Happy and Heartbroken

How is it possible to be so happy and heartbroken at the same time? How is it possible to cry with joy and thankfulness while wanting to cry over pain and difficult questions simultaneously? I don’t know how, but I feel the pull of both at once. There are so many blessings showering into my life right now, but there are so many other things going on around me that render me grieving.

An overwhelming amount of changes that I am afraid of are occurring, yet there are so many changes I am excited about. (I have always struggled over worrying about the future, probably something I will struggle with until the day I die.) This may sound oxymoronic but, although I am not traditional, I love traditions. I do things out of the ordinary, but I prefer consistency in some ways. I want something to rely on, something special to see and savor. I know that Christ is the only thing I can rely on, but I still have such a hard time dealing with change.

I miss the way my family used to go about the holidays. Those traditions have changed since my grandpas have both passed away and relatives my age are mostly married, starting their own families and even moving away. I miss the relationships I used to have with my friends. Those relationships are different now. Since graduation last spring, we have all spread out and we can’t just stop by and see each other the way we used to. Other friends are in relationships, engaged, married, having kids, moving, becoming different people. Overall, there is growing apart taking place.

In addition to the general change of life, there is the suffering of others around me that is burdening my heart. Family and friends struggling with or losing their jobs, husbands going to the hospital for heart problems, an adoption being reversed on a couple who fell in love with a child. I am definitely a fixer. I want to do something to make things the way I think they should be. To serve justice, according to me. But I am not the authority and I am not the Holy One who can make a perfect judgment. It is not within my control to fix everything for everyone. That is a humbling thought and certainly a difficult desire to harness.

Finally, there is the spiritual struggle of others around me. People I know who are so lost, empty and without hope. All I can do is point them to the One who comforts and fills me, knowing that, aside from prayer and offering my shoulder to cry on, there is really nothing I can personally do for them. (Again, with the fixing…) Children who have never heard of Jesus or, if they have, they think that He is dead, not knowing that He is their God, their Creator, their Father. That He is alive and He loves them. That He is with them and they don’t need to be afraid of falling asleep alone or dying. Trying to share that hope, but met with the inability to understand and discouraged by the continuation of that spiritual void.

And yet, despite all this, I am so excited about life and the opportunities that the Lord is opening up for me. Not so I can find success, wealth and comfort, but so I can be a blessing in the lives of others, bring Him glory in all that I do and allow Him to accomplish His will for my life. I am so happy about the refining and healing process He is putting me through, even though it is painful, so I can be who He wants me to be. I am so thankful for the answered prayers and the people He is putting into my life, right when I need them, so that I can see how He cares and provides for me, always.

Nothing is certain now, as far as the opportunities go, but He is leading me down a path that I know has been secured and blessed by Him. The refining and healing will surely be accomplished as I daily surrender myself and allow Him to shape and mold me like clay. And I must have faithfulness, relying on Him alone to supply all of my needs.

I rejoice in how amazing and merciful my God is for every moment that He loves me, for all of His unearned blessings and for never giving up on me. And I choose to trust Him with all of the things that are grieving my spirit because He is the Lord over all that burdens a human heart.

Color

            The sky is gray but all I see is green. And then some yellow. There is, of course, a good deal of brown, but I barely notice. Pinks and purples are invisible friends. And blue is nowhere to be seen.

            But…green and yellow.

            Green grass, trees, bushes. Scattered around the yard. The plants obscuring half the view through my window. All green.  

            Save two yellow items.

            Yellow flowers adorning one bush and golden-red leaves glazing one tree, losing crisp bits of fallen color to the earth below.

            Under a blue sky, the greens and yellows blend with the immense array of surrounding colors – the pinks and purples, browns and blues - which is, indeed, striking. Here, under bright skies, all of the colors share.

            However, blue reigns on those days. Blue is the sea. Blue is mystery. Blue is fresh. It is true, blue draws the eye. The feeling of blue is invigorating.

            Blue days are good days.

           

            But no other sky complements my green and yellow as well as the gray. Green is the forest. Green is enchantment. Green is growth and liveliness. Yellow is hopeful. Yellow is angelic. Yellow adds character.

            More times than not, I prefer a gray sky. The dark and dull colors above set the rich and lively shades of green and yellow to a glow. Green and yellow are the colors that remain radiant when all others dim against the gray.

Progressively Set-Apart

            I am so excited about the future. My expectations have gone through some periods of serious morphing, especially throughout my college experience, and now I see how selfish all of those expectations were. I wanted my college experience to unfold this way, for my love story with a guy to unfold that way, and my career path to go just so, all the while praising Jesus for doing things my way.  I wanted a mechanical and somewhat predictable life. I wanted to be “just like everybody else.” I wanted to be understood and happy. To prove wrong all those who had ever challenged me and shame those who had ever rejected me. I just knew I had a "right" to all these things. A right to myself.

            I didn’t see then that there is a life possible for me that is so much more than what I ever imagined for myself. Not because it contains the world’s version, or even my own version, of success. Not because I would experience the most romantic love story with a guy that I could ever fathom. Not because I would attain riches, beauty, or recognition. It is because it contains a love beyond anything this world can hold for me. One of forgiveness and renewal, where all my hurts become unimportant in comparison to the affirming acceptance I find and all my vices become completely alterable by the steady hand I have to hold.

            I find I do not need to worry about the future, since I have no control over how it will unfold anyway, because God, my Love, holds my future in His hands, writing it Himself and guiding me with an even better purpose than I could create for myself. How can I, a tiny being limited in my own understanding of existence, ever orchestrate my own course and purpose when He is the One that sees, knows and understands all? He is the One who created me! Of course He is going to know the specific purpose I was created for and enable me to fulfill it.

            I just finished reading Authentic Beauty by Leslie Ludy. Absolutely fantastic. One point that she makes, in paraphrasing a quote by Oswald Chambers, is that by realizing the reality of Christ, our one true Love and Purpose, “we are never bothered again by the fact that we do not understand ourselves, or that other people do not understand us. The only One who truly understands me is the One who made me and redeems me…” I have always been so concerned about finding someone to completely understand me, but I had never thought of it quite that way before…that it shouldn’t bother me that there is not one human on this planet who can understand every aspect of me, even myself. He understands me far better than even I do.

            When I think about it, there are some friends I can go to who can understand certain parts of me but cannot relate with other parts. Then there are some friends who can relate with those parts, but do not understand what my other friends do about me. There are always those gaps. Even between family members. But that’s okay. We were not designed to understand every single aspect of everybody else because then we would find that fulfillment in someone other than God.

            I know that the only person who would ever come close to fully understanding me would be my future husband, who I call Pete. That is, if I am meant for marriage. But you know what? I’m not worried about it, because the purpose that drives my life is beyond the necessity of being married. If I get married, then it will be fantastic because it is the direction in which God has directed my life in order to better fulfill His purposes. If not, then I can be just as satisfied because that means being unmarried is more advantageous in enabling me to fulfill the ultimate purpose of my life.

            I find the more I give my life and my future over to the Lord, I am not so hung up on things going a certain way. By default, not by discouragement, I imagine my future as a single person and I am thrilled by the ideas I entertain of serving the Lord, growing closer with Him in the most intimate ways, being satisfied in Him and His understanding of me alone, and allowing Him to use me as His instrument to show Himself to others. I am excited over Him continually improving me, the possibilities and knowing that, whatever happens, it will be good and I will love it.

            If I do have a Pete, only when he is revealed to me will I have a reason to imagine, with any solidity, my life any other way. And that is fine by me. I would rather be single, with my heart and inner sanctuary for Him kept intact the way He intended, than to settle and rush into a marriage that I would regret because of discontented impatience and insecurity. If that were to be the case, then let me be single all the days of my life. I will not settle and I will not worry about my future. There is too much to be ecstatic about today.

The Plight of Worry

            There is a season for everything in life. Some seasons are experienced more thoroughly or at more frequent intervals than others. I am facing a familiar sort of season in my life right now - one of change, to be very general - but am experiencing it in an entirely new setting.

            I know that it is pointless to dwell on and worry about the future because it does not “add a single hour to [my] life.” (Matthew 6:27) This has been a constant struggle of mine throughout my life, which I have become better about recently; I have accepted my present circumstances for the way they are and I am no longer agonizing over the many unknowns. In fact, I am rather excited about the prospective future by leisurely imagining its possibilities, as opposed to fretting over exactly what in the world will happen.

            In college, I honestly had no clue whatsoever as to what I would do or where I would go after graduation. During the first half of school, I didn’t worry so much, reasoning that I had plenty of time to figure it out and convinced it would “just come to me.” Junior year, as is typical for juniors, I panicked. Yes, I was one of the many who fell prey to the oh-so-common Junior Panic.

            Halfway through the year, I found a passion for a certain fallback plan. Over the next year, I acquired a new passion, which surpassed the first, and my plan changed. By the time I graduated, the plan attached to that second passion, which was to teach English overseas, simmered away as I rediscovered that teaching is not my gift at all.

            So there I was…a recent college graduate, my safety net and solid plans dissolved just as soon as I had managed to get out. No amount of planning or worrying about the future had done me any good. I was back at square one. I have found that you can plan your entire life and arrange your whole world, but that does not set your plans into motion. Anything can come up, rendering such things in life beyond your control.

            This brings me to my current season. After plenty of worrying over the summer, I came to find myself in a place I never could have planned. Astoundingly, the Lord brought me everything I needed at exactly the right time and not a moment sooner. Experiences. Opportunities. Relationships. Finances. Passions. Ideas.

            I am not yet settled and secure in the direction of my life. There are quite a few things that I am still experiencing, things I must learn before I may be solid in the sense of career and living situation. I find myself in a very sizable in-between stage right now, where nothing is sure, only infinitely possible. Nothing is predictable, only insecurely probable. There is no point in predicting anything, as there is usually something greater that comes along, seemingly out of nowhere, altering the entire situation and its previously assumed outcome.

            I am no longer a part of the life I once knew, a life that was all I knew, and I am at a loss at the life I will have, even one year from now. It is a life in which nothing is secure, in which I have nothing to cling to for assurance but my Jesus. I feel the thin wire that my life lives upon right now. Its fragility. Its vulnerability. If He so wills, it could all fall apart and be gone, but He is the One holding it all together. Again, I see how I cannot be the one to hold up my life. I have no control. I have no power.

            This period He has me in, I feel, is engineered specifically for the deepening of my reliance on Him and becoming exactly who He wants me to be. My focus has been narrowed to a handful of things that need a lot of attention, effort, and cherishing. I am planting now for the harvest so that I may be ready in those few, but important, areas when the time comes to move on from my present season.

            As I am focusing on a specific few of important things right now, there are other certain elements of my life that have necessarily been put off to be saved for later. Things I miss to the point of inner struggle and things I thought I was ready to experience that I am really not ready for at all. Sometimes I feel like such a mess, so far from being prepared, that I wonder if I will ever be ready enough to experience some of those things. But that is another thing I am learning…not to worry, but to trust that I will be ready for whatever I am being prepared for, all in perfect timing and not a moment sooner. And it will be beautiful.

I Am...

It is difficult to imagine correctly how one’s life will go when there are so many unknown variables that are sure to come into the mix. My process of becoming who I am has not given me the experiences I always imagined, but I am who I am without apologizing for it and I am thankful for what I have. There have been struggles and obstacles that I did not account for as well as joys and blessings that I did not expect. Back then, I did not quite know who I am, but now I do.

I am against the grain. I am not what most people perceive me to be. Many people think too soon that they have me figured out or they give up when they think it’s taking too long and I think they miss out by walking away. I am rougher around the edges than most others see. I am not bragging when I say that I am very complicated. Only the ones who really invest, dig and persevere in getting to know me can truly understand me. Not a lot of people have enough patience for this though.

I am not the sweet social butterfly, admired by all. I am not an instant best-friend-maker. I only have energy for a few, deep friendships. Any shallow relationships wear me out. I am attracted to the outcast and the loner. Not a lot of people would guess that I relate better with them because I often feel the same. Shallow, girly chit-chat makes me gag and want to say something to pop their bubble. I do this a lot, even though I know that I probably shouldn’t. I have no respect for girls who have to pathetically flirt with guys in order to be their friends and I have absolutely no respect for the guys who encourage them by giving them all their attention. However, on a friendship scale, I relate with guys much better than I do with girls.

I am not the girl that beats off amazing guys with a stick. I am usually “the friend.” I am primarily attracted to jerks because I always feel a pathetic need to save them. I have always been told that I am marriage-material, not dating-material. I have a high standard because I know exactly what I am looking for and I would rather be alone while waiting for the right one than date around just to feel wanted. However, there was a time when I did not feel that way and now I regret all the losers I have wasted my time with. 

I am never the one with a clever phrase always at the tip of my tongue. I say awkward things and think of the perfect thing I could have said later. I have been the brunt of rumors. I have hurt people. I have rubbed people the wrong way. I am repelled by sicky-sweet people because I cannot relate. I do things out of spite. I am a realist. I get a sick pleasure out of bursting people’s bubbles. I am way too serious deep down. I am not trashy, but I confuse people because I thrive on being edgy, weird and shocking. If I could, my hair would always be like a rainbow and I would wear my leopard-print pants all over the place. I wear make-up to the point where people always ask why I’m dressed up. I’m really just putting on my lipstick so I can feel ready for the day, even if it involves staying home. 

I am hot pink and black. I am brown and blue and green. I am silver, not gold. I am blue lipstick. I am nomad. I am written words. I am dark chocolate. I am underdog. I am ocean waves. I am romantic drama. I am heroic action film with an epic conclusion. I am fantasy. I am windblown palm trees in the sun. I am overcast skies and rain. I am wind. I am yellow Plymouth Prowler. I am fufu coffee. I am ripped jeans. I am fast driver in the country. I am classic literature. I am heart-filled instrumental music. I am loyalty. I am rose. I am imagination. I am smell of pine in the morning. I am spaghetti. I am mud fight. I am saint. I am imperfect. I am Joan of Arc. I am Audrey Hepburn. I am Tobymac. I am C.S. Lewis. I am nostalgia. I am goodbye kisses. I am loving hands. I am loud music.

Ten Years Since "a day that will live in infamy..."

Ten years ago today became “a day that will live in infamy” as our country was attacked on its own soil. Countless lives were lost as people were following daily routines that never should have brought them to death. A modern version of Pearl Harbor surprise was enacted as I slept away safe in my bed. I was twelve years old and I had never even heard of the World Trade Center.

Now, that day is an unmistakable monument in our history. Songs have been written, films have been made and policies have been changed. The war continues on as we battle the evil manifestations of the pure evil that wreaks havoc and wages war within the spiritual realm. We can never be free of witnessing the evil that surrounds us in this world until the day that our King returns to vanquish the enemy.

I have to say, though, that there is such a joy and peace in seeing the increased patriotism we share. Patriotism is one of the ten things that can really make me cry. Through all the years of watching television programs, listening to interviews, seeing pictures, reading articles and hearing stories, our unique sense of patriotism has become so beautiful to me. For one, after all the civil warring and discrimination, seeing our diverse country come together in a time of grief becomes all the more moving and precious.

Patriotism is hope because it brings us together when hopelessness would surely tear us apart. Patriotism is peace because it gives us a reverence for the relationships in our lives and works to dissolve discord. Patriotism is justice because it involves standing up for what is right and fighting for the ones we love. (Peace and fighting…I know, that sounds like a contradiction, but it brings peace among us so we can stick together and we fight the attacker in defense.)

Patriotism contains stories in which personal experience is shared and souls are bonded. Stories in which we glimpse the good that is worth fighting for and the contrasting side that we must constantly choose to resist. We find stories of sacrifice and separation, heroes and villains, love and heartache, courage and honor.

Patriotism makes me cry because the stories I have heard about that day ten years ago are the stories that only seem to exist in fiction. A lot of times I feel like the world has become so black that all is lost and I should not even put in the effort of spreading the light. But that is exactly what the enemy wants…for us to stop trying. To conclude that all is lost, so why even bother? No! We must bother!

It is so good to see that there is still goodness, honor and sacrifice in this world. That these things exist in regular people today and have not been reduced simply to the characteristics of a fairy tale. That there are people who can still love their fellow man and risk their lives for someone they have never met. I cannot express how deeply moving it is to me...all of the rebuilding and the monuments erected. The firefighters that lined the streets of New York in respect as the Ladder 3 fire truck was driven to be placed in the memorial center on the site of ground zero. All of the time, thought and effort taken to honor and remember those that were lost...it's so beautiful.

My pastor (who was once in the Navy) mentioned today that we love our soldiers, policemen and firefighters because they exemplify these characteristics that Christ possesses. He is our Rescuer filled with love, honor, goodness, courage and sacrifice. We must endure the experiences of death that go on around us every day, but we can rest assured in the fact that He has won the power over death. He has already conquered the enemy and will, one day, wipe out death once and for all. He will have the victory and the ultimate enemy will be defeated.

Until then, we continue to honor the memory of those we lost ten years ago. We must continue to pray for the families as they know all too well the pain that death brings and still suffer from the loss of their loved ones. We honor the memory of all the soldiers, policemen and firefighters that have given up their lives to save others as a result of this horrific attack on our country.

We will never forget. And He will be victorious. He will make all things new.

“Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives.” -Hebrews 2:14-15





The projection of the newly completed World Trade Center and 9/11 Memorial.

31 Journals

Yesterday, I finished my thirty-first journal since I was eleven years old, beginning early in the year 2000. I have spent eleven and a half years of my life as a dedicated writer, and that’s not counting the sporadic fiction I have written since the first grade.

I just spent about half an hour organizing and recounting them. Some of my journals are pretty sizable and others…not so much. Some of the entries were neatly written and others were written in a messy rush. Some were in exquisite covers with actual flowers pressed into the thick paper. Others were composition notebooks. Many of them were gifts and some I chose myself from a bookstore. All of the dates allowed for me to put them in order.

Except for my very first journal, they were all written in cursive. I read quite a bit from the second journal. It actually did some good for me to read from it. I found it surreal to visit that girl again. She was so innocent. Such a big dreamer with a genuine and childlike love for Jesus. She had much simpler things to write about and a much more limited understanding of the world. Even back then, she just wanted to please God and make her family proud…and she had crushes on way too many boys.

Most of it was so long ago that I was pleasantly surprised with much of what I read. I hadn’t remembered that I had included a few pictures in one of the journals. I was reminded of events and rediscovered how I had felt about them. I got a glimpse into how everyday life used to be for me.

But then, in contrast, I also felt so much of it coming back to me that I vividly remember writing what I wrote on the day that I wrote it. I came across one entry about my dog that I grew up with, Dodger. He was always so vicious towards other dogs because, before we had gotten him, he had spent his first year around a couple of big, mean dogs who constantly tormented him. I wrote about our attempt to have him meet my aunt and uncle’s new puppy, Rusty. Dodger tried to bite Rusty.

As I grew older, I began to write about more serious things. In my progression, I reached a point where I realized that I was writing to no one really. If I could be writing to anyone at all, I should be writing to the Lord. After all, He knows me most intimately and, by addressing my most intimate writings to Him, I am actively taking part in deepening my intimacy with Him. So then, it’s not a one-way relationship and I can train myself, within the privacy of my thoughts, to shift my focus from being all about me to thinking of Him and others. Now, my journal entries are prayers.

I am so thankful for these personal, hand-written records of my life. In recent years, I have been disappointed to find that I have actually blocked out a lot of memories from my growing up years. Although I certainly did not write about everything (I skipped some weeks pretty often), I am glad that I can look back and remember where I have come from and have those things there with me as I discover where I am going.