Great Pain and Joy

I have not blogged for nearly a month!
Time for me to get my acts together.
So far, I am having an interesting, yet overwhelming, semester.
For one of my courses, I received tons of major projects every week which is due every Monday (I think there will be some weeks where I don't need to hand in on that day?).
There were not a lot of "special" things that happened this month.
However, I am experiencing God's presence more and more when I am deeply in need of Him.
When I thought that this semester would be so busy (so far), I am grateful, by the grace of God, that I am still able to prioritize my time and set a time to spend with Him.
Nevertheless, I am still alive and well.
I have been reading the book of Romans, a book which greatly explains message of the gospel with deep theology, although the first part of the chapters speak greatly about the judgement of God against the wicked world.
As I am reading and getting deep into it more and more, God never cease to amaze me.
How grateful am I that I am not perfect, which is why I need Jesus and be reminded of what He has done on the cross.
I find it interesting that there are connections in some passages.
I better be careful what I say or else I would be a heretic.
Anyhow, there were some questions that I had been pondering about in connecting the passages.
Why we need to have faith? (Romans 3:21-31)
Is there an example of a person who was justified through faith? (Romans 4:1-12)
What is the affirmation through faith? (Romans 4:13-25)
What is the given result through faith? (Romans 5:1-11)
Such observation needs to be carefully and thoroughly examined while reading.
One passage does not mean it is a STAND-ALONE passage.
It is like reading the Old Testament, there has to be a narrative line happening in Genesis.
To make connections, Paul specifically uses "Therefore", "For", "And", and "Then".
Oh yeah, a question that Paul asks in order to clarify what he previously explained in the passages, "What then?" Much of it are theological arguments.
Anyhow, there is such unity in this book, and I love reading the Bible.
I had a huge headache...and I collapsed at around 11pm.
I thought I would never be able to sleep with such GREAT pain.
However, I did fall asleep!
But I woke up at 4:30am.
I browse through facebook, youtube and email...until I stumbled upon Pastor Jeff's blog.
I read through his current update, and I realized that I haven't blogged for a while.
I confess, it was really hard to rejoice through pain, but nonetheless, my joy and hope is found in Jesus, and I rejoice for what He has done :)

PS: Seriously, they changed the functionality of this blog...how could I center everything...maybe I should change blog???