Appearing Horizon

12:01 a.m., January 1, 2009

The clock just struck midnight a minute ago and as I sit here watching the fireworks from the comfort of my couch at home, I am reminded of how God makes everything glorious. There is nothing short of spectacular that our God has made even when it seems like there is. Sometimes we have to search for the magnificant, and others they come right to us like right now. It amazes me at how we can see God's glory through something as simple as fireworks. He gave us the resources and mind power to be able to invent something so beautiful to your eyes that it just blows my mind away.

Now that the year 2009 has begun, there is an awful lot to think about. When reflecting on this past year of 2008, depending on what kind of person you are, it could be either a brutal failure, or a learning experience. 2008 was full of events and perhaps my biggest year in terms of growth that isn't physical. I think I'm done most of my physical growing but I wouldn't mind pushing for another inch or two. I normally look on the good side of things but it became somewhat difficult due to a rough finish to the year, but for this post, I will try to stay away from all the negativity. Now let's try to dig into my memory bank and try to pull out a few moments of this past year that might have been memorable for me or anyone else.

It all started in January, the time of year where everyone is looking forward to a new year, much like right now: how everyone has a list of resolutions of which to only be broken within a month - and knowing it too. The year of 2008 could not have began worse for me as I had just began coming out of the roughest time in my life just a couple months beforehand. However, things only went uphill for me as I began one amazing adventure of my life through 366 days, hurray for leap years. On the topic of leap years, I feel bad for kids who are born on February 29th.

By the time February hit, I had already seen a couple of pleasant surprises. One of which I finished my second 30 level course with an 80%. Early on in February, I was to be able to meet a school average for the fourth or fifth time in order to get my guitar. The first saturday of February, not only did I pass my learners exam, but shortly after my worship practice, my dad hauled me out to buy my guitar. I was so shocked at why he took me out because I hadn't even receieved my report card yet. It was later on that day that I first met my beautiful ESP EC-1000 Deluxe ASB. However, I was slightly worried after I bought my guitar, that what if I didn't get the average I was supposed to get, what would happen to my guitar then? But I was one happy guy as after I celebrated my 17th birthday, I also received the average that my dad set for me to get the guitar. I now am proud to say it was a great experience gone through to earn my first guitar. That's right, I have been playing for guitar for what is now my fourth year and never owned a guitar until now.

Skip right ahead to April, with an honorable mention to seeing some friends getting baptised in March being a great sight. One particular event in April, I believe, set me off on a rapid growth spiritually: leading worship for the very first time at the Youth In Christ conference at ECCC. I think I had been leading worship more or less for about a year before this event, but nothing I have ever lead can compare to what I experienced that night. Leading worship for me had always been a fun musical experience kind of thing, I have to say, because it allowed me to do what I love with some friends and to worship God. That night of leading worship opened a whole new door for me. I can still see myself standing on that stage like it happened yesterday, with about 200-300 young teens like me with a burning desire to worship God. I matured so much spiritually that night that I think if Ps. Joe had not asked me to lead worship, I will not be who I am today. As for any more details, I will have to refer you to searching for my facebook blog about that magnificant night.

Right up until June, I felt myself growing stronger as a person after falling almost to rock bottom just over half a year ago. My marks were improving, which was an awesome thing to see, I would be graduating from grade school, etc. June was quite the month for me as I had to prepare myself, not only for my diplomas, but to embark on another amazing adventure with an internship in Vancouver. There were a couple of personal issues that I also managed to work out miraculously by itself. This allowed me to be able to remain friends with certain friends without having other things get in the way, and the feeling is awfully refreshing. Writing my diplomas is a blur to me now as I'm writing this because I do not recall whatsoever the process of writing one. I remember writing a couple of IB exams but not my diplomas - weird. So I zoomed by all my diplomas, and after my final diploma, I went straight home, packed up and left for the airport to go to Vancouver for the summer. I could not say goodbye to very many people and I am disappointed about that because I value the people I care about more than I do myself. It was a very tough day for me, because on top of being stressed from my diploma, I had to say goodbye to my family, which is something I have never had to do before.

July and August was one heck of a summer, the second most definitive of the year for me. Most of you know, I was busy in Vancouver doing an internship with UrbanPromise. I met some really awesome people and had some significant knowledge and experience gained. I know a lot of people would like to know what I did for the eight weeks or whatever, but I would like to place the stress, not on what I was doing, but what I learned. I am going to try to keep this as brief as I can because the scroll bar is getting smaller and smaller from the length of this entry. What I gained most from this experience are two things: attitude and love. On the note of attitude, I can say too much but I'm going to keep it to this phrase: don't worry, be happy and every little thing is gonna be alright. With the topic of love, this is specific to God's love. Explaining this in summary would not help too much because I will need examples and stuff. Even doing so, it takes one's own experience to be able to understand fully what I am saying. All I can say is that God's love is neverending, indescribable, uncomparable, infinite, and most of all breathtaking. Why breathtaking? Because once you understand the feeling, you come to realize SO much from one simple aspect, that it is like being winded by something and then your reaction is almost literally like "HOLY CRAP." This is all I will say about the summer of '08.

September was a huge leap into nothingness for me. Starting university is a pretty big step for anyone that has their future set in sight. I, being blind, just went along with everyone and stuck myself into a spot in university as well. I don't want to get angry with this topic, but if you are reading this and you are applying into university without any real direction or goals but is doing it just because it seems like the right thing to do, please recheck yourself. University, although a great experience on the bigger life, is not absolutely necessary for people. It's just that it has become like a standard of this world for people to be able to have a university education to be able to succeed. If you feel you have a path in university, go ahead and get into it. If you're not sure and hesitant, don't force yourself in right away. I personally think it is better to take some time off to do some searching instead of wasting a semester or two taking useless courses and wasting money. Please trust me on this one.

The time between September and December didn't have anything that stuck out too much for me because I spent a lot of time thinking and searching and just contemplating in general. After graduating from high school, you see your life really open up and you are forced to step up to the plate or else you are going to fall behind and end up having to play catch up, which is not the best thing to do. The university experience has been treating me okay so far, but my resistance toward it does not allow me to experience it to the fullest. Novembers and Decembers have not been good months for me for the past few years. I always seem to hit some kind of a low during these periods of time. I guess, in a sense, this complements the stat of December being the month with the highest suicide or death rate. However, even through low times, I refuse to give myself in to the world because I truly believe I am strong enough to fight out of it because God has done amazing things in my life and I wake up each day thanking God for all that I have. Each person lives their own life, their own path and encounters their own struggles. That is why if some of you think that your struggles have been far more painful than mine, I would like to politely disagree. On a universal scale, a LOT of people live a harder life than I do. However, because of the way God runs things, each person is given their own personal challenges and they go through them in whatever way God has planned. Lows will be lows and highs will be highs. God does not give us more than we can handle which is why in a ratio stand point, the degree of things are much the same in all of us.

I think I will conclude it here for my year in review, and I am having a hard time of deciding whether I should put all my 2009 thoughts here or on a seperate entry.

Okay I will put 2009 on a different entry because this post is much too long, and it is a slightly different topic. So I hope everyone enjoyed a meaningful year and gained more than they lost, experienced the magnificance of God, and much more. Remember to love yourself, love people, and most importantly love God because He first loved us.

Live high.

1:16 a.m., January 1, 2009