Ending.

Quick picture taken with phone.


This whole summer has been a period of sudden transitions. Everything's been so rushed and going forward that I feel like I'm running to catch up in order to survive.

Well, one, I got into grad school in a week. Met up with an counselor, she pushed me to apply, turned in my application after three days, and got in two days later. I don't know how it happened and I don't know why she really wanted me in right away, but we did it. Classes starts in three weeks and I still feel lost.

Me? A Master's? The last thing I said to myself the day I graduated from UIC was, "no more school until maybe 5 years later". Yeah, right. Here I am, staring at a pile of textbooks on my desks with assignments already due on the first day.

And then there's my job. Full-time one.

Turned in my resignation letter last Monday and my last day is already coming up.

I will miss the kids. There are moments when I wished I can be the one to watch them grow up and to see who they will be 10, 20 years later. I envy their parents who get to see it all. I never believed the idea of the heartbreak behind teaching, but now that I have been the one leaving the children, my heart is breaking. I have fallen in love with them and not seeing their faces every morning will be something I will have to get used to. I may have had my moments of complaining and excitement of all this coming to an end, but I will miss them. I miss them already.

Then there's church.

I would have never expected myself to become a part of a small Korean church. To be a youth group leader.


The youth group kids are wonderful. They're so... alive. Was this me ten years ago also? Alive with curiosity and even anger. With hunger for love but also filled with meaningless emptiness. They have showed me what faith is more than I have been able to show them.

I was frightened to stay committed to them. For how long, I am still not sure, but the past four months have already felt like four years. And I can only continuously pray and pray and pray that I may get wiser for them and that this first foundational year can be built strongly on Him.


I guess the main lesson during this first year out of school is: trust Him. I am stubborn with trust and I know I will continue to be. But praise be to the One who will also continuously and stubbornly love me for who I am.