"Live your purpose."

Literature adds to reality, it does not simply describe it. It enriches the necessary competencies that daily life requires and provides; and in this respect, it irrigates the deserts that our lives have already become.

C. S. Lewis 

I am so overly blessed by school that sometimes I can hardly keep my inspiration at bay. I attended a Christian school once before, from Kinder through 2nd grade, but spent the rest of my education in public school.

Which is why the contrast between the experience of my undergrad and my experience in graduate school thus far is so incredible. To have been immersed in a secular sphere and have to tiptoe around my faith, trying to figure out which battles to fight as well as finding the courage to do so or the humility to not was difficult and tiring.

More often than I would care to admit, I faltered. I compromised. I fled. And that isn't to say that it wouldn't have happened if I had stayed in a Christian school. Even I know the pitfalls of staying within a Christan bubble and I have seen the damage it has done to many of my friends. But it is to say that I faced the trial of many lonely days without much support and not knowing who I could really trust to be myself around.

Which led to my confusion over who I really was in general.

I stumbled around for years trying to get my bearings in life; constantly in flux between who I was on Friday and Sunday and who I was the rest of the week. And it wasn't until I graduated from high school that I was able to separate myself enough to start fresh.

My undergraduate years weren't any more filled with Christian brotherhood nor were they any less filled with religious intolerance. I mean, I'm a part of the generation that first voted on Prop 8, so I've been knee deep in the religion vs. morality argument for most of my life. But it's easier to remove yourself from the argument when you only see your peers twice a week and can submerge yourself in a church bubble.

So, when I started my Master's program and my Professors openly expressed their faith in class, one of them even praying that we would glorify God in all of our discussion and might seek to honor Him with all of our endeavors, I was moved. And I am continually moved.

Every day I go to school I am reminded of how much of a blessing going to a Christian school really is. For so long my beliefs have been ostracized from the classroom, often deemed unfit for academics because they are based on faith and not "accepted" fact. And even when they come into discussion  for whatever reason (an author's religious background, a time period's religious persecution etc.) they are often causes for scrutiny. A reason for their inadmissibility.

But at school now? At school we can actually address religion without crippling it. We do not, by any means, skew everything in favor of the church. We don't suddenly agree with the puritanism practiced in Hawthorne's novels or praise Harriet Beecher Stowe on her "good Christian morals". But we can look at their work in its entirety, including religion as a valid theme, and even learning something from it.

I find that the novels I once read in public school...they take on new meaning because I see them fully and am not afraid to bring up allusions to Christ that are present. Moreover, there is no one in class heckling me for bringing them up, saying that I only see them because I'm a Christian. I can be myself.

That's the biggest blessing I see from all of this. I can be completely and utterly myself.

A Christian. That loves the Lord. That strives to glorify Him with everything I do. Someone who wants to give that glory to Him and Him only. That's who I am.

Praise God.

"One Day..."

On August 11, 2012 I wrote down a list for myself. It had no deadline, but it was also not a suggestion. It was a list of things that I was demanding of myself. I wanted to build myself up to be the type of person this list talked about.

But I forgot about this list once I came home. I forgot it existed, until today when I was thinking about all the things I have allowed to resonate within me. All of the lies I have told myself, all the assumptions I've made...I forgot.

So, now I need that reminder and more than that I need to be held accountable to this list, because I still want to be the type of person that is on this list. I need to open myself up and pray for God to change me into her. For God to shape me into her.

So, here it goes:

One day...

I will stop comparing myself to others.

One day...

I will stop looking at myself as a mistake, and instead as something made with purpose.

One day...

I will believe in myself as much as those who love me do.

One day...

I will stop looking for "him" and instead let "him" find me.

One day...

I will find something worth writing about.

One day...

I will figure out how to interpret the signs.

One day...

I will dance like there is no one watching.

One day...

I will believe those who believe in me.

One day...

I will stop looking for approval.

One day..

I will see myself through God's eyes and not my own.

And one day...

I will be fearless.

"I suppose we'll start at the beginning..."

Hello,

My name is Aarika and this is me.^u^

In a nutshell? I am...
a Christian,
a Filipino-American,
twenty-three (nearly twenty-four),
the eldest of three,
a first year grad student at CBU,
and....

also not the type of person to ever talk "in a nutshell" haha.

Honestly?

I'm a story-teller. I enjoy explaining and telling people stories that make them laugh, cry, and...sometimes look at me funny. I picture things in vivid color and hear the soundtrack of every day life.

I'm a writer, or at least I hope to be one day and, more than that, I hope to write about something important. Something worthwhile and meaningful and worthy.

I grew up in a religious Filipino household, not unlike other Filipino-Americans in my generation. But my home was not typical, by any means. For one, I was born into a Christian (Not Catholic) household, the granddaughter of two pastors and one of the many in a large crowd of church workers. And two, my father, though born in the Philippines, grew up as an American and now has no accent, very few memories of his life in the Province of Eastern Samar, and a completely Western mindset. Therefore my home was an incredibly unique mix of American logic and Filipino emotion and pride.

I like to think of it as getting the best of both worlds, while also getting an insight into the worst of both. It has allowed me to touch base with both cultures and kept me at arms length same time, which has had its benefits and its drawbacks. But, more importantly, it has led me to always come back to writing about that duality, the constant search for identity and self. I feel like this kind of complicated history is the growing plight of future generations and so I write very often of that.

The kind of loneliness that can often come from it as well as the fulfillment from finding bits and pieces of who you could have been or who you could possibly be.

I'm the eldest of three, with a younger brother and a younger sister, which means that I have been instilled with an intense sense of responsibility as well as the tendency to take on and dish out heavy guilt on a daily basis.

My siblings and I don't always get along, but we love each other. Sometimes it's hard to see and hard to say, but it's the truth. At the end of the world we will always choose each other. 

We will always protect each other. And no matter who enters our lives, at whatever point they enter, we will always love each other in a way that we will never love anyone else. Which is the way it should be, in my opinion.

Now, at twenty-three years old, I find that I am in that interesting phase of my life where I have lived and not lived at the same time. I am both incredibly young and not young anymore, which is part of the reason why I started this blog. I'm starting to realize the plight of the "twenty-something" and seeing how there is a necessity for a perspective shift on my part.

My father said to me, when I began my graduate program at Cal Baptist and was relaying to him how intimidating my classmates were, to, "start looking at yourself as one of them, you could be them in a year or so." And he was right, I needed to stop seeing myself as so young, stop talking about myself like I was so old and just be my age. Take the lessons God has taught me and be present enough to apply them.

One day, I want to be a teacher. My ultimate dream is to finish this program, get my degree and go abroad and teach. Go back to the Philippines...do work. God's work.

But I'll never get there if I don't start really being present for my life. At this stage I have a lot to combat with: the overwhelming sense of failure that so many my age deal with as well as the arrogance we "twenty-somethings" all share is a recipe for psychological, emotional, and spiritual chaos. But there is only so much I can actually worry about and the stuff that I can't? Well, didn't I say my God is limitless?

He is. He is limitless, therefore I have to stop undercutting Him with my self-doubt and my self-deprecation and just trust Him.

I have learned so much so far in my life, but never anything as important or pressing as the need to trust God. Every day God reveals just a little bit more of His plan to me and every day it pulls me a little bit more into territory that I am unfamiliar with.

I can tell you that over a year ago I had absolutely NO intention of ever going abroad. I wanted to live, serve, and die in my comfortable life with my amazing family in the church I grew up in, here in California. And then I went to the Philippines all for the sake of just taking some time off of school and...and God gave me something that I still can't fully articulate.

He gave me an understanding of what it truly means to pick up my cross and follow, no questions ask. To see what is really necessary in life and what things are an absolute privilege. What should be appreciated and not taken for granted. 

And so now, I'm just chugging forward, taking those realizations and trying to apply it to my life. To glorify God in everything that I do and thank Him for giving me the opportunity to do everything I have done. That's all I really can do.

Which is it. That is all there is to know about me. In a nutshell. Haha =)

Until next time.

-Aarika