I need God's presence so much right now. I haven't prayed nearly enough this week. I started my new part-time teaching job last Monday. I was rushing all around, getting up earlier than I'm used to. Lying in bed Tuesday or Wednesday it occured to me that I had totally fogotten to take time aside to commune with Him.

One morning while driving to work a song's lyrics worked their way into my sleepy consciousness. "Open your eyes....this who you are. Are you everything you dreamed you'd be?"

After I actually listened to what the singer was saying I was struck with the very words that had hit me so hard nearly two years ago on my 26th birthday. You are who you are today. You're no longer becoming, you are. Look at yourself in the mirror. Are you proud of what you've become, proud of what you do on a daily basis? Be who you want to be today. No more excuses.

These words came tumbling out onto to my brain on my 26th b-day. A searing realization from God and "a breaking" that still challenges me. Since this time I still ask myself this question as a kind of spiritual check-up, a challenge that helps me keep the weeds in my life in check.

I remember that day with a sad, resolute clarity. I was at Handong totally alone in the faculty apartments. This was a self-imposed solitude. I had purposely come back to Handong's deserted campus to work on my grad applications in silence. I had already celebrated my b-day with friends so I didn't care that I'd be alone on the actual day.

I woke up alone and sinned alone. I went on a walk in my usual rice fields. The sky was such a perfect crystal blue laced by autumn's remaining gold and red leaves as I gazed upwards. I remember I walked downed the hard, crusty mud road rimmed by tall, colorful trees and I was stumbling. Stumbling with sadness, with disappointment with myself.

I was 26 and I had become something I didn't want to be! I remember I came to the end of that trail and facing that perfect cloudless sky I burst out crying. My desparation and disappointment with myself tumbled out of my mouth in the form of, "This is not who I want to be! Help me!!!" I cried and I got on my knees.

On that 26th b-day, on that cold dirt road I realized with such searing clarity that there were sins in my life that I had to vicously up-root in order to be "the person I had dreamed I'd be".

From that moment on when I wanted to slip into old sins, old patterns I'd remind myself that who I am today is who I am. I'm proud to say that I can look in the mirror and know that there are no hidden sins in my life that I'm secretly nursing. I'm proud of who I am today.