tailored service
written on January 6, 2023
oh man.
despite all the reasons that could have stopped me from going, I ended up attending Higher Calling Conference 2022.
before going to hcc, I had an inkling that God was going to use that time to cause breakthrough in my life. it generally sounds nice but… I could tell that it was going to be painful and I was very avoidant of it. I know God is faithful to answer our prayers when they are according to His will, which made it even more difficult for me to genuinely pray for the conference going in.
[Day 1] Tuesday, Dec 20, 2022
at the first night’s plenary, P. Harold delineated 3 different types of suffering and what God offers for each one. [1. You did something wrong] so the solution is to accept Jesus as the sacrifice for your sins. naturally, when he went onto [2. You did nothing wrong], I expected a similarly straight-forward solution, but instead he said Jesus offers total solidarity. I stubbornly (and pridefully) rejected that, thinking that I don’t need emotional support. I was looking for a solution on how to move forward and past my suffering, I didn’t want emotional support. Then P. Harold went onto the third point, [3. Natural wrongs] - God offers tailored service to what you need. The speaker told the story of how Jesus responded to Mary and Martha in John 11 when their brother died, emphasizing that Jesus knows exactly what we need. I realized that although emotional support is not what I want, it might be what I need.
This past semester (fall 2022) was a time where I grew so much spiritually serving in ministries, surrendering my future to Him, and sharing life with my brothers and sisters in Christ. But at the plenary session, I realized that this growth happened largely as a result of the suffering that I had gone through and was currently going through. I hadn’t allowed myself to acknowledge the suffering because I had seemingly been spiritually thriving, but during the personal prayers I realized that I had been instinctively hardening my heart as a way of protecting myself from the pains of suffering. Despite recognizing this, I couldn’t bring myself to pray for more pain so instead I asked a staff member to pray for softening of my heart instead.`
[Day 2] Wednesday, Dec 21, 2022
After that, I went to the prayer room multiple times. I still didn’t know what God wanted me to do, but it helped correct my heart posture. Pride is not “thinking too highly of yourself”, but pride is “thinking about yourself too much”. I had been thinking about what God wants me to do and how I should resolve my issues, that I had forgotten to actually focus on God. So in the prayer room, I just came before God in adoration, surrendering everything to Him. Even without knowing how God wanted to guide me, I still put everything down and came before Him, trusting that He knew what was best.
Continuing in the day, I went to the “Worship Unto Love” seminar by David Cho. A big commitment this semester was being a leader in the Christian a cappella group, where I spent a lot of time trying to pursue excellence for the glory of God. Coming from a place where I wanted everything I do to be an act of worship, I was curious for what he had to say. But then he started on his testimony… he shared about many situations where he had struggled with his mental health and how they guided him to God… and even beyond when he was saved. I’ve supported many people in their mental health struggles and shared my own story countless times so I didn’t expect to be fazed by David Cho’s testimony, but the more I continued to listen to what he was saying, the more I realized that a lot of my journey was very similar to his. I could find parallels between our lives as he shared about the hopelessness, insomnia, and desperation before he was saved. Throughout his story, I felt seen. It was special to have someone well-respected enough to host a seminar share about struggles so similar to my own. Although I oftentimes invalidate my own suffering, he was shining light onto it and revealing it as a real, valid struggle for Christians as well. After the seminar, I asked a question: “How do you worship when you’re depressed?” to which I received the slightly disappointing answer along the lines of you just force yourself. heh. In this too though, it was nice to have someone else confirm that the way that I was pursuing Christ was acceptable. Though it was not the seminar that I expected, I could still confidently see that it was part of what God wanted me to hear.
The next seminar that I attended was “Made for Relationship” by Gina and Lucia GSNs. They had a very informative section with great info (that i took notes on and was also useful in post-hcc convos) but it also left me with a lot of questions regarding relational hurts. After learning about how to form and maintain fulfilling relationships, I kept on coming back to the reasons I was hurt in some past relationships (some common pitfalls present in them) and questioned how I could heal and move past in them. I ended up talking to Lucia GSN after the seminar. To be honest, I was kinda forced into it by a sister that summoned Lucia GSN, told me to talk, n then disappeared… So I didn’t really know how to start but I shared about a relationship that I think God had particularly brought up during the seminar (related to shaken).
I’m very much an external processor, and I have a hard time processing complicated events if I’m not talking it out with other people (journaling kinda helps but it’s difficult). This semester, stepping into a new year with a new fellowship and my closest friends graduated, I had a hard time sharing with people about this because of creating drama or starting gossip. But as a result, I realized that I had also spent this semester just suppressing my thought and emotions and not processing anything throughout the 5 months. I realized that the issue was not actually knowing how to forgive as I had initially thought, but the reason I didn’t know how to forgive was because I hadn’t actually allowed myself to feel hurt for what had happened. As I shared with Lucia GSN, it became more clear to me that in order to get to a place of forgiveness, I first had to feel the emotions that came with the circumstances and process them.
so… the emotional support was something I needed :’)
The rest of this night was spent pouring out into some other people… God works. He orchestrated specific things to happen in this way and I was very blessed to be able to support other children of God. (their stories are not mine to tell 🥰)
[Day 3] Thursday, Dec 22, 2022
A lot of this morning was also spent focused more on surrender, obedience, and listening to God. LTC was great, I felt like there was a lot of good info but I was very tired so it’s something I’ll go over at another time before the semester starts so that I can grow in discipleship 😅
As this day passed, I found myself growing more scared. Scared that God will actually move in my heart and I’d feel all the pains that I’ve been running from the entire semester. Scared that God won’t move that day and I’d leave hcc knowing that I had succeeded in running away from my problems but be left with the fact that I still had issues that I needed to face someday. This anxiety kept me on edge and I couldn’t stay still, couldn’t focus on just one thing. Before evening plenary that day, I went to the prayer room again and just… surrendered :’) I want to keep running. I don’t want to continue healing. I don’t want to face my problems. I want to ignore all the bad. But ultimately, God is worth everything and He can have it all. That evening plenary speaker actually spoke about that as well, encouraging us to give our brokenness and sinfulness to God as a present. To offer even the worst parts of us to Him because God does want it all.
It was during the personal prayer part that it actually happened. I had already surrendered, I was just waiting at that point. The staff member that was leading the personal prayer portion read out a letter of apology from a parent’s pov. I usually think of my parents very fondly and truly think they tried their best. So it was kinda shocking when the apology letter revealed hurts I didn’t even know I had. I had grown up as the third parent to my brother in an immigrant family with anger management issues, and honestly… pretty much forgotten most of my childhood. But it left me with symptoms that weren’t ideal, like how home never felt safe, emotions were villainized, but most of all—I believed that a father was unavailable and irresponsible. I did ‘t know how to trust God as a father because I didn’t know how to rely on a father. Despite the things I knew He was supposed to be, I didn’t actually trust God to be present, to care, to want to do something about my situation. I called God Father every time I prayed, but I didn’t actually believe it, I treated God like another dad who may or may not know what was happening but either way didn’t care enough to step in.
The next prayer topic was for other people that we wanted to run the race with that had not received Christ yet, and the immediate first person on my mind was my brother. My brother had been on my heart continuously, and my heart was desperate for him to be saved. So while others prayed for friends or other people in the room, I threw myself before God in desperation with the hope that my interceding could help my brother come to know Christ as I do. This time, I made another realization. Even though I’m so imperfect, this is what sibling love is supposed to look like. This is the love that I have for my brother, and this is the love we’re called to have for our brothers and sisters in Christ as well. And one of the reasons that the relational problem hurt so much was because this was innately what I had hoped for and ultimately betrayed.
After these two realizations—my mistrust in God and an introduction to why I was hurt—I began to pray again.
And then I felt emotions. lol.
• feeling that my trust had been betrayed
• feeling guilt that I led another away from God
• feeling loneliness because I didn’t trust God
• feeling the pain of sexual immorality
• feeling the pain of depression
• feeling the pain of suffering
• feeling the pains that I had suppressed for so long
• feeling the comfort of knowing brothers and sisters cared for me
• feeling the fatherly love that God promised and that I couldn’t comprehend
• feeling the sweetness of who God is and what He’s done so that we could be
with Him
Even with all this typed out, I honestly can’t explain most of what happened. I don’t know if this is something I can truly process fully, but I do know that I felt. I felt a lot. And as a result of it, worship was even more beautiful, surrender even sweeter, and the Gospel truly life-giving news. I was so desperate for more of God, more of His goodness, just more of Him. Praise poured out from my heart and it was… sweet.
After this plenary session, I was mindful not to immediately enter the frenzy of the crowd because everything was still very tender. I was scared to forget what had been revealed, so I spent a lot of time praying, journaling, and thinking about how I could continue to steward this. There wasn’t really a closure to this, but I believe that this is yet another beginning to a season of surrender and processing. I think that hcc served as a time for God to start new things more than anything else… and I thank God.
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“And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, ‘My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will’”
– Matthew 26:39
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