Laura Hackett Interview with Misty Edwards on Vimeo

check out Laura’s first CD : ) she has the most beautifully sweet voice. One of the worship leaders at IHOP.

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bending and breaking……resting

A few days after Grace passed away, my pastor at IHOP, Jess, sent me a text with a prophetic word, instructing me to run to the Lord in this time of difficulty. His words caught me red-handed, once again running to man rather than to God with the vast ocean of pain swaying to and fro in me. Even now, I know I’m only standing at the edges of all that’s hidden inside. It’s this great unknown, this uncharted territory that I’m fearful of. What I long for are step-by-step instructions on how to let my heart break, how to let go of Grace, but the truth is, I need to walk this unexplored path with God.

Yet, above all my fears and anxiety I hear the Lord singing over me, “we will overcome.” These three words have turned up in various worship songs throughout the years. Many times we find ourselves with our arms raised, eyes closed, heart openly singing those words yet the meaning in these four syllables alludes us. The “we” in the phrase does not mean that we as a human entity will overcome, rather confessing that God and I will overcome. Through past experiences, what this ends up looking like is God doing 99% of the work while I do 1%. But in the end, He says to me, “well done! I’m so proud of you Sunny!” Where then I am left stunned, confused and in awe at His extravagant delight in me.

This is exactly what happened during the previous year. Last season, when I spent months limp at the feet of God, crying out to Him to help me and help me and help me. In the end of that season what did He say to me? As the wind and water swirled in dance together outside the fragile glass doors of Bus-7, a coffee shop in Tainan, Taiwan, God said to me, “see! I told you it was worth it!” Those words broke my eyes into grateful tears of agreement. Each drop of tear shouting thankfulness to God for His perfect leadership in protecting me from a relationship that would only break me, rather than grow me into who God lovingly intended me to be. The relationship that I couldn’t even recognize my heart crying out for me to end because I was that unfamiliar with my own heart. Believing in delusion that somehow it will save me rather than God. In the end, in His light, I saw the light, exposing all the holes I convinced myself into.

Now, I’m standing at yet another door. God’s hand is extending out to me through the little opening, inviting me into His rivers of living water to carry me through this typhoon. I’m scared of what I will discover. I’m afraid of seeing the dark things, the hidden things in my heart. But what I’m dreading the most, is seeing myself through God’s eyes. You see in reality, I believe that it’s actually easier and more natural to hide in the deception that God despises us, than to walk into the truth, the light of His great affection for us. Because believing in Him, embracing His light means trusting everything into His hands and letting go of the death grip we have over our broken hearts. It means seeing the reality of our own depravity, the truth of God’s holiness.

My friend Nienke was sharing with me a revelation she recently received from God. Sometimes when we’ve shut our hearts down for so long, tucked everything in the dark corners inside us, we lose who we are. We’ve stuffed our heart’s responses down so deep due to life circumstances and the lack of time that we’ve muted the song the Lord put in our hearts to sing. Personally for me, I’ve shut my heart down because I’ve always had a mold in my mind of who I’m supposed to be, not seeking after God’s dreams for me.

Since moving to Kansas City, I’ve tried to drown and wash out who I once was because who I once was, even as a Christian was so entangled in the darkness of the world. I would drive to Chicago every weekend when I was teaching to look inside myself in dingy pretentious coffee shops of Wicker Park, trying to resurrect something real from poetry and rhyme.

These past three years here in Kansas City, I’ve spent struggling and wrestling through who I’m suppose to be, what I’m supposed to do. Not realizing, that when I put my heart in God’s hands of love, His fire will burn away the dross, the false things of who I am. It is then; that the gold He has placed inside me will be revived. God, help me rest in Your love for me and simply be, and live.

love is….

If you’re in a Christian community you find yourself inevitably dialoging about relationships, love, and marriage. You’ve asked everyone about his or her perspectives on love. You’ve googled the definition and differences between courtship and dating. You’ve accumulated a good-sized library of Christian dating books (don’t be ashamed if one of those includes Joshua Harris’ “I Kissed Dating Goodbye”). Yet through all the conversations on this stimulating topic over the years, God Himself is defining love for me.

I realized I’ve always approached the Lord with a notebook and pen in hand, ready to write down the “ten commandments” of love. But, my Father in Heaven does not want me to hand this decision to Him to decide all on His own, He wants my involvement. He wants to awaken me to who I am and help me be honest with Him concerning what I want. Oftentimes, I just want God to tell me either the guy is the one or not. Previously, God would reveal it to me very quickly, but lately He’s been inviting me into being open with Him. I find the Lord holding me close to His heart, letting me discover His desires along with my own, awakening my heart that I’ve quieted for too long.

I also realized how in the past I’ve fallen in love with the idea of love, defined by movies and secular love songs rather than God. God is love! He is the definition of love. Him creating the world from nothing, His passionate devotion to Israel, the sacrifice of His Son on the Cross for humanity, that is love. There are plenty of moments filled with romance and roses, yet I must not forget the moments of blood, sweat and tears that color His definition of the word.

The most important thing the Lord has taught me concerning love is the importance of talking to Him and the truth that He is more protective of my heart than me. He will take care of me. These simple yet profound truths quiet my fears and give me increasing confidence in who my God is. He is so good to me.

Sunny’s summer in Asia 09 Update on Vimeo

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Fall Update

Dear friends and family,
Thank you all for your words and prayers during this time of great difficulty. It’s been only a month since I’ve been back home from my extended ministry trip to Asia but so much has already happened that I’m still waiting for my heart to catch up to it all. God is leading my family and I through this dark hour, helping me learn how to let Grace and the piece of me Grace carried in her heart go. As I walk into this next season and slowly realize what the Lord is inviting me into, I feel His grace leading me once again deeper into as I once again ask Him to help me to trust Him with my heart even more.

Amazed
:: summer 09 ::
I don’t know how God does it, but He leads me so perfectly. Every stop that He opened the doors for me to venture into was incredible! I boarded my plane to Hong Kong, full of uncertainties and intensely aware of my own short-comings. Yet, at each ministry opportunity, through dark moments where I came face to face with the reality of my desperate need of Him, God not only revealed to me how He has transformed me through this past year of healing but He also finished the healing He started in me. Granted I’m not walking around perfectly healed now, but the one issue He put His jealous gaze upon did get resolved. Not only did Jesus give me countless opportunities to walk into the healing He did in my heart but He also supplied countless opportunities for me to share about the healing and inadvertently releasing His healing power on others in Asia. The past year that He used to break and heal my heart, prepared me in His invisible and tender way to simply but powerfully share about how my weakness perfects His strength.

Though my heart is fearful and anxious about all the unknown in the next step He’s leading me into, one thing I know for sure, even if at times it’s just words I say aloud to myself to convince my heart to return to truth, is that “we will overcome.” God and I, will overcome this dark night together. Of course this means Him doing 99% of the hard work and me simply saying “yes” to it all.

Changes
:: new position at IHOP-KC ::
I now work for IHOP-KC’s Chinese Ministry as a ministry assistant to Jess and Alice Shao. My responsibilities include:
• Intercession
• networking with Chinese churches and ministries we’ve built a relationship with (Hong Kong and Taiwan)
• lead worship and train second generation Chinese worship leaders
• lead youth E12 (end-times Bible study group) we’re currently going through the book of Daniel
• oversee content of IHOP’s Chinese website (going live soon! Everything in Chinese including some resources and notes!)
• other administrative work for the Shaos such as researching on prophetic promises of IHOP that involves the Chinese, history of idol worship in Taiwan etc.
::new opportunities at IHOP::
>I started singing on Joy Maves’ team in the JPR! I love her heart and leadership

Prayer please
1. for God to give me grace to continually run to Him and allow Him to lead me through the pain of losing Grace
2. grace and strength to allow God access to my heart
3. grace for Him to be my only rock and foundation, that I won’t go after “other loves”
4. for God’s Spirit of wisdom and revelation to come upon my parents to fall in love with Jesus

Partner with me:
If you would like to financially partner with me in building the house of prayer, preparing the way for Jesus’ return, please either:
1. click on the “donate” button on the right
2. or write a check out to “IHOP-KC” (please leave the memo portion BLANK!!) and mail the check to me (email me for my address: sunnyhu7@gmail.com)
I am in need of individuals who will commit to partner with me monthly, please prayerfully consider this option.

Update Video:
click on the link below for access

Sunny’s summer in Asia 09 Update from Sunny Hu on Vimeo.

houses of prayers in Taiwan and Hong Kong

for those of you interested in connecting or visiting houses of prayer in Asia, here are the main ones that are in one way or the other connected with IHOP-KC:

TAIWAN
in the NORTH…
Taipei: Tabernacle of David

in the SOUTH…
Kaohsiung: Kaoshiung House of Prayer
Tainan: Tainan House of Prayer

HONG KONG
All Nations House of Prayer
Hallelujah Ministries

photo pour toi

just some images for your thoughts….

teal and purple, the new favorite

christine…the new addition to the huju clan…

the mess in my room…. : P still not organized ahhhhhh…wanted at least something in my life in order

recent intense chain of events is peeling yet another layer of my heart open…slowly exposing all the misconceptions I still have towards myself and towards God…this week’s new discovery………God doesn’t need my help to look good. He already is…….

mourning update

things i’ve been finding comfort in:

1. “A Grief Observed” by C.S. Lewis….translates the swirl inside me into articulate sentences and pages
2. Chinese noodle soup…most of what i’ve been eating
3. silence
4. nature..especially now that the leaves are falling…the sound of them being blown across concrete…sigh* love it
5. “You hold me now” by Hillsong on their new Faith + Hope + Love album

don’t know why, but i’ve just been blogging compulsively………….: P

cleaning…

i’m known as someone who is great at organizing stuff when it comes to moving. when my parents decided to move to Taiwan, i organized my stuff that was still at their house within two hours. i really hate keeping random nostalgic things that i know for sure i’ll never touch again. but as i go through grace’s things……cleaning out her apartment in pilsen…..and now going through her stuff in my parents’ basement………i want to keep everything. i want to make a ginormous scrapbook comprised of the best of Grace Yu. hahaha this scrapbook if it does actually happen will probably be bigger than my face.

artists that have been getting me through this week:
Cory Asbury, Jars of Clay (old school album)

God update:
had a good conversation with Him last night…praise the Lord…….love it when He speaks

yet another great dating tip from my mother…

while walking to Trader Joe’s this afternoon my mom started to give me yet another wonderful dating tip:

Mom: “hey you can meet people at places like Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods! Lots of rich yuppies (yes she did know the word) who can afford overly priced organic food go there!”
Me: “we don’t have Trader Joe’s at IHOP”
Mom: “sigh* told you it’s a 鳥不生蛋的地方 (direct translation: a place where even birds don’t lay their eggs). But there’s still Whole Food!”

thanks mom…………. : P