Who I am

June walked into his dad's room and turned on the computer. As the computer struggled to load, June went through the post in his head, happy that he actually planned something beforehand. The familiar background trudged its way to the main screen and displayed its options. The pointer poked at Mozilla Firefox until it reluctantly gave way to the home page. The pointer then commanded the "Bookmarks" option to show its contents. "Bookmarks" surrendered and the pointer slapped the Power Blogger's page onto the screen.
"I haven't done anything with the computer except for research and such. Let's read the other posts first," thought June. As he read Monday through Friday June's brow furrowed. He read the word "religion".
Uh oh.
It was time to take up his Sword and rush into battle.

I'm not fond of this topic when I see it on here. It turned into an all-out war the last time we talked about it and neither side won. In fact, all we gained was a really bad bellyache in the pits of our stomachs. I've kept quiet about this but under these circumstances, I don't care anymore. So I shall pose a question:
"Why did you care so much that we included God into our topic?"
I thought this blog was a blog in which a person could write about anything he/she chose to write about. Apparently I thought wrong. Indeed, what happened to the freedom of post? Why did Caroline meet so much resistance when she wrote about one experience? Why can't we just read, move on, and keep it to yourself? Why are you "compelled" to argue against a post? Do we have to start another forest fire?
Before I start my actual post, I'd like to clear a few things up: Christianity is NOT a religion. Due to popular belief, it has been an assumption that Christianity is cooped up with the rest of the religions. Well, it's not. It's a mutual relationship established by your own choices. And on that depressing note on with the post.

I was browsing through my songs, all 130 of them. I have a 30Gb video iPod and I have to say, I'm making much use of the 30Gb it can dish out. Scrolling down, I came upon the artist, Relient K. I haven't listened to them in ages and I only had one song by them, "Getting Into You". I remembered I used to be obsessed with that song, so much that I printed out the tabs and learned it on the guitar. An empty vibe came from the Relient K section of my library so I felt that I needed to get more songs. Time to rip from YouTube!
I browsed through the more popular songs performed by Relient K and I found one peculiar song labled, "Who I Am Hates Who I've Been". Curious, I clicked on the link. I have to tell you, I was blown away by the guitar and the lyrics. Check it out:

It struck me pretty hard. So here is a little testimony (if you will call it).
I wasn't always the nice Korean guy who occasionally poked fun at his friends. In fact, I was a total jerk. Looking at my past, I was a complete psychopath who had this sick and twisted mind. I probably cursed more than any of you guys put together, I bullied people (yes I actually did. I have two victims to the crime that you can ask to verify) and I spazzed over my grades. I didn't recognize the human emotion. If I hurt someone, I would tell myself that everything was okay and the person would get over it eventually if I apologized enough. Emphasis on TOTAL JERK. A quiet, sweet Asian on the outside and a storm on the inside. I was constantly asking myself why I was so unhappy with myself. I had awesome grades, I was fairly decent in sports, and I had friends. Why am I so unhappy???
I sank into a state of acceptance. I sank into a state in which I accepted that I was imperfect and that I would probably never amount to anything. My grades were high but I wanted to go higher. It almost became an obsession. I wanted to excel in sports and give my parents a reason to show me off to the other parents. I wanted to fill the void of being imperfect. I was being weighed down by the monotonous cycle of life that never seemed to end.
Christianity did not play a part in my life at all back then either. I was dang near atheist actually. God was a superhero, Satan was the super villain. They fought over me, an insignificant zit on the face of the earth. I went, sat down, listened to the praise team play, slept during the sermon, and went home to play video games. "What is the point of listening to God when He never listens to me?" was what I thought. They told me how great He was and I would stare back with an empty expression. But it grew on me. I began to believe a little bit but with the wrong mentality. I only called out to Him whenever I was in trouble and then forgot Him whenever I got what I wanted. I was a hypocrite.
All of that changed when I went to a program called,"Lake Yale". It was a Christian retreat that I was dragged into. I had to spend 3 whole days at a mediocre camp infested with bugs that swarmed around the lights at night and food that made the greasiest Big Mac look appetizing.
We trudged through two days of heartfelt sermons that poked at my consciousness. I could tell something was either very wrong or very right. "Why are all these strangers so united? I mean, they've only met for a day or two and they act like they have been friends forever. What's going on?" Some of them even tried to make friends with me but I would have none of it. I always kept the brick wall between me and other people.
On the last day, the atmosphere in the auditorium was very different. The lights were dimmed, music was playing, and everyone on-stage had a very serious look on their faces. We sat down and we listened. I wanted to go to sleep but something told me to listen closely. With nothing better to do, I focused on the sermon. I don't remember too much of what it was about (sorry >.<) but I do remember at the end there was a part where if you wanted to, you could go up to the front of the stage and pray. My legs moved on their own and I was almost powerless to stop them. Every fiber of my being told me,"Go back! You don't need any of this crap!" but I kept on going. Before I knew it, I was at my destination. I knelt down and prayed. At first I felt nothing at all. I was waiting for the pastor to come to me, pray, and get it over with. But then I heard in an unfamiliar voice,"June, what am I going to do with you?" The pastor finally came to me as I was figuring out what I just heard. He asked me,"What are you doing here?" That was a great question! I didn't know! But for some odd reason, I wanted to say,"I want to be saved." Before I knew it, I said it. He nodded and told me how the angels were dancing over me in heaven and how God was celebrating. I thought this was pretty absurd but I accepted it and let him pray for me. That was the first time in my life that I ever felt like I was someone important; someone who was cared for by a God I refused to acknowledge. God could have given up on me, left me to die, but He was always running after me. He is a God who never leaves your side. He is a God who is quick to forgive. Do you know what speaking in tongue is? It is a state in which you are connected with God and you are speaking in a language that you and God can only understand. All of it is unconsciously done. When we finished prayer, I continued to pray without the pastor. When I was done, I heard myself babble the last words of my prayer in incoherent words. "What the heck did I just say?" It was a two years later when someone told me it was a gift. The transformation I admit was slow but I transformed into a totally different guy. It was after that, I vowed to never use a curse word ever again. After God came into my life, I began to see everything differently. After God came into my life, I took up guitar for the sake of God. After God came into my life, I began to recognize people as people. He defined who I am today. So even if there is nothing on the other side of life or God is just an imaginary friend that people made up, I don't care. If He changed me this much, God is something worth believing in. I never want to go back to the life I once lived.
And so, I want to tell you one more thing. Asking me to not talk about God is like telling me to stop breathing. I will respect everyone's decision to believe what they want but if the urge to post about God comes up, please don't flame me or reply with a post trying to pick an unintentional (or possibly intentional) fight. I don't want to cause any friction between us and hopefully we can all remain friends on this awesome blog we call The Power Bloggers.
Thanks for hearing me out.

-June
(whew I let myself go on this post)