I'm home in Fresno.
Avoiding some things.
easing into some things.
diving into FIRM again, and UPC too, to a lesser extent.
spending lots of good time with my family.

I just came home from a day on the lake, where we wakeboarded and tubed and swam our hearts out. We went with some old family friends.
I'm tired.
I'm always tired.

I had a little self-satisfying cry when we came home from the lake. I'm just so bad. I'm so bad at anything related to strength or athleticism. I tried and tried to get up on the water but just kept getting pulled straight over out of those boots.

When we got in the car to go home Kyle congratulated me on actually being a good sport. which served to just piss me off more. before i was frustrated and a little withdrawn. after he said that, oh, and telling me that i had just done a Nathan Berend (one of his friends who really is a good guy, but it really wasn't helpful)

anyways. i'm mad at my brother and i'm feeling sore and out of whack. its so easy for me to get out of sync with normal life. Sharon says that that's normal, and she felt out of sync with society for a long time after she came back from Korea.

Its pretty selfish though. and wallowing never gets sympathy, which is really what i'm craving.

So I picked up Donald Miller's Blue Like Jazz. That book changed my faith in High School. I've read it plenty of times since then, and loaned or given it to probably all my friends. The way that he talks about Jesus and God, it soothes my soul. The shared reality of faith and life and doubt. Of talking about Jesus with friends. Of important realizations. This Jesus-guy who came down and dwelt among us. Its pretty amazing. and i love him. and i see him in the Gods Asian Youth Group girls. I see him in the staff and clients of FIRM. Its so much easier for me to see Jesus in Hmong and Lao faces than anywhere else.

Its right about at the God dwelling among us, living our experiences, that I put my book down, and ask/command God.
but your dad didn't leave your family for another.
your dad didn't leave you, forget you, ignore you, replace you.
your dad didn't choose your former children's ministry director over you.

mine did.

how do i know that you won't leave. that you won't find someone else that's better.
i understand that you love me now, that you have always loved me, but how do I know that that's gonna stay. and how can you be in That?

its almost like i have to surround myself with people who I know you love, who I see your care for and concern for and devotion to, in order to even continue to remember You.

I don't trust people. I don't open up to people in order to make new friends. I try to avoid the surface fake stuff, because I still have my high-school era disdain for inauthenticity. But I don't have the trust or the guts to be authentic to everyone. I'm generally removed and probably judgmental. and i never have anything to talk about. i do hate though, when i talk and people laugh at me for talking too intelligently. thus, it takes me a while to have everyday conversations.

except with my high school girls. thank God for his grace. it amazes me that I get to be a part of their lives, and even an agent of Him, in spite of everything.
and i get to keep working at FIRM. and seeing His Love work amazing wonders.

i don't know. its like whenever i stop and really think about it, God and my fathers choices are irrevocably tied together. And I love Jesus for bringing me through all that, and Being with me during the worst of it. But I'm still so scarred. and i feel like they're always gonna be there, and i feel like i should be over it by now, seeing as i have a completely different relationship with my father now, (which is almost miraculous in and of itself, except when he completely disappoints me all over again)
and my dad just wraps himself with biblical language, and rights and wrongs, and prays so much, and runs a ministry. but he still lies. and he still says he'll do things that he doesn't follow through on. so how...? i dunno. how am i supposed to have the deep faith that is in all parts of my life?
because all deep questions run back to my father. and his selectivity in his participation in my life.
and no real answers ever seem to surface.
no matter how many times we have this conversation with tears welling in our eyes.

i do know about God's feelings on:
the oppressed
the hungry
the aliens
the widows
the orphans
the prostitutes
the sick
His World

thus, i still want to do humanitarian work for the rest of my life. maybe to help me figure out where i'm going, where God's moving. maybe for deeper spiritual reasons than that. maybe not.

ps: this is why i need to blog more regularly, so I don't post seven blogs all in one. sry