Backlash

Yesterday, I gave my second sermon. This time, it was to my class and to my professor. If I wasn't in a Bible school, maybe it wouldn't have been as intimidating, but it was fine.

What a contrast to my first sermon though. The first sermon I gave left me feeling pretty good. I knew that I had a ton of things to work on since it was my first time, but I generally felt good after giving it. Yesterday, though, I felt like crap. It wasn't that I gave a poor sermon, I felt it was okay, and there was only one point that I probably needed to rephrase or reword so people don't interpret it the wrong way, but I just felt so defeated afterward.

I won't lie, I wanted to crawl in a hole and die for the rest of the evening. I really have no idea why, but there was just this huge wave of negative emotion and energy wash over me and there was no way for me to get rid of it. I tried to do some other things that would take my mind away from thinking too much about what I did that wasn't ideal, but it didn't really work. Oh well.

Anyways, if you're interested, I spoke on Matthew 14:22-33. It was the passage of Jesus walking on water. It's a story we've heard millions of times, but it's taught me so much more having gone through it for a sermon this time. I also don't like that for whatever reason, time always slows down when you're giving presentations/speaking in public. You know exactly what I mean because you're awesome. If you're to give a 15-20 minute thing, for example, and you prepare it to be safely within that time frame, but for whatever reason, you're ALWAYS short by a few minutes. I fell short by three minutes, oops.

Well, this wasn't quite expected for me, as to how I felt after this second sermon opposed to my first one. Nonetheless, today is my last day of classes for yet another year. I just have one last quiz to write at 2:30, and then I'll be writing a few finals, writing a couple more papers, and then my third year will be done.

Dang, son.

EDIT: Oh! I also want to address one more thing. I can see how many views I get on each one of my posts. And for whatever reason, I have nearly triple the amount of views on my post about me being Asian compared to the rest of my posts. I have no idea why that one is so popular, but I just went back to read it; and I said it in the post, but please don't assume that that's how I react every time someone makes Asian comments about me, or anyone else for that matter. I just had a rough day, and hearing people say some unnecessary things just really tipped me over. Fact of the matter is that everyone is going to have stereotypes of their own, myself included, but I just think that you don't need to bring it up so often. Eventually, these stereotypes will become discrimination whether we intended for it or not. And I'm also glad that someone said to me a few days after I wrote that post something to the extent of this, "it must suck that you never get credit for anything you do because people just say that you're Asian and that it doesn't count if you're good at something." It's almost like he read the post and felt bad for me, haha. JK <3>