open doors.

May 2007 I decided to follow Michael W. Smith and "go west" (yes, I just made a 90's Christian music reference). Sight unseen, my mom and I packed up my Jetta and drove 3 days across the country for an adventure that I never could have written myself.

One of my friends tells me that my move 3 time zones from everything I'd ever known was a huge step of faith. I'm not sure how much faith it took as much as God opened this door and closed all others. In one day, I had gotten an email in Ohio at college that I gotten the internship I had applied for while my mom, in upstate New York, talked with my high school basketball coach who "happened" to have a sister with a home she was willing to share with a random college student for 3 months. The door couldn't have been more open.

At the end of 3 months, the idea of staying so far from everything had become easier, but I was still dating a boy who was on the East Coast and didn't want to outstay my welcome with my generous hosts. In a week, my part-time radio job became full time, I found a place I could live on what I was making and the boy I was dating and I broke up. Again... couldn't have been more clear. This was the place.

Paul calls God "Him who is able to do immeasurably more than we could ever ask or imagine" (Ephesians 3.20). The last five and half years have not been smooth sailing. I've made some downright terrible choices that I wish I could do over. But instead of a magical time machine, God has given me an incredible chance to learn from those mistakes and be used through them.


So here at the end of the year, I think of the monologue that Samwise Gamgee tells Frodo in the Lord of the Rings... that the great ones... the people we tell stories about... they had plenty of chances to turn back. But they didn't. They took risks and did things that didn't make sense. I don't want to live a life that ends just "fine"... instead, I want to take opportunities, even if they aren't what I had planned, that are once-in-a-lifetime-doesn't-feel-real kind of chances.

2013 will start with big... scary... and unbelievable changes.

I've been through doors like this before.
And I wouldn't change a thing.

broken.

This has been a tragic week. Reports of two senseless acts of violence that left multiple people dead, families without loved ones and countless people confused and searching for the answer to the question, "why?"

Portland faced a shooting at the Clackamas Town Center that took the lives of two people and the gunman and left a city in confusion. Today in Connecticut, possibly up to 20 kids lost their lives at an elementary school when a man opened fired there with what one report said must have been "hundreds of rounds."

The New York Times coverage described the kids outside as the situation was being handled as "visibly upset." They win for understatement of the year.

Christmas is when we celebrate Emmanuel - God with us. A child came to the world in a story we've all heard in church or at least in the Charlie Brown Christmas Special. People - then and now - were and are searching for a Savior to rescue us from a lost and broken world.

And He has come.
But it's not the way we imagine. It wasn't what Israel was hoping for in their Messiah either. He didn't come and conquer the terrorizing reign of the Romans. And He doesn't come today in a blaze of glory, keeping every bad thing from ever happening even though we wish He would.

He came as a child. Grew up a carpenter and died on a cross where we now decide whether to believe that He is who He said He is. We put our faith in Him - not as Superman who rushes in to save the day when things go wrong, but as a doctor who has ultimately saved us from the disease of sin.

So today, we mourn. We are confused. And we hurt for families that we may have never met.
But at the end of it, we still trust that God is still who He says He is - Creator and Savior of the world. He's big enough for our questions, our doubts, our arguments and, today, our confusion and hurt.

gift.

I grew up a luckier kid than you. Sorry. It's just true.

Here's why. I got 2 birthdays.
Well. Sort of.

Today is my airplane day. I was adopted from South Korea and today, 26 years ago, my parents drove to New York City and picked up their Christmas gift for the year.
(It was me... in case you hadn't picked up on that yet.)

Every year, I look back, grateful for my parents and for the life that I know is a complete and total blessing. I can't help but look at what I have, where I am and who I've become and realize that God has had a hand in all of it, from the very beginning.

Because I could have grown up in another country...
... with a different family
... with a different religion
... and never met you.

I think this adoption thing has always given me perspective on how God orchestrates even just one small Korean kid's life. He's been taking care of me from the beginning, before I even had a concept of God.

So today, I'm grateful for my parents - who took a huge risk with their hearts to bring this Korean kid into their family, my sister - who was so excited to get a little sister and has been worried about me ever since, my family - who never treated me like anything but a part of things, and my friends - who are a gift to get to do life with.

Today's a gift.
And if God cared about a 3 month old Asian kid... He cares about you. You matter.