life: beautiful, rich, and powerful 🥬 🌻🍮 (2.2)

march marched away (sorry HAHA it was funny to me when i first wrote it)

Hello!! This is so long overdue. I’ve really missed writing to you all!! If we haven’t talked in a while, please know that I am thinking of you :) Please text or email me at any time to let me know how you’re doing, even if just to send some pics of what you’re up to. And send any prayer requests you have my way! It means a lot to me to get notifications from y’all, even if I myself have been a snail these days. 🐌

I think I just need to come to terms with the fact that these emails will be an infrequent and lackluster as a representation of all that’s been happening and all that I wish I could share with you all. So back to sq. 1.

An overall one to two (or multi-)liner on how this term has been? This term feels very much just like a continual learning to progressively depend more on the Lord, turn to Him faster, and have faith in Him, in the midst of everything that’s happening in the world, and in the midst of all the outward busyness in my life. These days, though it feels like much like a non-stop go go go sometimes, I’ve been finding sweet refuge in remembering that I can flee to my spirit at every moment of every day—and that it can really just be a matter of calling on His name, telling Him that I love Him, telling Him all, whatever it is I may be doing.

And a little overview on this email — probably 90% pictures, 10% hopefully semi-coherent sentences on some things i’ve been enjoying, because that is all that i think i can manage for this recess again. :) thank you again for being here! I really can’t thank you enough for all of your thoughts, care, and prayer.

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the sky, flowers, animals

some photos of the sky while running! —

middle photo = very descriptive photo of how focused my eyes are in the morning at 5:50am

Keeping up with running has been another big help to me, and I honestly don’t think I’ve ever been this consistent with running since high school—so this is big for me. I’m appreciating how important it is to keep my body, soul, and spirit healthy (all three parts of our being, 1 Thessalonians 5:23!).

And short fun fact: beyond all the physical benefits, exercising makes tangible impacts on our mental well-being too(!!)—it gives us short reprieve from anxiety, because exercise increases neuropeptide Y (which helps regulate stress as a resiliency factor and soothe the amygdala). And, it helps with mood because it fights inflammation, which is linked to stress. Just thought that was cool.

judy and i putting that to practice by running to lazy bird : ) 7 mi round trip but so worth it! please excuse the redness and sweat.

and now for some flowers —

[2] such pretty hues of yellow :) [3] a passionflower! [4] it amazes me how perfectly circular this is

So many beautiful flowers!!! It was just kind of amazing to me to realize again how much intricate detail there can be in just a small blossom—so much beauty in creation, even in tiny things.

Seeing all of these pretty flowers reminded me of something I appreciated in one of our classes in the beginning of this term, which was on the scriptural definition of life. What is life? Life is God Himself (John 14:6, John 11:25). He’s the real life, the reference life to all other lives. Every positive thing in this universe was created to describe in some aspect, form, or fashion the really life, which is Christ (Colossians 2:17, 1 Timothy 6:19). And so all the beauty, all the diversity and riches of life, power of life, etc., that we see around us point us to Him—Christ, who is reaching us as life, to be the true reality of life in us (John 10:10, Colossians 3:4, Romans 8:10).

And this applies even with the Bible—which is a book of life, but written in the way of knowledge. We might come to it and just try to get facts, read some stories, get knowledge, or we could come to it and get life (2 Corinthians 3:6). If we come to the Bible realizing that we’re coming to look for Him—a Person—and that we’re looking for life, then we would see that everything in the Bible is directly connected to our appreciation and registration of the One who is life.

And now for a pic of a cute doggo :) —

going on this walk reminded me of this song. :) “God is light and in Him there is no darkness at all… In the light, we are walking”

And while we’re on the topic of animals, I wanted to share this super cool fun fact my teammate read from nature’s great events recently, on humpback whale breaching:

no one really knows why whales do this, but it is thought to be the result of a strong emotion—whether anger, happiness, or the excitement of courtship. Whatever the reason, it requires a lot of energy to lift its 40 tonne body clear of the water.

Anyways, i may not weigh 40 tonnes, but I do hope that I stay a “crazy lover of Jesus, jumping for joy” with the realization He’s living in me!

some other things i’ve been up to

portos w rachol!! thanks for making time for me in your very very packed day. also side note that the porto’s french toast is bomb.

jordan and val’s at least once a term :,) There are 2 Graces in this photo. Which brings me to another note —

there’re two, three, no five more Graces that came in this term, which makes for a grand total of 6 girls named Grace. :) (grace has superabounded! — rom. 5:20) — also featuring three Hana/Hannahs.

and if you’ve missed seeing Cypress campus team, here we are on cypress campus… 😎

and volunteering at Bibles for America!

sorry this was the photo where the most people were smiling normally

Bibles for America is a non-profit organization that sends free study New Testament Bibles all over the USA! :) It was translated from the original Greek text into modern English, and there are footnotes, cross-references, outlines, charts, and maps that just really open up the Bible. awesome stuff. If you want to get one for free, you can do so here!)

have also been eating really good (too good) this term. this is the definition of food paparazzi, but for noble documentation purposes.

and since on the topic of food, i have to include this photo of Lesly :) because we really met and bonded from talking about food, short of nothing less than a full hour.

other enjoyments

I’m realizing that I won’t always be able to finish writing out my enjoyments or put together pictures in a timely sort of way all the time, but if ever any of you wanted to read more, I will eventually be writing out some other things I’ve been enjoying, to get myself to dig a lil more. I won’t be sending those out, because I know a lot of you don’t have time to read so much anyway, but if you want to they’ll be here(!), along with all past email updates: gracelam.substack.com (just click ‘let me read it first.’)

“And God is able to make all grace abound unto you, that, in everything always having all sufficiency, you may abound unto every good work”,

Grace enjoying grace

p.s. if you also send email updates and i am not on your updates yet please take the liberty to add me!! (grace33lam@berkeley.edu).

p.p.s. hello and thank you if you made it all the way here :)