love actually

i actually have not seen the movie, love actually, yet. i should though since the dvd is in my house. i'll get around to it one day, but for now another insightful entry by yours, truly.

today was routine for me. i woke up and heard my uncle painting the walls. he's been doing it for the past few weeks and it's become routine for me to wake up, walk the dog, try to go back to sleep, get up, read the Word, and turn on my laptop. everything was going according to plan until... i fell. i didn't literally fall. i fell as in i sinned. sin, to the world, isn't a serious a word as it should be. due to the reputation of Christians especially those to the far right, the televangelists, the people with picket signs saying "the end is near" sin has become sort of a long, lost, mythical word that used to be used by primitive people when they thought they angered "God". but to me and a lot of other people sin simply means that we fell short of the way God had planned us to live. yes there is a God and not a "God". He's real, whether if you believe or don't believe is a concern of mine and if you'd like to know more be free to ask. i sinned. i didn't meet God's standards. thank God for Jesus, but i still felt horrible. i felt wrong and dirty. i felt stressed. so stressed that i consumed a store bought Uno's pizza by myself, leaving me feeling dirty and fat. i felt depressed to say the least. i should've accepted my mom's offer to go eat jja jjang myun (noodles in black bean sauce) and i shouldn't have eaten that pizza, but what i really wished was that i could go back in time and not sin. but none of those things happened. i sinned, i felt bad, and we were out of bottled water. so i volunteered to go get water and other things that my mom required. i went out because i wanted some time alone. funny as it sounds, i was alone the whole day besides my uncle in the morning. you think i wanted some noise in the house, but i just wanted to wallow in my guilt and feel sorry for myself. as i was driving home i was wondering about love. how commercialized it was. how no one could possibly know the real definition. to find out you probably had to go back in time and ask someone in the beginning. or ask God himself. as i was getting out of the car i carried the 24 pack of water and sesame oil up the stairs to the door, i fumbled for my keys and put the water against the door and me hoping someone would open the door. no one did. and me feeling depressed found the key and opened the door and i realized that i could handle it. if i had one arm my parents would've been waiting for me to get home to help me, but they weren't because i could handle it. out of a random notion i found that God doesn't give us a load heavier than we can carry. i could've fought that temptation and won, but i didn't, i chose to give up. i walked upstairs and began reading the second to last chapter of Where Is God When It Hurts? by Philip Yancey and the last page struck me. God answered my question of what love really was.

"This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth."
1st John 3:16-18

Sacrifice is what i get from those words. i just pray that God is my strength and He uses my weaknesses. In Jesus' name. Amen.