talking to his cohort with peanuts and m&ms stuffed in his mouth. I wonder if he even notices the nuclear apocalypse outside, if he can see that underneath eyeliner and lip gloss, the passenger across from him is having an existential crisis. I don’t think he does, because when I glance at him he gives me a sheepish half-smile.

Yeah, I’m really out of place. I’m done. Finished. Everything that I’ve ever known: wake up, school, lunch, work, eat dinner with Liz and crash in the nook of my twin bed is now morphing into wake up, find job, find job, find job, cry self to sleep as the sinking feeling of responsibility and reality and inadequacy find its way into the stems of my every thought. I wish the world wasn’t so honest with us newly grads, I wish they would have told us all that we’d find our dream careers as soon as we stepped foot off the commencement stage, that everything would be ok and that life as we knew it wasn’t coming to a

halting,
screeching
stop.

I may be overtly dramatic and absurd, but reading yahoo news articles every-other day that tell me nursing and accounting are the only two sectors with jobs in the whole universe, that my International Relations degree is just a fifty-thousand dollar piece of paper,

It’s not super encouraging.

But it’s ok. I’ll be ok. Because I know that Southern California gets June(to July)-gloom, but come August, come September, the rays of warm light penetrate everything, and the world of beaches and surfers and happy, sun-kissed people is put back to order.

It’s during those months where the days last forever and the nights are sleepy and warm that I’m reminded that restoration can be a cyclical process. We have days, weeks, months where our lives feel out-of-focus, where all of our plans and goals and dreams seem to be lost in some fog-covered horizon. There are times where we feel that all that was supposed to come to fruition, all that we were expecting gets crushed by a broken reality.

And for a second, we forget hope.

I think about what Jesus’ disciples felt like when he was beaten, shamed, crucified.
They must have felt like their entire existence was torn into a billion miniscule pieces.
Like how San Diego feels in June, only amplified by an infinite number.

This wasn’t supposed to happen.
It wasn’t supposed to pan out like this.
He was supposed to victoriously conquer this broken place,
He was supposed to bring His kingdom.

For those next few days, they must have faced a gloomy, abysmal future. They must have been broken-hearted that their hope for a new and better realm seemed lost. They must have felt out of place.

But then He conquered death.

Then August came, then the sun found its way out of the misty-skies, then Jesus rose from the grave. Living, breathing, tangible restoration was pulled from the ashes and brought back to life.

There will be June gloom here on the coast of California, there will be snow in Minnesota in winter, there will be amber, rusty colored leaves in Central Park mid-October. But everything in nature experiences a restoration, and the Earth points to that: summer still comes. The grass grows back, the world comes out of hibernation, the harvest still arrives. You will have bad days. Or weeks. Or seasons. You will have periods of complete and total insecurity, where the unknown consumes everything you were previously sure of.

But everything Jesus did, all the miracles he performed, his victory over death all point to God’s desire for restoration in ourselves, and on this Earth. So today, tomorrow, and throughout these next few months of unfamiliar territory, I just have to remind myself, continuously

That Jesus makes all things new.

Love, Where is Your Fire?

So this was originally just supposed to be a blog about my upcoming mission trip to Thailand, but I realized

it's only a short time there,
and I have a lot of other stuff to say.
(Plus, I'm going to Europe, China, and India as well; it wouldn't be fair to leave them out of the mix.)

So, here's to writing, and moving, and graduating, and new beginnings, and fiery, unquenchable, all-consuming love.



But finals first.