Happy New Year

Wow.

It’s 4 days into the New Year… I can’t believe it’s already 2007.

2006 finished on such a rollercoaster ride…

The last weekend of 2006, I was at our Youth Retreat as a counselor. Our theme was “Visionquest: Finding God’s Plan For You.” I kind of came up with the theme, because I wanted our Youth kids to start thinking about the fact that their lives have meaning… and regardless of what their grades are like, I wanted them to start thinking about what they want their lives to be about, or more importantly… what they think God wants their lives to be about.

We had limited room and so we had to split the group up. The Junior High School kids were in a separate lodge that was kind of like a bed and breakfast. We chose them to go to the bed and breakfast, because they tend to be better behaved than the senior high school kids who can get kind of rough… And I stayed with them along with 3 other counselors. It was kind of cool to have a house full of my little brothers and sisters… although it was more like a house full of my loud and boisterous kids… These kids NEVER SLEPT. Which meant that… I never slept…

But the truth is I really enjoyed spending time with them and sharing stories with them. And it was really fun to split up the boys into Korean speaking and English speaking, because in the mornings when we did our Quiet Time, I got to lead the Korean speaking kids in Bible Study… in Korean! Which was actually a first for me. I’ve done it during a Bible Study, but never an entire Bible Study. There’s nothing quite so precious as listening to kids read the Bible out loud in their own language… in my own language…

I also saw how much these kids looked up to the older leaders in their lives. They soaked up our stories and our attention like little sponges… and it was just such a loving atmosphere… other than the times I threatened to sit on them if they didn’t go to sleep…

My favorite funny moment of the Retreat… Young Hyo, a little 6th grader who looks like a little kid… is hanging out with me and my fellow counselor, Mike… and he asks me, “Kevin, were you alive when they had slaves in America?”

?????

I fell on my bed laughing and so did Mike… but after a while, Mike explained that slaves were in the 1800’s. And Young Hyo says, “Ohhhh, I thought it was like 50 years ago.”

WHAT???? WHAT???????

We started laughing even harder! And Young Hyo realized what he was saying and started laughing, too!

Kids… I wish we were allowed to beat them. Hah!

But the greatest part of the Retreat was the 2nd day… which always seems to be true of any Retreat. Before and after dinner, we had some free time… so I spent my time initially writing letters of encouragement to the different kids in the Youth Group. Including counselors, I think I ended up writing close to 65 letters. And then I started calling over different people from my normal Bible Study Class… and I told them how proud I was of them… and how I wanted them to know that they had so much potential and that I hoped that they wouldn’t sell themselves short and that I knew that there was no limit to what they could do… It was kind of corny… but the thing is… I don’t think they ever hear that from someone who really knows them… The funny thing is after a while, they started talking to each other and realized that I was saying all of these heartfelt things so they got suspicious… and they asked me if I was leaving the Youth Group! Hah! It was so funny! I was reminded of the time I told one of my friends how much I appreciated their friendship and how grateful I was to have them as my friend and they asked me if I was dying or something.

That night… we started to talk about our spiritual names… the name that God knows us by… and as we prayed together as a group, I heard God’s name for me… The Healer… and I suppose that seems obvious to anyone who knows I’m in Medical School… But what I felt… was all the pain I have felt throughout my life… all of the pain… that went unnoticed by others…

I grew up in the ghettos… The apt I lived in when I was a kid used to have people smoking reefer in the stairways… People used to walk their dogs on our street… so much so that on my way to daycare, I used to play hopscotch around the poop on our sidewalk… I remember the nights that I huddled in the stairs with my Mom as our next door neighbor’s husband beat her… I remember the 6 elementary schools I went to… I remember not being able to join Little League or the Cub Scouts, because we moved too much… I remember never being able to really have a best friend, because I was always the new kid… I remember having to pack up all of my crap every year… I remember finally getting to sophomore year of high school with the promise that we wouldn’t move until graduation… and realizing that for the first time in all this moving… I was having a hard time making friends… I remember all the times I ate lunch by myself… I remember eating by my locker so that my solitude wasn’t so obvious… I remember seeing friends I knew from 5th grade… only to find that with all the time that had passed… we weren’t friends anymore…

The common theme… I roll with the punches very easily… Ever since I was a kid, I think I was an instinctive surfer of life’s waves… I went with the flow… because there was nothing I could do by resisting… If things got disrupted… I just started over… It was really hard to throw me off... I have always been very laid back… I am a naturally happy person… it takes very little to keep me happy… I rebound very easily… a smile is always very naturally on my face… it’s not an act… it’s just a very natural state for me… but…

It doesn’t mean that I don’t feel pain.

It doesn’t mean that I don’t hurt.

And most people don’t get that… it’s said that the squeaky wheel gets the oil… pretty crappy system if you ask me…

And so when I heard God calling my name… as The Healer… what I felt in my heart… was all of the silent pain I had growing up and that I carry to this day… and saw that I recognize this same pain in others… I don’t listen to the squeaky wheel… I listen to the signs of strength and the stiff upper lip… I feel the circumstances… and I see past the words… And I realized that God has called me to be his Healer… to heal those I encounter… whether it be physical, emotional, or spiritual…

I have always felt that I was built with extra empathy… with extra sensitivity… and part of me always cursed this gift… because I wished that I could just ignore some of that so that I wouldn’t hurt… But that night at the Retreat… I saw how God gave this to me… so that I could use my experiences… my wounds… to recognize the same pain in others… and heal them in the way that I wanted to be healed… And I fell to my knees and cried… I cried for what felt like hours… I cried out all of the pain I have felt over the past 35 years of my life… but especially the pain I have felt the past few weeks with Chassity’s passing… Chassity’s passing and the days afterwards were especially painful… because I felt like most of the people around me didn’t recognize how much I hurt…and it was just a rehash of what I grew up with all of my life… but that night at the Retreat… I cried out all of the pain… and realized how much that pain was actually a blessing… and when I was done… I realized… in recognizing what a gift it was… that I was healed, too…

And God put me to use right away... The Retreat Leader had a big knot on his leg... and he asked me to look at it... and I thought it might be a DVT with all of his traveling... and as we were talking about baby aspirin... we both realized that God wanted me to pray for him... and so I laid my hands on his leg and prayed for him... and as I prayed... I felt the swelling shrinking underneath my hands... Aftewards... I found myself talking with different kids... and just helping them to process everything that they had experienced... and I shared so many heartfelt hugs with so many of the kids in our Youth Group... and I felt so blessed to have a chance to tell these kids how much I loved them... knowing full well that they don't hear this enough in their own lives... when I came home... I went to the College Group's end of the year banquet... I had planned to go just to get to know everyone better... but as we were talking and sharing... I found that there were people there that needed to hear my words that night... and when it was time to close... my friend, HyeJin asked me to lead them in prayer... and prayer came pouring out of me and out of the rest of the group in a way that I haven't felt or heard in a a very long time... New year's Eve night... I found myself talking to one of my Youth kids who is in a different Bible Study Class and has had a lot of trouble at home... and as he was talking to me, I realized that we needed to pray together... and we went into a storage room and fell to our knees together and started pouring prayer and tears out to God... and afterwards I hugged him and just prayed that God take his pain away...

And so I closed out 2006... exhausted physically... having lost my voice from lack of sleep, screaming, shouting, singing, and praying... I have been more physically tired in the last week than I have been in a LONG time... and yet... I am energized... I feel so spiritually alive...

So, It's taken me a while to finally post... School started again on Tuesday... and it's taken me awhile to get readjusted to being school and dealing with the information overload again... I've also been trying to process everything that's happened... and trying to make sure that it sticks... But I wanted to make sure I got this post out, now… for my friends that have been worried about me… for my friends that have been there for me through all of this… and let them know… I am breathing again…

I wanted to share this with everyone… because the pain I was carrying with me… stayed in 2006… and here… in 2007… I am a new person… and I am so excited about what this New Year is going to bring me.