Happy Birthday Julie :o)

Happy Birthday Julie! My roommate Julie turned 25 today. We've been living together since the start of the school year and things have been really great. We are very similar in many ways. We are good about doing our dishes right away after a meal (Julie slightly better at this), keeping things neat and organized in the kitchen and other common spaces, and keeping our lives busy busy busy (though not sure if this is always a good thing). Anyways, Julie is awesome and I really feel like she was sent to me by God, in the ways that she has helped me grow more faithful in God. For now we will leave that story for another night perhaps.

I spent the entire day studying for my rock mechanics midterm at the regent library. It is superb - a quiet, not over-crowded (as most on-campus libraries are during time of midterms), and beautiful place to concentrate on the books. Regent College is a bible college affiliated with UBC. It is considered, as I've been told, one of the top seminary schools on the international front. These days that I'm back in school again, I have been attending worships held in the Regent Chapel on Tuesday mornings. I've also been considering taking or maybe auditing some classes at Regent in the summer time or during the 2nd term. There is a desire in my heart to learn more about God, to know more about Jesus. And wow there is so much to learn about him! I will be praying about this over the next while, and see where God takes me.

So after I came home I got a phone call from Musquito, who was distressed and needed to talk. I had planned on picking up some frozen lasagna from the grocery store for the birthday dinner that night. I also planned on making my famous caesar salad. But I ended up spending almost an hour on the phone with Muski and was rushed to get everything ready. To make matters worse I realized that the frozen pasta would require 1 hour and 45 minutes of baking time. Normally I would be frowning and fretting over how imperfectly everything had gone. But instead, I just accepted that the food wasn't going to be ready and we would just have to find other ways to entertain our guests. Julie made some soup, we ate some apples, and had the salad before we decided to take the almost ready lasagna out of the oven and finish up the cooking in the handy dandy microwave. Little Lysha has started to smile as of recently. She is absolutely adorable and I think I love her so much because her mommy and daddy are dear friends of mine from Contemporary. Loyal and Crystal are pretty much my first 'married couple friends' who have had a baby. What a treat it is to be an Aunty! ;o) Lysha also started laughing and it seems she is trying to talk as well. I can't wait to hear what she's got to say!

After dinner Ibi spent some time telling us about the supernatural experiences he's had since childhood. Ibi is a seminary student at VST (I believe). He is an aboriginal from Taiwan and he's married to his beautiful wife and has a 1 year old daughter named Yaya. Anyways, Ibi's always been in-tuned with the spiritual world and often has dreams about the future that have come true. He's also able to see the dead. Things got really interesting when he shared some of his stories with us. I will spare you the details but if you are interested in knowing feel free to ask! Ibi's seen it all - the man who committed suicide in a guest room he was staying in, a child who drowned near a river close to his home in Taiwan, a headless person carrying his severed head across the street. He's also participated in exorcism. Hearing his stories made the hairs in the back of my neck stand up. I believe him, and now there is no doubt in my mind that ghosts do exist. But the fact is, ghosts don't know why they're still in this world either. They're just floating around, looking for a purpose... like many of us. I reflected on Ibi's gift and his stories and felt glad to be a child in God's light. If there is a God, there is Satan as well. Battles between good and evil happen everyday, in this world, as well as in our hearts. Just yesterday after feeling filled with the peace of christ I was overcome with irritation and hopelessness hours later. And I felt that I had received the joy and love of the Holy Spirit in my heart, but something was trying to counter it. Call me crazy but I could actually feel that. And that is why, I need to pray constantly and hang onto God. I was also left to feel the wonders of this world and how little humans know. How our life on earth feels like it is just a small part of the whole picture. That there's no need to stress over a little pimple or some other problems perhaps bigger than that. That during our times of suffering we must continue to pray and to have faith in the Lord. Knowing that the creator who made the universe has also created each of us lovingly, and knows us better than we know ourselves, and best of all, will never leave us, is a pretty awesome and powerful feeling don't you think?

These few days I've been struggling with some bothersome thoughts, but it seems that the peace of Christ always catches me when I fall...when I start to feel like I'm losing hope. Amazing.

'No chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.' -Hebrews 12:11