Her lips, her lips,
I could kiss them all day if she'd let me
Her laugh, her laugh,
She hates but I think it's so sexy.
She's so beautiful,
And I tell her everyday.
Oh, you know, you know, you know
I'd never ask you to change
If perfect's what you're looking for
Then just stay the same.
So don't even bother asking if you look okay
You know I'll say
When I see your face,
There's not a thing that I would change
Cause you're amazing just the way you are.
When you smile,
The whole world stops and stares for a while
Cause girl you're amazing just the way you are.
--Xiang An at 12:25 AM
Sunday, November 21, 2010
So Sick of Love Songs
Got to fix that calendar I have,
That's marked August 23
Because since there's no more you
There's no more anniversary.
I'm so fed up with my thoughts of you
And your memory
And how every song reminds me
Of what used to be
That's why I'm so sick of love songs,
So tired of tears
So done with wishing
You were still here
Said I'm so sick of love songs,
So sad and slow
So why can't I turn off the radio?
--Xiang An at 7:57 PM
Saturday, November 20, 2010
Motivations
The fight is tough. There's no doubt about it. The thing is, when you want to see that fight through to the end but just can't muster up that momentum to start going.
To leave things in the hands of God is frustrating. When you pour out your heart to Him and hear no words of comfort, when your heart is still unsettled, what does that mean? That there's something wrong with you spiritually?
It's a struggle. A really long, drawn-out struggle. A war of attrition that slowly takes its toll on me spiritually, emotionally and mentally. I'm so tired of this that I just don't want to think about it anymore.
It's hard, trying to find that motivation to get back in the fight. When you've experienced so many times where you've got yourself psyched up only to be brought back down in disappointment. Am I a leader, anointed by God to inspire those around me, or am I just kidding myself? More circular questions.
I know He's a God who holds no account, know that no sin is too great for Him to erase. What I feel is the weight of my chains still holding me back. My childhood experiences made me desperate for attention. My teenage years were spent trying to get that attention and being hated for it. It drove me to make some really stupid decisions and well, caused irreparable damage to both myself and those who had gotten too close. Now, the damage is that I just want to fade into the background, because there's no point in trying anymore.
It still affects me today, the want for attention and yet feeling like I'll screw up if the pressure is placed on me to perform. Hm. So sick and tired of debating this through in my head and ending up with more questions than answers. This is a mess I just have no idea where to start to get rid of it.
If you're the God who's nature is to have mercy... How do I feel that grace within me, then all I see are the chains of my past? --Xiang An at 11:53 AM
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Patience
The kind that means you wait for years. Or possibly way past the end of your life.
I've been struggling with the same issues over and over again I started to feel a little disillusioned with God. If He is God, why do I still feel the sting of old wounds? If He is God, why hasn't He healed my wounds and broken my chains?
Or have I been trying to fight this battle on my own the whole time? Or is it that God is giving me the strength to fight these battles? But what does it say about my lack of progress, so to speak, in moving away from falling into the same sinful crap?
Questions that go around in circles until the only option left is to live the plot of Shutter Island.
It's never fun when God leaves you in the fire and you're waiting for Him to bring you out of it. Ask Job, yet we must always remember the hope we have that the when we stand before the Lord, all our imperfections, worldly burdens and our sin will be taken away by the glory of His grace.
And yet, it's hard to look in the mirror and see the very man you despise staring back at you. It's hard to be around the people whom you wished saw you in a different light, and try to be natural. It's hard not to let your brokenness and the void within you drive your actions. Or is it just another step in God's process of refining us?
More questions going in circles. It's come to a point where every prayer feels strained, like the words are fighting to come out but just not getting out. Where every song feels hollow.
One of the songs in worship today was rather apt. "Have I drawn near with my lips, while my heart is a million miles away?" The honest answer was, "yes". No matter how normal things seemed or how people thought I was doing okay, I felt the disturbance within me, that unsettling feeling as if there's a war for my soul raging on in my heart.
And I wonder, where is the God who calms the seas and the storms, and why isn't He calming the storm within Him? Or am I not letting Him? Or is this storm one that I'll have to find my way through to find the answer. More questions going circles. My head is going to explode.
I don't want to think about it anymore. God's plan will be revealed in His own time, and His works in me completed on His schedule. I've got to learn to trust in that, and see that it is all I need to go through my days. The greatest men of faith in the Bible led pretty crappy lives and their decision to serve the Lord made them suffer, enough to make any man say, "What kind of a God are You?"
Yet, these are the same men who tell us that their sufferings are not even worth comparing to the prize that awaits them at the arrival of the day of the Lord.
Which could really suck for me while I'm here on this earth, but hey, I can't change God's mind anymore than I can make the oceans freeze over. So I guess the only thing is to pray, and be patient through all my trials and sufferings and know that God is there even when He feels absent.
Lord,
You know my heart.
You its brokenness, its every wound and scar.
You see how far it is away from You, yet Your love goes further still to bring it back.
And while I can never fathom Your ways or I may not feel Your presence, I know that You are with me. And that is more than anything I could ever ask for. Thank You.
Amen. --Xiang An at 8:02 PM
Saturday, November 06, 2010
Mirror to Our Souls
Ever had one of those moments where you're laughing along with a group of people, but yet you feel like crying? When you act like you're walking on sunshine but a war rages in your mind?
I've been feeling that way lately. All these thoughts, all these desires and things that I don't want to have... They come to me as surely as air comes in every breath I take. I yell at myself, berate myself for it, but who can truly control the birth of thoughts, who can truly spend a single day without thinking "what if"?
What if things had turned out different? What if I was a better person? What if I hadn't stopped going to church as a kid? What if I wasn't such a screw up?
I don't know, it's been really tough. A dry spell in my spiritual climate, if you will. Asking God the same questions day after day and not getting answers... or am I just oblivious when He does answer? How do I reconcile the person I am "supposed" to be as a Christian, and the person I am? How do I reconcile the fact that God promised that he will trade ashes for beauty, and yet I still feel the pain and shame of past hurts and the resulting insecurities that arose?
I wonder if God actually still cares for me or if He's about to open up divine judgment on me. I look at the depths of my heart, the core of my being, and it's the same darkness that was in me years ago. The same things that the Bible tells me God will replace with something far greater than anything on this world. Yet over the years nothing has really changed.
I want to be the cool guy. The popular guy who can sing, play the guitar really well, is really charming and all the girls adore me and the guys are jealous. As much as I scoff at the jocks in school, part of me envies the kind of attention they're getting.
I'm still the awkward third party in almost any room I'm in. I'm still very much the butt of God's cosmic jokes. Worse, I have to put up with it in the one place I perceive to my refuge: church. Guess there's not much to do about it since I'm the only guy (able to) attend church regularly... Meaning I have no choice but to endure being silently left out of the group while the girls gossip and share their inside jokes.
Which, ironically, was kind of why I left my previous church in the first place - I was alone, and it just didn't correspond to what a church should be.
How does one go on when everything I want to change about my life, isn't? I'm still wishing I could comfortable around the people I'm with. I still wish I wasn't dealing with the same sins and issues I've been dealing with from the very start.
What does being a child of God mean? I loathe myself for the sinful nature that keeps trying to take over, I reprimand myself for every little thought I entertain. Yet I find myself giving in, and feeling like the lowliest form of life on earth afterwards. The cycle repeats itself and the result? I'm beginning to lose hope - if I am truly a child of God, if I am saved by His grace, why aren't my chains broken? Why aren't my bonds set free, the cycle of sin broken?
--Xiang An at 1:25 AM