In my wrestling and in my doubts

In my failures You won't walk out

Your great love will lead me through

You are the peace in my troubled sea

You are the peace in my troubled sea

In the silence, You won't let go

In my questions, Your truth will hold

Your great love will lead me through

You are the peace in my troubled sea

You are the peace in my troubled sea

My Lighthouse, my lighthouse

Shining in the darkness, I will follow You

My Lighthouse, my Lighthouse

I will trust the promise,

You will carry me safe to shore

Safe to shore

Safe to shore

Safe to shore

I won't fear what tomorrow brings

With each morning I'll rise and sing

My God's love will lead me through

You are the peace in my troubled sea

You are the peace in my troubled sea

Fire before us, You're the brightest

You will lead us through the storms

one more week/it's been a gd summer

saying bye to delia on saturday was more difficult than i thought it would be. i think it was the first of the many goodbyes/seeyoulaters that i have to say over this last week in sg and it hit me that leaving again is going to be a challenge. this is the third time leaving for the states, and i thought it would get easier. it definitely will be, knowing what to expect and how the year will look like instead of going in blind the first time i left, but the apprehension and anxiety still hits me all the same. after service, delia came behind me and scared me. i was glad to see her. it's always good to see her. i took out the card i made out of paper and pages from a cooking magazine and gave it to her. she offered me a hug and i gladly accepted. i know that touch isn't her primary love language but she knows it's one of mine. she said to keep in touch. i nodded. i think i looked like i was about to cry. she held me and i let myself lean on her for a while and felt really sad. 

i have never been the best at goodbyes. i know how important good goodbyes are though. i have a friend who is terrible at goodbyes, like at times not even wanting to acknowledge it, perhaps in some sort of escapism, and it makes the parting lack any form of closure. i remember parting with her once, and how it was so very sudden and abrupt. she had dropped me off somewhere after our last meeting, and she said bye as though it was any other day. i sat in the mall and cried after she left. i would insert a good example of a good goodbye here. but i currently can't think of anything. 

a huge part of me wants to get on a plane right now and head back to chicago quietly. the anticipation of leaving is often much harder than the leaving itself. 

but the summer has been a good one. being home this time reminds me how sg is really still home. i'm reminded of God's goodness, and how He has seen me through the past 20 years of my life - recalling shared memories with all the people i love, and catching up with them too, and realizing how easy it is to take for granted them being in my life. there are so many friendships that i don't deserve, yet He has brought them my way. i don't understand the kind of patience some of my friends extend to me, and why some of them still stick around. i'm all the more thankful, and i yearn to be as good of a friend to others like they are to me. it's time to go back to school and make art.

what my summer looked like:
(warning: influx of photos/also sidenote photos only show the fun parts of summer there were definitely difficult moments perhaps i'll write another time but these are merely the good parts)

1. cfw

2. hanging in chicago

3. japan

4. church camp

5. teaching

6. hope and sonia coming over

7. catching up with friends

i'm thankful.

i wish you a wonderful week ahead.

dated: 9 August 2015

 photo credit: Hope

photo credit: Belle

there are fewer poignant moments than last night - sitting by the dam with friends I've come to know so deeply over the past year. I lay next to Tricia, who had just gotten a life changing boy haircut that makes her look so badass and cool, under the night sky. I could count the number of stars. Our city is too bright. The water spread out beneath us, with the reflection of street lamps and flickering of lights on small boats. The beach wasn't the prettiest sight, with washed up rubbish left behind by the tides that had receded - car bumpers, driftwood, trash, bottles, cans - and amidst all these, rats scurried about, seemingly busy. Sonia came and sat beside Tricia, hope and Ryan were taking a walk somewhere down the pavement, belle and Joseph were next to Sonia. prior to this, Joseph and Tricia were attempting to skip rocks. But the rocks by the shore were huge boulders that mostly just plonked into the water body, sinking deep down instantaneously. Sonia and belle attempted to take photos of them. I think it was too dark though, I tried. I balanced on the rocks, some shaky, at times stumbling. I watched, as my friends continued with the picking up of huge rocks and plunking them into the water. I crossed the two roads to the other side of the water and sat by myself. There is something about water, there always has been, that makes my heart still a little, letting peace in a little, and I feel like the world stops. 

Tricia sat down beside me and I told her that sitting by the dam felt like sitting by Lake Michigan, but different. Lake Michigan feels more lonely, the dam felt local and home yet along with home comes the noise of familiarity, the baggage that growing up in a place leaves - weights on your shoulders and a strain in your knees. But it's home nonetheless. The peace in Lake Michigan is liberating, and of independence, yet there is a sense of foreignness and loneliness that is hard to rid. I'm always thankful for water bodies though. I'm somehow always attracted to them - the gentle ebbing of the waves, the way the waters reflect yet blur things, making them at times more beautiful and enigmatic, the sound of the waters crashing on the shores or the rocks that fit perfectly in the gaps of conversations, that soothe the pains of misunderstanding, that fill the loneliness, albeit temporarily.