$100 from Aunt Merry...These are a few of my Korean things....

My nephew, Zachary, thought that it was his lucky day when he received a letter from Aunt Merry. In the letter was a 1,000 Won bill, except he thought it was $100. What a let down! Hopefully the froggie stickers made up for the disappointment. Personally, I think W1,000 sounds much better than $100...

There have been a few lessons God has taught me in the past 3 days. One of them involves a type of Korean candy that is a fusion of gum and taffy. It comes in Strawberry and Apple. It is delicious. Lesson #1: Don't eat the entire row of them at once. Just don't.

The second lesson was a little tougher to grasp. LISTEN. A friend of my mine revealed a truth that I needed to hear, but it stung. He spoke it out love and kindness, but I was too preoccupied with being defensive and scared; I didn't realize how important his words were. Instead of appreciating his honesty, I closed my ears and turned away. DUH. I'm not quite sure why I still do this, but it's annoying and is going to burn London bridge to the ground if I don't watch out.

God's heart is huge. I'm continuing to learn this and have to convince myself of this every day. Some days (like this morning) I don't feel like there is room for me to fit in His heart, but I always manage to squeeze in there (kinda like that Korean who ALWAYS manages to sneak in front of me when I'm standing in line at Home Plus or the train station.)

A good friend of mine lost her step dad yesterday. He was very important to her and was one of my substitute Dads. It is hard for me to be here and feel so helpless. I'm reminded that even though I am far away, love doesn't need a physical medium to travel (unlike sound waves). This also leads me to believe that love certainly shouldn't stop when we die. Love is like the radio station between here and heaven. It won't cease when our physical bodies are gone, and as long as we're tuned in, we can get that love station loud and clear. Poor analogy? I like it... "This is 100.7, your direct link to heaven." (You have now been exposed to the classroom humor of Ms. Bird) From an Aaron Shust song, When the world crashes down around me, I know You'll be there to pull me out from the rubble. My friend probably feels buried deep in the rubble. I just wish I could be there to help pull her out.

God provides. For me, He's provided friends who make me think (and who I hate a little in the process), friends to help me make sense of the other friend's advice, friends who teach me Korean, and friends who remind me who I am, even if we've only just met. He also provided me with a washing machine that sings a happy song to me when it is done with it's wash cycle. This is actually very important because if I didn't get praised afterward with a song, I'm not sure I would even do my laundry...

Tomorrow will be a better day, tomorrow I will water my plants, and tomorrow I will play with Rosa instead of staying up late to write a blog. :)