Beauty

The phrase "it's the most wonderful time of the year"is related to Christmastime, but I might have to disagree with it. I love seeing all the different flowers bloom in their timings throughout spring! 

April Updates

Hm, all these months have already passed by! I want to share with you some things that have happened and some things I'm learning!

• One day my friend sent me a facebook message and told me of a freelance photography job opportunity. It was totally unexpected, but I just applied for it anyways. Then I got the job! It's totally freelance and mostly for events hosted by the Eppley Recreation Center. I haven't taken any pictures yet, but I'm excited! I want to thank God for always providing at His perfect timing.
• I really really need Jesus.
• I recently listened to this message by Eric Ludy - "The Wages of Love" and it really taught me a lot. Jesus desires to have intimacy with us and in order to have an intimate relationship with Him, I must spend time with him. I really liked the analogies he used. He described his relationship with his wife and kids to help explain how our relationship with God is supposed to be like. I would recommend listening to this message (although it's pretty long)!
• I listened to a podcast by Ravi Zacharias about worship and I learned that worship binds all things and worship is really intimate. It requires sacrifice on my part. I realized that I haven't been giving God my best. Instead of giving the best times of my day to Him, I would give Him little scraps at the end of the day or little bits of free time I had during my day. Or a lot of times, I wouldn't even ask God what he thought about, which is really sad now that I think about it. I want to give God my best by giving Him my time. 
• A few weeks ago I began reading The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom. I learned so much from her family! The way she writes of her family, her mother, father, and siblings' hearts were so beautiful. I haven't had much time to read it this past week, but I'll probably write more about it once I finish the book.
• I registered for my classes for the next semester! I can't believe almost a year has passed since I graduated high school. How did this year go by so fast?

Happy Easter everyone! (:

Flowing

"A river water the garden flowed from Eden; from there it was separated into four headwaters. The name of the first is the Pishon; it winds through the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold. (The gold of that land is good; aromatic resin and onyx are also there.) The name of the second river is the Gihon; it winds through the entire land of Cush. The name of the third river is the Tigris; it runs along hte east side of Ashur. And the fourth river is the Euphrates." - Genesis 2:10-14

Last Saturday my team (the Magi) studied the first part of Genesis 2 with Pastor Jacob. In the past, I usually overlooked the part about the rivers, partly because the names were hard to pronounce. However, this time it really stuck out to me. Pastor Jacob emphasized the importance of the rivers by mentioning that great civilizations all developed next to rivers. For example, the proximity of the Nile River lead to the Egyptian civilization. And in rivers, the water continues to flow in and out. Why is the Dead Sea dead? Although water flows into the Dead Sea, the water doesn't flow out. It's stagnant. It's a dead end. I believe as Christians, our lives are supposed to flow. We have freely received God's grace, mercy, and love. Because we freely receive, we freely give.

In my biology class we recently learned about the circulatory system. The circulatory systems in different organisms fits the function of the organism. For example, trees don't move on their own. Therefore they have the flow circulatory system and they have low flow rates. However, humans have a completely divided circulatory system with really high flow rates (I thought this was really interesting).

If we are truly alive and moving as the body of Christ, we can't just continue to receive. I believe that the more I learn to give, the more I will receive.

I was also really reminded this weekend to acknowledge that God is in control of all things. Everything that I have was given to me by God. I am not the owner, but a steward of all the things God has given me. I would like to share parts of Daniel 4 with you!

"This is the interpretation, Your Majesty, and this is the decree the Most High has issued against my lord the king: You will be driven away from people and will live with the wild animals you will eat grass like the ox and be drenched with the dew of heaven. Seven times will pass by for you until you acknowledge that the Most High is sovereign over all kingdoms on earth and gives them to anyone he wishes. The command to leave the stump of the tree with its roots means that your kingdom will be restored to you when you acknowledge that Heaven rules. Therefore, Your Majesty, be pleased to accept my advice: Renounce your sins by doing what is right, and your wickedness by being kind to the oppressed. It may be that then your prosperity will continue." - Daniel 4:24-27

"At the end of that time, I, Nebuchadnezzar, raised my eyes toward heaven, and my sanity was restored. Then I praised the Most High; I honored and glorified him who lives forever.

His dominion is an eternal dominion;

his kingdom endures from generation toe generation.

All the peoples of the earth

are regarded as nothing.

He does as he pleases

with the powers of heaven

and the peoples of the earth.

No one can hold back his hand

or say to him; "What have you done?

At the same time that my sanity was restored, my honor and splendor were returned to me for the glory of my kingdom. My advisers and nobles sought me out, and I was restored to my thorn and became even greater than before. Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and exalt and glorify the King of heaven, because everything he does is right and all his ways are just. And those who walk in pride he is able to humble." 

- Daniel 4:34-37

Justified by Faith

I read Romans 4 this morning and it was so good! Paul makes a strong argument that we are justified not by our works, but through faith in God. I don't think my words can add to what he wrote so here it is:

What then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh, discovered in this matter? If, in fact, Abraham was justified by works, he had something to boast about—but not before God. What does Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.”

Now to the one who works, wages are not credited as a gift but as an obligation. However, to the one who does not work but trusts God who justifies the ungodly, their faith is credited as righteousness. David says the same thing when he speaks of the blessedness of the one to whom God credits righteousness apart from works:

 “Blessed are those
    whose transgressions are forgiven,
    whose sins are covered.
 Blessed is the one
    whose sin the Lord will never count against them.”

Is this blessedness only for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised? We have been saying that Abraham’s faith was credited to him as righteousness. Under what circumstances was it credited? Was it after he was circumcised, or before? It was not after, but before! And he received circumcision as a sign, a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. So then, he is the father of all who believe but have not been circumcised, in order that righteousness might be credited to them. And he is then also the father of the circumcised who not only are circumcised but who also follow in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised.

It was not through the law that Abraham and his offspring received the promise that he would be heir of the world, but through the righteousness that comes by faith. For if those who depend on the law are heirs, faith means nothing and the promise is worthless, because the law brings wrath. And where there is no law there is no transgression.

Therefore, the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham’s offspring—not only to those who are of the law but also to those who have the faith of Abraham. He is the father of us all. As it is written: “I have made you a father of many nations.” He is our father in the sight of God, in whom he believed—the God who gives life to the dead and calls into being things that were not.

Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead—since he was about a hundred years old—and that Sarah’s womb was also dead. Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised.This is why “it was credited to him as righteousness.” The words “it was credited to him” were written not for him alone, but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness—for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.

Faith

"Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, 'Go, throw yourself into the sea,' and it will be done. If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer." - Matthew 21:21-22

"For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jews, then to the Gentile. For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed - a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: "The righteous will live by faith." - Romans 1:16-17

"And without faith, it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him."- Hebrews 11:6

The past few months, God has been teaching me that his love for me isn't based on my performance. 

Although I keep saying this, it's taking me a while to truly understand what this means. I have a tendency to be a perfectionist at times (well, most of the times). However, I'm slowly learning that God doesn't look for perfect performance. Instead, he looks at my heart. When no one can see them, he cares about my motives and my intentions. When he calls me to do something, I just have to obey and try. It doesn't have to be perfect because God will qualify the called. However, until this weekend I didn't realize that I've been focusing more on my performance rather than focusing on making my heart right before God. It gets quite discouraging once you start focusing on your performance because you're bound to make a mistake somewhere. 

And sometimes what God tells us to do doesn't make logical sense. During the conference we had a message on Genesis 22:18 when God told Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. It must have made no sense to Abraham. God promised Abraham descendants numerous as the stars. Without Isaac, how was God going to fulfill his promise? However, Abraham chose to trust God. He chose to obey God. He chose to hope in God. 

In the same way, as follows of Christ, we choose to hope in God despite our circumstances. I hope that I can choose to obey God with the faith Abraham had. There are some things God has placed in my heart that seem impossible at this moment. However, I want to choose to trust God. I want to trust to take a leap of faith, knowing that the results are all in God's hands. For nothing is impossible with God.

Halfway

I can't believe we're already more than halfway past this semester! This has been a challenging semester (but every semester is). It's already Wednesday and I can't believe spring break was only a week ago. I thank God for a week to relax, spend time with my friends, and catch up on some school work.

I don't want to forget what I did last week so I'm going to recap here:

I recovered from being sick by resting and sleeping a lot. Now that I'm back in school, all I have are memories of rest, haha (however true rest only comes from God).

We helped Susan film her math project! And we ended up going to Silver Diner for dinner.

David had his first birthday party and I enjoyed taking pictures for the party!

I thought this was a really cool picture. The popping bubble kind of looks like a jelly-fish. What do you think?

My friends and I went on a fun adventure in Annapolis. It is such a beautiful city to take pictures! Future note: Annapolis is a great photoshoot location. (:

Took pictures of the Adebola family!

A lot of pictures for one week, but it was great. I forgot how much fun it was to shoot and edit pictures. And I realized why great photographers charge a lot of money. It's a lot of work! Even though it's really fun, a lot of hard work goes behind preparing for photoshoots and editing the pictures.

We had a Tuesday prayer meeting for YDJ this week. It was so good to just sit before God and listen to his voice. Every day is so busy that if I don't intentionally set aside time to pray, I realize that the week has already gone by. Right now, it's already Wednesday! Then it'll be Friday, then the weekend, and then it'll be Sunday again. And then repeat. I hope that despite all our busy schedules, we can come before God and set aside an hour to come to really pray! It's also always encouraging to pray with others. (:

Random note, I have come to really like my art class. It's really exciting to see my drawings improve over the semester.

Gemstone

Currently, I'm a freshman in the Gemstone program at the University of Maryland. Part of the Honors College, Gemstone is a four year group multidisciplinary research program. Whenever you think of research, you might think of biology and engineering, but there are Gemstone teams with pretty cool non-science related projects as well. Although a four year program sounds like a long time, when you break it down, it goes by really quickly! Freshman year is spent getting to know your cohort and others in Gemstone. However by the end of freshman year, everyone is placed in a team. This semester in GEMS102, we're in the stage of choosing and being placed in teams. So, how do these teams form? In the beginning of the semester, people proposed their project ideas in the form of a project proposal. From the beginning of last semester, I knew that in order for there to be teams, people would have to propose their ideas. However, I personally didn't have any cool project ideas and was not planning on proposing a project at all. And then...I read a faculty proposed project and was interested in one particular project a week before the project proposals were due. Why didn't I get interested in a project weeks before? I don't know... Since one week was a short amount of time to propose a project, I was struggling with the decision to propose the project or not. If I chose not to propose the project, I would not have had anything major due that week. If I did choose to propose the project, I would have to do a whole literature review and find out what this project was even about. Although I felt that God wanted me to propose this project, in the beginning of the week, this seemed impossible. Within less than a week, my co-authors and I had to write the background, literature review, background, cite sources, and make a commercial. Then on Monday, I found out three people I was planning to write the project proposal backed out (with legitimate reasons). Again, I was caught in a conflict and was asking God, "Should I propose the project or should I not?" However, my one close friend from high school agreed to propose the project with me and helped me sooo much! Thank God for sending my friend. I don't know what I would have done otherwise (I probably wouldn't have proposed the project).

And then our project proposal were approved by the Gemstone heads! Around forty projects were proposed and approved in the beginning of the semester. By the end of the semester, there will only be twelve projects left. The first round of voting was last Thursday and thank God our project went through (even though I forgot to promote the project until the day before). Although I don't know if the project will go through to the end, I know that God is in control. I know that God has the best plans for my life. Even when things don't work out the way I plan it, I know it's because He has even better plans for my life. For example, I applied to be a GEMS100 Section Leader and didn't make it, but I'm going to trust God that it's the best for me. I'm still learning and struggling to trust God in different aspects of my life. However, when I do entrust my life to Him, there truly is peace and joy that passes all understanding.

Here's our facebook page for team IMPACT. (: