This quote definitely struck home. R.C. Sproul on the section titled “Marriage and Family” form the book Now, That’s a Good Question!; the question was “We see many problems in marriage today. What should make Christian marriages distinctive?”. Yes, it’s about marriage. It’s really strange how I came across this quote… I got this book from Systematic Theology I, and for some reason, as I was packing for the next six months of my life, I opened it up. And the strange thing is… this served to be the spring board for one of the most important entries I’ll write.

“Think for a minute about the gamut of emotions we go through in our friendships and our marriages. I’ve always said there’s no human being in the world who can make me more angry than my wife can. There’s no one in the world whose criticism can hurt me more than my wife’s because her opinion of me means more to me than anybody else’s. I have to know how to handle my emotions in that very volatile and vulnerable relationship. The Scriptures teach me that there is a difference between hurt and grief and bitterness. I’m allowed to be hurt. I’m allowed to grieve. But I’m not allowed to be bitter. I’m allowed to be angry, but I’m not allowed to let the sun go down on my wrath. The application of those principles that God gives to use goes a long way in helping us and many other people through these rough spots in human relationships.”

There had been so many instances this year when I’ve been bitter. And no… not as a husband is bitter to a wife… but you get the point. Bitter at a certain person, bitter at a group of people… Just plain stankin’ bitter.

Now the calendar year is ending… and as I look back at the past 365 days and realize my greatest struggle past year wasn’t pride, as it was years past… it was bitterness. Pride definitely comes in at a close second, but only because I don’t think I see how bitter I’ve grown at the world.

I have a feeling though… if I look deeper into the Word and into myself, I’m going to find that this bitterness actually sprang into life through my pride, but that’s going to take another year to sit through and figure out (AKA PRAY). Back to Josh Kim’s bitterness issue.

Bitter: “resentful because of one’s bad experiences or a sense of unjust treatment”

That really does take the words out of my mouth. Unjust… treatment. I really feel like I was… for a lack of a better word… “treated”. I got treated by life, by people, by circumstances. That’s what I feel… er… felt.

My pride won’t have me saying it, but man, am I hurt. I feel like I got stabbed in the face. Er… I felt. I felt like I got stabbed in the face… oh, who am I kidding. The wounds are still quite fresh. And for some reason, it seems like every few days, someone squirts lemon juice all over me to make it all so better. (And seriously… every few days… It’s not like I took the average of weird things over the period of the past 12 months… there were weeks when every few days things would just be amazingly out of place…) Actually, my pride did win out. I told no one. I retract that statement. I told a couple people how things were going, without going into details about who or what. And I told even fewer people the whole story. Here, I would make use of a mathematical function to denote how the more detailed I got with my situation there would be less people who knew about it… and how this is one heck of a steep curve… but we’ll move on.

The thing that really hit home the hardest from that quote… was how I am allowed to hurt… how I’m allowed to grieve. Someone please point me to some verses… I know I’m going to be scouring the Bible for some of these verses… Could it be that pride blinded me insofar I felt untouchable by such silly feelings? Did I feel like I had to live a Christian life, completely emotionless and detached from all of my pain and suffering, as long as I was catering to the needs of others?

In the end, all of this caught up to me. I’m still in denial as to how hurt I am… from all these relationships. I feel like if I say I am hurt, then it becomes weakness in my character: What’s more… If I say that I am hurt… I feel like I’ve failed at being a child of God.

And no, I’m not saying this through pride… I genuinely believe that I ran through my reserves of Love I had stockpiled in Junior year in trying to reach out and be NOT myself. Alas, if I was myself… I would have become… yeah, let’s not even think about how detached I would have become. If I’m hurt… no. I can’t even bring myself to think like that. And so… anger enters.

Why am I so weak?

Another reason why this verse hits me in the face with a 3-wood. This “wife” character, with her criticism and her ability to make Dr. Sproul angry. Where is this person in my life? No… not that I need a wife at this time (the funny thing is… someone has told me this before… okay… back to the point), but someone whose words I will treasure and put forth into action. Yes, the Bible is there, but where are my older brothers and sisters?

They got put into a box because of my bitterness? In reality… they really did… move on. And really… it’s just time to find new ones again. No, not be bitter towards the ones that have moved on, but prayerfully think of the words that they have told me in the past. Ugh… so weak, Josh Kim. So very weak.

I don’t want you people to be depressed as you read this. I just want you guys to know what I’m struggling with. And… even though I’ve looked through this post several times, things won’t make 100% sense to you… actually… things will make more sense to you, depending on how close you are with me. Regardless, just take things for face value. I most likely subconsciously left something in here… ugh… pride…

So what is my application? What will I do, armed with this understanding of myself and the Truth?

I actually have no clue. This stuff is pretty new to me. I don’t even know if it’s half true.

Regardless, let 2007 come. Alas, I will fight. Continue to help me stay faithful, God.

Yes, it’s still Christmas, so I can make up for not saying anything for the past 22 hours.

So… MERRY CHRISTMAS TO EVERYONE… who reads this…

I hope that instead of getting physical gifts, you got the intangible; the kind of gifts that stay with you for much longer than the 5th generation iPod (yes… one month is what I’ve been told) or that Fererro Rocher pyramid (at least with the pyramid of chocolate, you get a box you can put stuff in). And even if you got these gifts, it’s probable that within those clear plastic cases contains not only the ability to carry a bazillion songs or the ability to weight five pounds more but also love from your family and friends.

I know I’ve been shown this love, time and time again. I just hope that I can strive to be just as… actually… MORE loving to all of you. With that, I’m so happy Baby Jesus was born today. Thank goodness… actually… this time… “Thank GOD” that I can enjoy the freedom that comes from having this Love.

Thank you ALL. Even the people-who-forgot-what-my-name-is-but-I-know-their’s-and-also-their-xanga. I thank you for your love.

The New Year’s approaching. I know I’ve got my goals… goals to reach until then, and goals to make goals when the time comes.

I’m losing track of how many times I’ve been up to this great city. I finally found out just how windy this town gets while I was driving near Northwestern, when the car shook while at a red light. I was quite surprised.

Once again, much food was consumed, just like the last time I was in the city. Regardless of how expensive a deep-dish pizza can get at Gino’s East ($20… wow! At least it fed me for two meals… and I only had half of it…) or how amazing the wings at Buffalo Joe’s were (best wings… ever… at reducing the numbers of your life… taste-wise, also) or how interestingly familiar Pho was (even though I’ve never had it before) or how attractively packaged and priced the 짜장면 and the 탕수육 was (oh, how I miss Korean food… even though I have it all the time…), they were all great experiences that I will once again only dream about until the next time I go back to Chicago.

But alas, it wasn’t at all just about the food. I had a nice bonding time with a great friend of mine, John Kim. I was so thankful that him and his family took me in for a couple of days as I used Evanston as home base for a couple of days. Visited yet another library… not a bad library, but I’m still amazed at the Schaumburg one… And a very nice Sunday service at his home church, University Bible Fellowship.

Oh right, and the shopping. I did get to visit Woodfield once, but I got to visit Westfield AKA “Old Orchard” twice with John for Christmas shopping. It was a nice atmosphere, since it was a mall without innards; instead, it opted for a nice open-air environment with nice Christmas decorations all about. It did drizzle a bit the first time we went, but man, it was still very nice. Oh… and Woodfield gets just a bit smaller every time I visit.

Let’s see… I met up with Sharon, Jason, and Dave (my future roommate for a semester) for a movie at the theater in Woodfield. “A Night at the Museum” was a fun little movie… definitely a family slash Christmas-y movie. I definitely fell asleep for about a quarter of it though, seeing how, for some reason the entire time I was up in Chicago, I was dead tired…

I did meet up with Chuek at the Panera at Old Orchard. This kid… narrowly missing the 4.0… I felt so bad for him… and to see Shang with how little work he put into his semester pull off the four-oh… (No, Shang… I know you tried hard, you just play it off like you didn’t try, to seem cool… I know it’s all about your clever ploy to get the ladies) Yeah, but it’s so nice to see Chuek away from school… doing… school-ish things. That kid needs to rest a bit. I think I should send him to an uninhabited island, with NO books and NO internet. I hope he gets to rest up a bit before yet another semester.

Oh, and can’t forget the karaoke. This is definitely up there with consuming alcohol for some strange reason on the “vice-o-meter”. The way I pictured the atmosphere of the 노래방 is one of smoke-filled drunkenness. While it was definitely smokey to a certain degree… it was just all about having fun and trying to hit the high notes with passion. Oh the random pop songs of the 90′s… the disney favorites… the K-Pop hits… Yikes. Let’s list off some artists and songs… (Started off with Semi-Charmed Life… Deli Spice was somewhere in there… I had to sing Kim Jong Gook, as well as HOT… Sharon’s rendition of Britney Spears was well done… John pulled background singing duty for like 80% of the songs, which was hilarious… Definitely ended the night with “Bye Bye Bye”) All in all, I definitely found this to be an experience worth remembering. Definitely expensive… but too much fun. If only I could buy one…

Then I realized… it’s pretty much like DDR or Guitar Hero. It’s just another music game that I must conquer. It’s time to brush up… on my singing? Maybe later…

Another weekend, another set of lessons to chew on. Yummy.

I’m so sorry if I didn’t get to visit you. I didn’t really announce I was going up anyway. I might go up before UIUC’s break is over… just give me a place to live, and I’ll gladly take you out for a meal, wherever I haven’t been to. I’ll even share my life experiences with you, for all it’s worth. Double Yummy!

Never Ever. Not like the month breaks I’m used to from school. However, I am definitely enjoying the empty campus, and how I have to walk to work since there are pretty much no buses running (21 Quad Limited is the only campus one running…). It’s quiet… I like the empty WIMPE, I’ll tell you that. Finally, benches are open… but it really doesn’t have anything to do with me.

I guess the schedule goes something like this:

Thursday – Chicago. I’ll be staying with the Gwak.

Sunday – Cincinnati. Freaking 6 hour drive of fun.

Tuesday the Week After – Champaign/Urbana. Work work work.

Yeah, nothing special happening. I just like working… and getting paid to learn things.

Definitely starting to go sleep early, since I end up getting up at 7 AM. Whew… I guess this is how I gots to start rollin’.

Person A tells Person B something. Person B tells Person C that very same thing. Person A doesn’t know that person C knows. However, Person C knows Person A’s something.

Depending on how well A, B, and C know each other, as well as the importance of that something, situation changes.

What I realized in the past couple of days… if A, B, and C are that close to one another, then this issue shouldn’t matter at all.

Or, you can look at it this way: A should have gone to C. B, depending on what that something is, as well as the relationship to A and C, should have done something on that something. If not, C wouldn’t know at all. And thus, be living a lie.

It’s like out of one of those sappy movies… or everything made in Korea. How one person knows, but the other person doesn’t know that this person knows. And especially, within a GROUP of friends, I feel as though this really shouldn’t matter at all.

Like… if person A told person B something about himself, and person B goes around telling EVERYONE about those things, A would get upset. However, if C is a close friend to both A and B, and it actually that something pertains to C in some ways, then what the heck? Why didn’t A go straight to C? Why did A have to confide in B when A knew for a fact that A, B, and C are like brothers? However, who is B to say that this was meant to be shared with anyone else at all?

I think it really comes down to wisdom. Sometimes, B is an idiot, as was A to even expect such silly things from B. Or not. Maybe it’s B’s fault, 100%. But when B was handed that something, he had choices. For me, it comes down to discerning how important that something is. Now, this measurement of how important something is differs from people to people… and I think friends are made according to that “importance” scale, as well as many other areas.

Hmm. Lots of chew.