Tablo, in Epik High’s latest album starts off his song “Amor Fati” (Love of Fate) with, “God doesn’t love me”. He is angry – angry at God. From the translation, annotation, and commentary on Youtube, it seems like he could be referring to the fact that he feels rejected by God because he is different from what society believes he should be like. I like this song because it reminds me that I have felt that way too.
In elementary school, I found that I got along better with the guys and preferred to play games with a tennis ball at our “ball wall” rather than run around playing “Red Rover” or whatever else the girls did. I was more interested in making my own Beyblade than talking about pink pants, and fixing things that broke than painting my nails or playing with Barbies. This was my weekday life, and I told myself I didn’t care what other people thought about me. Then the weekend would come, and things changed. I dreaded Sunday mornings. My mom would force me into a handmade dress and make me wear itchy stockings so I would be presentable at church. I hated that. I hated being a girl. I hated dressing up and pretending that I was someone I was not. I was not that kind of girl.
I grew up in the church, learning all the Bible stories and having people tell me that Jesus loves me. I believed that God existed and I would sing along with the other kids, sometimes singing lyrics that I didn’t truly believe. Jesus loves me? A perfect, loving God made me? Is this some kind of sick joke? Why would God make me a girl if he knew me? If he knew everything about me as the Sunday School teachers professed, why would he do this to me if he knew that I would prefer doing things the boys did? Sure, God was real, but he sure isn't good and doesn't love me. If he loves me – then maybe he isn’t all powerful because he made a mistake. If there was a line up for manufacturing defects in God’s people-making factory, I would be in that line.
Eventually, I realized that no amount of praying and hating God would change me into a boy. I decided to live my life and prove to God that I could be a boy. I could do what the boys did and there, God; I beat you. I tried really hard to make other people like me. I thought, maybe if I could get people to love me then God would love me too. I was a door mat, and I let people walk all over me. I wasn’t happy, I couldn’t meet my own needs, and in a search to find love and acceptance I became somebody else.
In high school, I took all the tech courses. I took this auto shop course, where we fix cars and learn about transportation technology. I was the only girl in my class. I think my classmates were surprised to see me, but that just fed me – I was proud to be there, proud to represent. Then I went to university to study engineering. Don’t get me wrong – I didn’t go into these courses and this field of study just to make a point and prove the world and God wrong. I really do enjoy figuring out how things work and connecting the dots between math, physics, and turning that into real life problem solving. I live off of that. The fact that it was against tradition, against societal male-female roles only supplemented my passion for engineering. That’s right, God. I’m going to be an engineer. What are you going to do about it? You can’t change me. Nobody can stop me.
Mind you, these were my background thoughts that floated up to surface every once in a while. I still believed that Jesus saved me from my sins, and that God existed and made me. I experienced other things that proved to me that God loved me, but there was still doubt, this one question he never answered. But after so many years of receiving no answers from God, the burning question in my heart faded to a glow.
So I moved out for school; I went out of town. One weekend I decided to go home and visit my family. I went to church on Sunday and there was a guest lady speaker who was talking about the roles of women in the church. I can’t remember exactly what she said (this was about 2 years ago) and I admit that I zoned out a couple times, but the essence of what I got from her sermon was that God loves us all equally, male and female. He made us the way we are for a purpose and there are no mistakes. So should I believe her? Something inside me did. I was thinking hard about what she said, the proof she gave, the cultural perspective of the people back then, and commentaries and studies people did. She is a scholar (has a Ph.D.) and the way she presented her message was very factual.
More than that, I felt conviction (in both senses; guilt and strong belief). Something inside me knew; this is the truth. This is the answer you’ve been looking for. At that moment, I realized how wrong I was. I realized my whole life, all 18 or 19 years - I had believed a lie. It’s not that God doesn’t love me. It’s that I don’t love me. I realized that God made me the way he wanted, and he put people in my life who supported me – that auto shop teacher for example, he was super nice and supportive, he was proud of me for being in that class. My family supported my decision to go into engineering, and my engineering class doesn’t discriminate against the females. God did all these things for me, and my response? I turned my back on him and gave him the middle finger. I realized that all along he was trying to show me love. It was just that I misunderstood and I refused to let him change me. I refused to believe that he was good, that he loved me because I believed the lie that Satan whispered into my heart. God didn’t make a mistake. That day, I realized that he made me the way I am and he loves me regardless of how I see myself.
I don't know what hardships and suffering you've gone through, or how you may feel about yourself, but listen to me when I say this - don't give up on love. Love doesn't give up. It didn't give up on me, it never did. Promise me that until you see for yourself and find the truth, you'll keep searching for that unconditional love God promises us.
The ending of Tablo’s song (the outro) goes like this, “Oh God, he doesn’t love me, I know, he doesn’t love me. Well, neither do I”.
---
You can find the translation here (about 2/5ths down the page), Korean annotation and lyrics here, and Youtube comments here.
Side note: In verse 3 of the rap, Tablo asks if it's okay for a sin-less person to stone somebody. He is referring to Jesus, when he stopped people from stoning a woman who committed adultery. Stoning was the punishment for someone found guilty of adultery based on Old Testament laws. I think when Jesus said, "Let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone", he didn't mean for it to be that it's okay to stone somebody. His point was to let them know that they were all sinners. Nobody had the right to make a judgement call on whether or not the woman deserved to live. My understanding of the situation he refers to is that the only person who has the right to judge whether a person deserves to live or die is God - because he is sin-less. Read the story I'm referring to here.
In elementary school, I found that I got along better with the guys and preferred to play games with a tennis ball at our “ball wall” rather than run around playing “Red Rover” or whatever else the girls did. I was more interested in making my own Beyblade than talking about pink pants, and fixing things that broke than painting my nails or playing with Barbies. This was my weekday life, and I told myself I didn’t care what other people thought about me. Then the weekend would come, and things changed. I dreaded Sunday mornings. My mom would force me into a handmade dress and make me wear itchy stockings so I would be presentable at church. I hated that. I hated being a girl. I hated dressing up and pretending that I was someone I was not. I was not that kind of girl.
I grew up in the church, learning all the Bible stories and having people tell me that Jesus loves me. I believed that God existed and I would sing along with the other kids, sometimes singing lyrics that I didn’t truly believe. Jesus loves me? A perfect, loving God made me? Is this some kind of sick joke? Why would God make me a girl if he knew me? If he knew everything about me as the Sunday School teachers professed, why would he do this to me if he knew that I would prefer doing things the boys did? Sure, God was real, but he sure isn't good and doesn't love me. If he loves me – then maybe he isn’t all powerful because he made a mistake. If there was a line up for manufacturing defects in God’s people-making factory, I would be in that line.
Eventually, I realized that no amount of praying and hating God would change me into a boy. I decided to live my life and prove to God that I could be a boy. I could do what the boys did and there, God; I beat you. I tried really hard to make other people like me. I thought, maybe if I could get people to love me then God would love me too. I was a door mat, and I let people walk all over me. I wasn’t happy, I couldn’t meet my own needs, and in a search to find love and acceptance I became somebody else.
In high school, I took all the tech courses. I took this auto shop course, where we fix cars and learn about transportation technology. I was the only girl in my class. I think my classmates were surprised to see me, but that just fed me – I was proud to be there, proud to represent. Then I went to university to study engineering. Don’t get me wrong – I didn’t go into these courses and this field of study just to make a point and prove the world and God wrong. I really do enjoy figuring out how things work and connecting the dots between math, physics, and turning that into real life problem solving. I live off of that. The fact that it was against tradition, against societal male-female roles only supplemented my passion for engineering. That’s right, God. I’m going to be an engineer. What are you going to do about it? You can’t change me. Nobody can stop me.
Mind you, these were my background thoughts that floated up to surface every once in a while. I still believed that Jesus saved me from my sins, and that God existed and made me. I experienced other things that proved to me that God loved me, but there was still doubt, this one question he never answered. But after so many years of receiving no answers from God, the burning question in my heart faded to a glow.
So I moved out for school; I went out of town. One weekend I decided to go home and visit my family. I went to church on Sunday and there was a guest lady speaker who was talking about the roles of women in the church. I can’t remember exactly what she said (this was about 2 years ago) and I admit that I zoned out a couple times, but the essence of what I got from her sermon was that God loves us all equally, male and female. He made us the way we are for a purpose and there are no mistakes. So should I believe her? Something inside me did. I was thinking hard about what she said, the proof she gave, the cultural perspective of the people back then, and commentaries and studies people did. She is a scholar (has a Ph.D.) and the way she presented her message was very factual.
More than that, I felt conviction (in both senses; guilt and strong belief). Something inside me knew; this is the truth. This is the answer you’ve been looking for. At that moment, I realized how wrong I was. I realized my whole life, all 18 or 19 years - I had believed a lie. It’s not that God doesn’t love me. It’s that I don’t love me. I realized that God made me the way he wanted, and he put people in my life who supported me – that auto shop teacher for example, he was super nice and supportive, he was proud of me for being in that class. My family supported my decision to go into engineering, and my engineering class doesn’t discriminate against the females. God did all these things for me, and my response? I turned my back on him and gave him the middle finger. I realized that all along he was trying to show me love. It was just that I misunderstood and I refused to let him change me. I refused to believe that he was good, that he loved me because I believed the lie that Satan whispered into my heart. God didn’t make a mistake. That day, I realized that he made me the way I am and he loves me regardless of how I see myself.
I don't know what hardships and suffering you've gone through, or how you may feel about yourself, but listen to me when I say this - don't give up on love. Love doesn't give up. It didn't give up on me, it never did. Promise me that until you see for yourself and find the truth, you'll keep searching for that unconditional love God promises us.
The ending of Tablo’s song (the outro) goes like this, “Oh God, he doesn’t love me, I know, he doesn’t love me. Well, neither do I”.
---
This is the song, Amor Fati by Epik High in their new Shoebox album.
Side note: In verse 3 of the rap, Tablo asks if it's okay for a sin-less person to stone somebody. He is referring to Jesus, when he stopped people from stoning a woman who committed adultery. Stoning was the punishment for someone found guilty of adultery based on Old Testament laws. I think when Jesus said, "Let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone", he didn't mean for it to be that it's okay to stone somebody. His point was to let them know that they were all sinners. Nobody had the right to make a judgement call on whether or not the woman deserved to live. My understanding of the situation he refers to is that the only person who has the right to judge whether a person deserves to live or die is God - because he is sin-less. Read the story I'm referring to here.
This is a song called Surrender, by Beautiful Eulogy. I love their album, but I think this song best fits this post. Lyrics here.
No comments:
Post a Comment