Wedding Bells! =)

On June 10th it was Lissah and Alex's wedding! =) CONGRATS to them!! :D
(You can skip my rantings and go to the main section: IT'S TIME FOR UNITY! :)

A few days prior God was reminding me that we are in a New Season. A New Day. A New Start. I posted a song about that on facebook as well as Aimee's painting of a wave with the verse, "The Old has gone. Behold the New has come." Then at Bible Study the night before we talked about Love and how maturity is measured by love and how to love you need to be vulnerable, self-less and giving...

So that night was the night before Lissah's wedding... I wanted to go for the wedding but I wasn't invited and I understood why, it was a meant to be a small wedding so she was just inviting her close friends and I hadn't really been in her life this past year, which made me sad :( But thankfully we did get to meet up and talk a little towards the end of Spring quarter but I never asked about going to the wedding. So after Bible Study, I remembered that to love means being vulnerable and I wasn't vulnerable with her about my desire to attend her wedding or how I'd missed being in her life all year. Earlier that day I found out that Nathan and Diane were going to drive to San Diego for the wedding the next morning so I thought to myself: Maybe I should ask Lissah if I could go drive with them and just be in the background during the wedding since I didn't know anyone who was going just for the reception. So I went to facebook to write her a message about it but then I was like I should text her instead... but I never did. What kept me? False humility thoughts: I don't want to disturb her the night before her wedding. But I still wanted to go (my heart's desire) but my selfish thoughts kept me from following my heart.

The next morning I woke up still debating it in my mind and I decided to go whether or not I asked her.  That decision made me happy and excited for the wedding. I remembered that Nathan had said that they were going to leave after Diane's class... I thought he said 12.30 but I guess I was wrong. I just had to text them and see if I could get a ride with them but NOOOO! that was too big a task for me. Instead of texting right when I woke up I decided to get ready for class. I was going to be late for class so I rushed. I was soooo in a hurry that I couldn't text her on my way to class -__- So I got to class and I was sitting there then my phone rang (Yvonne was calling) and for some reason I felt like going outside to answer it but I just silenced it and sat through the lecture. After class ended at 12.15, is when I decided to quickly text Diane and ask for a ride... as I was on my way to the library to pick up books for my class which I could read in the car ride. I got the books then rushed home to get ready. That's when Diane text back and told me that they had already left :o which is what I feared. So I texted back, "No probem. It's my fault I should have asked you earlier." All my excitement for the wedding was drained then I was like "Oh well. It's not like I was wanted there. And there's other people who were not going to be there as well." But that didn't make me feel any better. I felt worse when I realized it is a BIG DEAL that Lissah and Alex were getting married. Yes weddings are big deals and Alex and Lissah were getting married!!! Yet what I gave priority to was my class and books... I was procrastinating putting my heart out there (asking Lissah or asking for a ride to a wedding I wasn't invited to) coz there was a risk of rejection. And that also made me realize how many times I choose a selfish easy distraction  over a relationship with someone. For example I remembered how I didn't go to  Diane's farewell zoo day that our Bible Study put on so that I could study. Why these trends? Selfish thought process: I care for these people more than I've expressed so I'm really nothing to them so my presence doesn't really matter. But my heart says otherwise that's why I'm always heart broken as a result of following my selfish thoughts.

And yeah, after I came to this realization I became really depressed. I'm such a bad friend! I suck at life =( So I went back to bed to beat myself up some more... but yeah I was just dwelling on the negative thoughts but after a while I forced myself out of bed to try and fix the situation... Maybe I could catch a ride with someone else who hasn't left yet! =) So I asked Diane and the only other person she was aware of was Christie but she was in Thousand Oaks... at that time I was desperate; I was willing to take the bus or train to meet Christie there... but Christie had already left as well. If I took a train to San Diego I'd miss both the wedding and reception. So I was out of options :/ Yvonne called me back and told me it was Trevor who had called earlier. She told me after his bath he randomly decided to pray for me which was touching since I was having a bad day so far as a result of my decisions. But yeah, after that I decided to be positive: I can't do anything about the past so what can I do now to show love?
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IT'S TIME FOR UNITY

So I made the photo message above and posted it on facebook. And it's funny coz after I made it I looked at it and God highlighted the fact that Lissah is African American and Alex is half white and half latino. Then with the verse that I had on there: "Therefore what God had joined together let no one separate" the theme of unity (racial reconciliation) came up. And that's when I realized why God wanted me to go to the wedding... even though I thought that my presence didn't make a difference... God wanted me to follow my heart (the way of love) coz just being there would be reconciling me to my InterVarsity friends :) And also if I was there I would have taken pictures and video of the wedding and therefore being a historian which would have been of service to those who could not make it to the wedding. So my role was to love, serve and give whether or not I was invited to. So that conviction really struck my heart and I felt so immature when it comes to love and I became aware of more times in the past marked by this type of immaturity. But God has grace and He is my redeemer and restorer.

Anyway, a few weeks after that was the Trayvon Martin/ Zimmerman case and it came to my attention that Trayvon was black and Zimmerman was half white and half latino. Then I found the significance of why God highlighted Alex and Lissah's ethnic identity and the significance of their wedding, which is: God is creating unity, "One New Man." Unity is super-important especially in the church coz it will act as a weapon against the devil's main goal: disunity ("devil" means divider); and that is how the church will transform the culture and impact the world, through displaying this unity by and for Christ. God has been doing a lot in InterVarsity... He kept giving us Isaiah 61:1-3 through different people... yes He is causing racial reconciliation to happen for the glory of His name! Yay it's time! For unity. Time for Revival =) Church, let's arise and unite and give God all the glory! =)

This post reminds me of this song and what Moriah Peters sung in the end: "Ebony, ivory, living in perfect harmony." =)

They will know us by our love :-)

Lissah and Alex's wedding had another significance... the marriage of the Lamb (Jesus) and the bride of Christ (the church) is coming soon!!! It reminded me about a post in my drafts about the Wedding banquet of the Lamb which I learnt stuff through watching a video of my sister's wedding... So yeah I'll get on that sometime... hopefully soon. Peace! =)