>>Severance. Brown Skin and Straddling.<<

There's so much rolling through my head right now, I don't know what to write! Augh. Frustration...

There's too many things I haven't done yet. There's too many sunsets I haven't seen.

Life is certainly an adventure, that's for sure.
But even as I'm writing this, it's frustrating me because I feel self-centered just for writing a blog.
I just have to process and this is one way that I do.
The letter I is filling up this page real fast.

God has brought my heart to such a place of surrender and blessings but with that, of course, comes so much war.
Everyday, Lord.
Everyday, I have to surrender.

It's frustrating because as much as I surrender things, they aren't fully detached from me. I still care.
I don't even want to care anymore.
Contempt towards the things I hold on to seems like the solution to make a clean cut--no pain involved.
I would be enveloped in a greater level of freedom if I didn't care.
But this is how you made me, Lord.
I am fighting my very nature.

May the vision of you be the death of me

My heart has been praying to God for a solution, for a way out, something to help re-focus. Then I went online and found this waiting for me:

“However, as it is written: "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him"
-1 Corinthians 2:9

:)
Dang.
What a promise!
Nobody can conceive what He has prepared for those of us that love Him.

Lately, I've really been struggling with my ability to connect with others at a cultural level.
This is such a personal thing to be posting online, but there's not really anyone here that would quite get it.
So I'm just gonna type it to get it out of my system.

I have been born and raised into Middle-Class White America.
But I am not white.
Nor am I solely American.
I am also Indian.
But I am not just Indian.
I am also Filipino.
A first generation immigrant.
A minority.

It is so much easier to pencil in the bubble of ASIAN/PACIFIC ISLANDER on suveys, official exams, and whatnot.
That hardly scratches the surface of who I am and where generations before me come from.

No one really understands except my family.
I am certain that is a lot of why I treasure them more than anyone.
And I LOVE my roots. I wouldn't trade them for anything. Ever.

But now that I am older, I am realizing that I am not the same as my white friends or my black friends.
I feel so unidentifiable at times.
Even now I feel afraid to completely be my true self...
More than anything, I feel like I lack the freedom to be naturally goofy or silly with people.
As if my humor is acted out in a different way than what everyone else would understand.

I hate how serious I am much of the time.
Laughter brings such a connection among people.
There is nothing like laughing 'til my stomach hurts.
But I am not sure people would actually laugh that hard with me.
I'm not sure I would laugh that hard with them...

And the whole 'significant other' thing?
Gosh, I'm afraid.
It's hard to grasp the idea of being able to really laugh/talk and be myself 100% with someone outside my culture group the way I laugh with my family.
But I want to see that connection made!
Somehow.

Coming back to the fact that we are all created in God's image and are all made for the same purpose always gives me rest.
Though I doubt God brought culture into the world to be ignored.
So I'm trying to figure it out, God.
I am an Indian-Filipino-American.
Whatever that means...

...that means, with the unique things You have put into my life, they will come together to be used for your glory.

I already see that, without my background, I doubt I'd be so in love with different cultures the way I am.

So, I think I have the spiritual side of it down and all, but Father, give me understanding at a cultural level.
Please.

In Jesus' Name I pray,
Amen.