GROWTH, BY NATURE

“The proper rewards are not simply tacked on to the activity for which they are given, but are the activity itself in consummation.

…but we who have not yet attained it cannot know this in the same way, and cannot even begin to know it at all except by continuing to obey and finding the first reward of our obedience in our increasing power to desire the ultimate reward. Just in proportion as the desire grows, our fear lest it should be a mercenary desire will die away and finally be recognised as an absurdity. But probably this will not, for most of us, happen in a day; poetry replaces grammar, gospel replaces law, longing transforms obedience, as gradually as the tide lifts a grounded ship.”

— C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory (p. 27-28)

SWEET HOME PHILADELPHIA

On our drive towards the heart of Philadelphia to attend the newly married couple’s wedding reception.

The roads may have been icy but it was one of the ‘warmest’ days all year.

“There are only two ways to live your life.

One is as though nothing is a miracle.

The other is as though everything is a miracle.”

— Albert Einstein

WEDDING IN NARNIA

Donny & Angela Cho, married 02.06.10 at Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill, PA

“And we, who with unveiled faces

all reflect the Lord’s glory,

are being transformed into his likeness

with ever-increasing glory,

which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.”

— 2 Corinthians 3:18

TOGETHER IN THEIR 50's

I think I’m finally hitting that god-forsaken age after the spoiled stages of childhood, the rebellious stages of teen-hood, and the independent stages of college and young adulthood when I mean it when I say that I love being home and that I sincerely miss my parents when I’m back at school. It’s really quite sad that the only thing I feel moved to blog about these days are my parents and their relationship, but I’m so thankful for them and their labor of love; and the way it’s constantly making me reflect on the reality of God’s love for me exemplified through my parents’ love in my life… brings me to tears just thinking about it.

In God’s own word’s, life is best lived as a poor beggar brought in to eat at the King’s table and to live in the riches of a prodigal King, disciplined by thankfulness for the rest of the beggar’s life, than left alone as a spoiled child, a rebellious teenager, or even an independent adult outside the palace walls. What’s more moving than to know the King himself, or rather that He knows you, when you yourself “were dead in your transgressions and sins…” – dead man walking, busy with work and life and friends, apathetic to most things outside ourselves – “…but because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God…” (Ephesians 2:1-8)

Malcolm Gladwell, in his book Outliers, suggests that 95% of who we are as a person is outside of our control. That includes our geographical location and our genetics, both determined by birth (i.e. my parents). The rest left to personal choice. I want to choose… a disciplined life of thankfulness for the gifts God’s given me, the greatest of all being Christ (as emphasized over and over in that small passage alone), remembering to look back at what’s past, to look around to what’s given, and to look forward to the incomparable riches of his grace to come.

HAPPY 50

My mom watering the bouquet I gave her for her 50th birthday–
I think my little brother put the flower in her hair. Too cute.

The look on her face when she walked in and found the family unexpectedly waiting at the table for her… I could re-live that moment over and over again. Five minutes of a surprise to see a smile on the face of someone who’s sacrificed their entire life for you.

My definition of priceless.