Hosanna

So about a week ago, I was in a car accident. The first one of my entire life and hopefully the last (not likely).
Anyways, the story goes that I was going to get some boba at Go Go Juice and about a block away from my destination, the traffic backed up pretty far from the next signal. The light then turned green and traffic began to flow, so naturally, I flowed with it. As I flowed, an oversized man at the wheel of an oversized truck (F150) decided to pull out of a driveway and cross all the lanes of traffic on PCH so that he could turn left (he told the insurance companies he was turning right--which raises another point that I will get to later) across a double yellow center divider.
Okay...First off, who in their right mind tries to cross six lanes of traffic on PCH ever!? But all hostility aside, let's get back the the story.
So instead of going all the way across the very busy street, he inevitably plows into my passenger side door so that it won't open anymore. Having heard the lovely sound of murdered metal and the jolt of a 2-ton truck ramming my side, I pull over. So does he. As we're talking and exchanging license and insurance information, he mentions that the reason he was pulling out of that driveway, the Enterprise Rent-A-Car driveway, was because he had gotten in an accident two days prior to this incident. Hm...
Later on when I got home with my car's side-skirt barely hanging on like my sister's loose bicuspid, I tapped into my secret physics abilities and discovered that the guy had at least 1.34 seconds to hit the brake. But whatever...
But after our nice little blameless conversation, I got back into the car to finish my journey to the infamous chill out lounge. Before he hit me, I was listening to a Hillsong CD so when I turned the car back on, the music started again. The song that came on was "Hosanna" which means "prase to the Lord". And that's about the moment I realized what that really means.
It's not really something that can be explained in the limited vocabularies we hold. I'd even be willing to bet that there is not one word let alone one billion words in any language on Earth that could ever fully describe what it means to praise the Lord. To honestly praise the Lord is amazing.
"Hosanna! Hosanna!" That is all I could say for at least 10 minutes.

But the plot thickens.
I guess to avoid paying a truck-load of money for his two "accidents" he told the insurance companies that he was pulling out to turn right (the same direction I was going) but my question is this: why would you turn right into the left-most lane--especially in heavy traffic?
He also said that I was merging (lie), which I suppose would fit with his fairy tale.
I don't know what I can do about this other than entrust it all to God. He'll make everything right. I have faith in that.
I thought and felt like I should be mad or sad or something, but I didn't feel like that at all; probably because I know God is truly good.

He really is.

God Reigns

I've been feeling kind of empty lately--at least up until a few days ago. It was then that I realized that it's not worth being angry or unhappy in life. Because of this, I've been able to really just shake things off that would normally bother me a lot. Like things I would usually dwell on for an eternity--or a couple of days.
So life's been good and all thanks be to God almighty. If I didn't have Him in my life, I'd be a complete disaster. I'd probably be heading nowhere in life. Honestly.
I'm so thankful for my friends. Especially Christine Lam. She has been an inspiration and encouragement from the moment I met her because I could clearly see the Lord actively working in and through her heart. Don't get me wrong: she's not the only encouragement to me, but she is the most recent.
Anyways, to get back to what I was saying earlier: it's so much nicer to just be happy. I mean, what good will moping around do? How will being angry fix anything? I say just be happy--forget about grudges. Forget about annoyances. Forget about everything that tries to bring you down! Forget it!
Example:
In English class last week, I had to recite 25 lines of a soliloquy from Hamlet. Now, I'm definitely not a line-memorizing drama junkie, but I tried my best. After a long night of reciting line after onerous line, I finally had the piece memorized. To sleep...
The next day, I am unfortunately called upon to recite the infamous "To be or not to be" bit. So I feel oh so confident in myself, but when I face the class I...
I suppose I should share some more background about this first. The morning of my little presentation, I was late out of bed and late to school so I didn't get to spend any time with God that morning. I wanted to just trust in Him all the way in that He would guide my day--whether or not I would do well on my soliloquy (it's all very trivial, I know, but legitimate considering that I am a very bad public speaker). So I spent about 10 minutes reading my bible and praying; praying for a good memory so that I wouldn't make a complete fool of myself in front of my entire English class. But immediately after I was done reading my bible, I snatched Hamlet and began reading the passage over and over again, fearful that I might forget a word or two.
As my faith in God crumbled like an old graham cracker, I felt confident in myself.
Anyways, I walked up to the front of the class and turned to give my spiel when my mind went completely blank. It was like looking at the night sky and seeing no moon or stars. Just blank--completely blank. I stumbled through about 19 lines and couldn't go any further which earned me a good solid 76%. If I had just trusted God, I'm sure I would have had no problem. But, the beautiful thing is that I only felt ashamed for about five minutes. After that, as I prayed right there in the middle of class, I rejoiced in the Lord's awesomeness and power. I had been given a gigantic spiritual slap in the face. It was like God said, "Mike, why didn't you trust me?" And I couldn't help but smile and celebrate God's righteousness.
Glory be to God!
He is so good to me. To you.
To us.