I haven’t written in forever and I guess I just want to give you guys an update on me. My life is super mundane. Everyday just drags on painfully slow and all I think about anymore is earning money. I never knew I’d be the type to get to this point but I guess I’m just hitting a low point.

For those of you who don’t know, I got rejected from every single one of my schools. Yes…every single one of them; including UW Bothell. Why? I’m not quite sure. I know I’m not the best student but I had my share of high points too…or so I thought. I have an SAT score of 1990, PSAT 206 and ACT score of 30. My extracurriculars are debate (nationals), orchestra (section leader, chamber, state), and church (praise, student leadership). My GPA doesn’t exactly follow suit-I have a 2.8.

You know, it’s strange. As much as I wish I could be as strong as I act, I’m not. I’m bitter and annoyed with myself and the world. I know what I’m supposed to do, but I just can’t get myself to do it. I’m supposed to trust in God and get myself up, so why am I not doing that? It’s so dang tempting to just give up right now. When did I become so broken…

Faith…it really is an interesting word…

2009 was a hard year for me–Emotionally, physically, and spiritually. But, I came out of it alive. Actually, I came out of it more than alive. Till the very last day of the year, I grew. It’s an odd thing to say, but, I don’t want 2009 to end just yet. I don’t want to make any new resolutions or hope for something better. I want to continue 2009 just like it never ended. I want to carry on the passion I have and the experiences I had and keep growing.

For once, it seems like this is all I’ve got to say. Usually I would stop writing because I have nothing more to say, but this time it’s because there’s just too much to express in words. Happy New Years everybody.  Although you might try and forget 2009, just try not to forget how much God loves you. Good luck with your resolutions. I, for one, will continue my walk to becoming one with our loving God, I think any resolution I can think of will solve itself from there.

We’ve all been through the motions, you like someone, you blush when they’re name comes up, you text them all day every day, and finally you pop the question shyly, or “cooly” and well, you and your beloved crush are now an object. The only question is, how long before one’s too busy to give the attention the other so badly wants? How long before the girl/guy seems like any other girl/guy? How long before you discover his/her bad habit? How long before you find out about his/her past? Will you still “love” him/her then? In today’s society, love is defined as such a subjective thing. After all, “love” is the thing that is indescribable, right? Wrong.

I remember reading a blog post by friend Jon Suhr, a while back about romance. It was pretty entertaining. He talked about romance in the context of a Korean drama, and sadly, it was actually quite valid. Whenever we think about something romantic, it’s romantic due to the fact that the person that sets up the atmosphere sacrificed something to make it happen. Whether that something may be money, time, or even themselves, it was that giving of themselves that made it romantic and personal. What the surprising part of that blog was how he related it to our God and his loving sacrifice of Jesus. It’s the fact that the most beautiful romance of all is how God gave up his own son to rid us of our sins. When I look at this, I find my definition of love to be describable and maybe even tangible.

So you might be asking me, what is love to you? To me, love is being able to sacrifice anything, even if that may be saying things how they are or holding your tongue. Love is being able to go through the hardest times in life and knowing that that person will still be there. What does this have to do with anything? It’s the fact that we all need to wake up and smell the coffee. Every time we put ourselves in a relationship, we have nothing together in our own lives. What’s missing isn’t physical displays of your feelings toward each other, it’s the fact that you don’t understand how much God loves you to know what love is. I have yet to see a healthy relationship result from a lacking personal relationship with God.

I hear girls saying that guys are all the same, all the time. Yet, as soon as something ends with another guy some time passes and the next guy comes around is “different”. The reality is that guys are all the same. By nature, by birth, guys are and always will be stupid. With each broken heart, it makes me question if girls might be stupider. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that girls are stupid in any way but when it comes to relationships, girls seem to overestimate the capacity of the guy’s mind. If you’re lucky the closest you’ll get is a guy who thinks, “I can’t hurt her”. Inevitably, it happens, either the guy hurts the girl or…well the other way around. The sad part is that it was all preventable. It would be preventable when God becomes enough, and the girl starts playing the waiting game, waiting for the one that isn’t stupid, but loves God even more than he might love her.

It’s sort of sad now that think about it, the fact that I’m writing this blog post that is. You all probably think I’m love sick or something and the thought sort of entertains me, but honestly, I don’t really know why I’m writing this myself. I mean, I’ll be honest, I’ve been through all the motions before, but I’ve gotta say, I can’t be more glad that I’m single. There’s something about knowing that I don’t have to worry about “my entire world” crumbling one day or another that is oddly relieving. At the same time, I wonder how my friends are doing in their relationships, not the relationships with their girlfriends but more so their relationships with God. The quote on June Lee’s Facebook couldn’t have put it more perfectly, “A woman’s heart should be so lost in God that a man needs to seek Him in order to find her.” I guess that in a sense, I worry for both the girl and the guy, but from past experience I fear more for the guy. In both protecting himself but also knowing when to draw the line in any aspect of the relationship.

I hear so many people saying that the “feeling” was gone when they break up with “the one”, but I can’t help but wonder how many times it’ll take before that “feeling” isn’t enough to make them dive headfirst in what could be a waterless pool. So what if you like her, that she seems different from them all, what will she be like in a month, 2 months or even a year? Will she still look as amazing to you? Will she still seem as nice, loving, caring? Don’t kid yourself, something inside all of us makes us take a leap of faith, but what is our faith in? If it’s in the fact that we actually trust ourselves to act differently, love differently, and think differently we’re all doomed. What if you left your faith in the God that you’ve been ignoring all this time, the one who gave paid the ultimate price for you, the one who lived the ultimate drama, all for you?

At this point, I’m sure not even half of those that started reading are still reading; whether it be because of length, substance or pure disbelief. But I wonder, what if everyone thought like this, what if everyone saw the sacrifice it took to be in a real relationship? What if we could avoid all the hurt?

If you’re still wondering, this is what I see sacrifice as. To me, sacrifice is about not starting a relationship with those you love, sacrificing your own emotions, your own affections, to stop what you don’t know will work out or not, to save them the pain, to save them the time. What’s more romantic then that? Who wouldn’t want someone like that? Love isn’t about impressing someone, giving everything you have at any moment, it’s about knowing when it’s right to give, and more importantly, when it’s right to stand back and let that person live his/her life, while you do your best to live yours. For me, love isn’t something superficial, it’s the misunderstood concept that God shows us every day.

Whenever someone talks badly about the church, it’s as if we as Christians have a set of auto-responses. Whether we say that church is not a place for perfect people, or that non-Christians are just as bad, somewhere in the back of our minds we think, “Shit, what am I supposed to say…” At least I do. Being at Onnuri for the last 6 years has been the most bittersweet experience in my life. There are so many times where the church has hurt me, but at the same time there are just as many, if not more times, where it’s been there to bless me. Maybe this is why I’ve grown so attached to it and almost feel an obligation to make a difference as I see my last year dwindling, but this is what every single year has felt like before me, hasn’t it? It’s strange how I keep finding myself in the very same situations that past years have been dealing with even though I told myself that this year would be different, and it’s even weirder that I still haven’t done anything about it. On a larger scale, this is what’s been happening with the church for countless years. Either someone sees the problems that are happening or they don’t. If they do, they simply never get around to it and end up leaving. What do we as Christians prove when people feel more welcomed and safe around atheists than they do around “Christ-followers?”

It’s sad that I could even think about bringing our church together when I look at our class, and even we aren’t together. All the crap we talked about at PDYM, and how “close” we started getting is all bullshit that we pulled to trick ourselves into thinking that we’ve accomplished something “great” that “no other class before did.” Where are we now? We’re no better on a personal level than welcoming team is dealing with newcomers on a Sunday: there was absolutely no follow-up and we’re falling apart. And what about all the things we said about being the first class that actually got off its ass and made a difference that’d last? With school, apps and our own personal drama, we lost track of all the things we did and pretty much just got a little “spiritual high” that died as soon as we got back to Washington.

Honestly, I’m not quite sure where I’m going with this yet; it’s just that I’m frustrated with what’s happening to our church. With all the efforts to change the atmosphere and make it into a family, we seem to be losing more people than ever. The sadder part is that we still close off our circles and make it so no one is welcome. Maybe we’ll find one person to stay out of the 30 that visit but we lose the members that have been with us for years because after trying and trying they still don’t feel like they belong.

With all the implosion that’s been happening with the ministries at the church, I really wonder how many people actually see what’s been occurring. Even people that are or were in the inside of our church weren’t or aren’t feeling welcome or wanted. At what point have we gotten this bad? I always hear about how other churches are so much more welcoming than our church is, and that they want to leave our church, and I try my best to talk to them and work things out, because its those very people that actually see the problems that are within the church. The only problem is that none of them are willing to do anything about it. So what are we going to do now? How much can one person possibly do by talking to a couple people a week, trying to convince them to try and make a difference? Sometime last week, I came upon a situation where I used the stereotypical answer that church was meant for the most messed up of people, and the response I got was “If church was meant for broken people then who’s leading it to get anywhere?” That answer is obviously supposed to be God, but thinking about it twice I realized that there lied the problem. We weren’t relying on God nor were we in any remote way following him. We relied on ourselves and it all ended up in disaster. I feel like shit thinking about this because here I am, in a position where I’m looked up to but the character I depict at school is that of a total ass to others and of one who cusses regularly in my speech. If this is the case with our entire church, really where are we going to get?

At this point, everything just sounds hopeless, but it isn’t. What if we actually did something about it, instead of just talking about what’s happening? What if we did something to change things? Instead of just a Sunday thing, what if Christianity became a 24/7 thing like it should be? I get it, we have our lives to live, we have our own problems, but what if we took a moment to think about other peoples’ problems and really tried to understand their pain? What if we stopped judging and gave people a chance? Wouldn’t people stop trying to act like they’ve got it all together? Wouldn’t people be able to open up without the fear of gossip? It’s all stuff we’ve heard before, and it’s all stuff that seems way too “Christian.” But just stop for a second and think about your best friends. Isn’t this what they do, Christian or not? Not one of us is perfect, but it doesn’t mean that we have to be judgmental pricks that act like we have our lives all together on Sunday and then leave things the way they are during the rest of the week.

All the goals we set for the church, all the goals we set for ourselves, it means nothing that we thought about it, for the people that want to leave or have left already, the fact that you thought about them means nothing because they never got to know it or see it. I decided to wipe out all the goals and start over. I want to show people that my life is shitty, but because of my personal relationship with God, I can deal with it. God knows that my past has been anything but perfect and that everyone else is probably in the same situation. I know that there are plenty of people that want the church to change, maybe it’s time we all spoke up and did something about it.

I apologize for the lack of coherency and the pure madness in my grammar cause I’m way too tired for this and I sorta just pooped out thoughts all over this thing.

My name is Paul Mun and I’ve lived for 17 years, in the same house, in the same family , and in the same skin. For the last 17 years, minus a couple months, I didn’t know what happiness was. In fact, there’s a good chance I still don’t. I wish it were easy to frame the word happiness in a narrow description such emotions or innocence, but it occurred to me very early on that happiness isn’t quite that tangible.

Talking with my small group today, I came to face a scary reality, I can’t remember most of my life. I only remember bits and pieces that stuck out prominently. The rest is probably lodged under years of depression and suppression of the moments that I can’t stand to remember. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t completely emo, I had my moments of joy and cheerfulness, but most of it seems quite bleak after thinking about it.

In the movie, The Pursuit of Happyness, we see a little bit more than a misspelled title. We see Will Smith struggling to find a future with his young son. Well okay, more than just a future but he hopes to find success through an internship that he magically makes his way through.  As good and entertaining as that movie was, I fail to see the correlation between happyness and success. After all, we all have our moments of success but does that  magically make us happy? Or is it that he now has a steady income and doesn’t have to worry because he’s in control of his life? This is what makes me wonder. In my search for happiness, no matter if it was success or friendship or anything else that I gained, it was never enough to bring me happiness.

So what brings you happiness? Is it the clothes that you wear? The friends that you hang out with? The house you live in? If so I wish I could buy my happiness, too. Control, seems to be what brings us “happiness” as humans, being able to predict what comes next or what came and went, but what about all the stress that comes with control?

What I see in today’s world is an obsession over control that eats up the people that participate. What we gain from being in “control” is a series of regret that cycles itself over and over. What i noticed was that what made Will Smith “happy” isn’t what he controlled, but what he didn’t control. He let things take it’s own course while he did what he could to make the best out of the situations that were present, whether it be by extending call time at his job by not taking breaks or cutting off work early to get his son somewhere to sleep, he made the best of what he had to get to the next day. He had no control over what to do next but when he did, with buying the scanners, he regretted it later on and ultimately the scanners led to a divorce with his wife, starting the hardships form the very start.

Maybe its time we all let go of what we have “control” over and let things take their course. Ask yourself this. Just how happy are you, really? The fact that you might even doubt your “happyness” should tell you that something is wrong. Think about it.

Even though things like ooVoo and video messaging has become quite popular these days, what if it took over? In a world where technology is clearing milestone after milestone in breakthrough’s in a matter of days, this doesn’t seem very far off at all. Imagine knowing your friends through 2 minute video segments, knowing only their face and voice, and maybe what their room looks like behind them.

What is it that makes human relations long for physical encounters rather than just seeing them through an LCD screen or maybe an LED screen (if you’re up to date with your tech)? This puzzles me at the same time brings a sense of insecurity. What if I was never able to hang out anymore? If I was stuck in my room for the rest of my life, resorting to meager contact through videos and was never able to run one legged through mall in a race, or take jumping pictures, or twist my friends nipples? As sad as it sounds, I don’t think I’d be able to stay friends with the friends with the friends I have now. There’s just something about twisting nipples that makes friendship special.

As Americans, we throw the saying, “Out with the old, in with the new,” around a lot. But what exactly does that mean? In a way, I feel as if this is the problem with the world today, throwing away all that we’ve felt and experienced, when bad things happen, and getting a “new start”.

The reason I’ve started blogging again is because for the first time in years my brain is starting to run again. As I begin to see my life come together into the masterpiece that God meant it to be, I’m finally seeing the set of incoherent events come together to make a picture worth finishing.

So many times in my life, I’ve made the mistake of throwing away the old, the papers, the pictures, and the memories, that I feel as if I’m missing a part of my life; my history. I definitely feel a bit remorseful thinking about how little I can remember about my past, and about not having the evidence of my past to make fun of myself over. Luckily, what I’ve thrown away is only the beginning of what is and was to come. Keeping that in mind, I think I’m going to cherish the memories and embrace the pain that kept me up crying at night for the last year. If anything, to remind myself of how good our God is.

Walking through the next year, arm in arm with God and side by side with my friends, I’ll remember the things I said, the emotions I felt and pain I experienced but rather than just remembering everything that occurred, some things I’ll keep living and sharing.

My best friend, ever since we “decided” to be friends and the best friend I didn’t really notice was there until he started wearing tight bright clothes, thanks for being there for me through the last year and sharing your lives with me.

Wherever life takes me from here on out doesn’t’ really worry me much. As life gets harder and even more stressful than now, I won’t need to start over anymore, in fact, I never did.

Friends don’t get any better than this. Hahaha.