Interestingly I put on a random podcast sermon from one of the churches I like to listen to and the sermon was titled, Pursuing Divine Health. Tonight is Christmas Eve and tomorrow I’ll be going to Catholic Mass even though I’m a Protestant Christian. As you also know, I firmly believe that things happen for a reason. I just picked this podcast at random and this is how it started (I’m going to take a few moments to transcribe the first few minutes).
"Many of you know that video the Catholics put out, isn’t that amazing? Wow! John Arnett sent it to me this week… And there was this healing that the Lord’s doing and thankfully in the U.S. Protestants and Catholics get along better than in other parts of the world. And Mexico is one of the places where there has not been a cross-pollenization for whatever, for reasons I don’t want to get into right now. But one of our dear friends and part of our network, Angel, pastors a great church in LaPaz where our ministry is… anyway, Angel sent me a note this morning because he’s been working on reconciliation with the Catholics in the area. He’s been just initiating this, he’s just becoming a Kingdom minded person. And sometime ago he went to the Father and asked if it would be possible if his church, which is not a wealthy church at all, could provide shoes for all the kids in the orphanage. And they did, they brought Christmas gifts. … and what has happened as a result of that is off the charts.
Angel's note said: Last night they called a prayer meeting. About 3000 people gathered in the gov’t plaza in LaPaz. Most of them Catholics, but many of them other branches of Christianity. We all joined to pray for Mexico in a first time ever event. We had never had Catholic and Christians praying together in our country. But at the end of the event I raised my voice to ask forgiveness to the Catholics because we had built walls instead of building bridges. A great ovation was heard when I hugged the Bishop. It was even more powerful seeing other Catholics and believers hugging each other and expressing forgiveness.
I know this is a new day. New things are about to happen here. Revival is here. We are making history."
12-25-08
During Mass I went into a meditative prayer three times. During prayer I was thanking God for everything He has given me and asking Him to lay his hand on me. I was asking Him to listen to this choir through my ears. I was asking Him not to let me slip away or worry about things that are insignificant to his plan for my life.
While in prayer I found myself with tears streaming down my cheeks. I was not feeling sorrowful. I was not in grief, mourning, or sadness. I was in gratitude! Gratitude indeed!
I was thankful of all the ways that the Lord has blessed me. When my family left me, I was given a son, friends and love. When I was in my dire period, burned out from school, work and motherhood and I was pushing away my friends- A new position at work opened up which paid me my same wage with less stress; I was brought to the friends who are genuine and truly my sisters in Christ. I was brought to new friends who have shown me such love and encouragement. I was brought to people who genuinely believe in me and in God’s plan for my life. I was so grateful for all that and more, and because of that gratitude I cried thanks. I cried tears of happiness and blessings.
I don't know why I cried, I just couldn't stop. I was oblivious to the people around me, I didn't hear the singing or the priest, I just heard my prayer and the words of my heart. The cry of my heart. The song of my heart!
After Mass I went with Evelyna and her family to Christmas lunch at the Holiday Inn. They had to go pick up E’s mom and father-in-law, so I arrived at the restaurant about fifteen minutes ahead of them. I sat there with my Bible in my hand and once again, bowed my head in prayer. I thanked God again for all my blessings, I don't think I can thank him enough, He is SO GOOD. Then I asked him to read my heart and see what I longed for. I asked that he would go in and read me and guide me to find the scripture that would make sense to me and for my life. I didn't know what I wanted or what I needed to hear, but I trusted that He did. I asked for something that I could look to when I needed to feel security and to feel reassured that He knows my heart.
I ended my prayer and ran my fingers along the edges of my Bible. This is the Precious Moments Bible my mom got me for my 12th birthday. It’s beat up, written on, scribbled in (little brothers!) but it’s my special Bible and I doubt if I’ll ever buy an adult one because this Bible is so special to me. I flipped through the pages a couple times and opened the book and looked down.
I opened the Bible to Psalm 63.
O God, You are my God;
Early will I seek You;
My soul thirsts for You;
My flesh longs for You
In a dry and thirsty land
Where there is no water.
So I have looked for You
in the sanctuary,
To see Your power and
Your glory.
Because Your lovingkindness is
better than life,
My lips shall praise You.
Thus I will bless You while I
live;
I will lift up my hands in Your
name.
My soul shall be satisfied as with
marrow and fatness,
And my mouth shall praise You
with joyful lips.
When I remember You on my
bed,
I meditate on You in the night
watches.
Because You have been my help,
Therefore in the shadow of Your
wings I will rejoice.
My soul follows close behind
You;
Your right hand upholds me.
This reminds me of a part of the blog I wrote on Nov 8th:
This woman sings of His love for her with every step she takes because it is His hand which has held her up when she has felt like crumpling into the carpet. It is His shoulder she has cried upon when school and work have found her weary to the bone. It is the heartbeat in His chest that she has listened to when she has laid alone in her bed, lonely and longing. It is His words of comfort that she has read when she just needed someone to understand, looked around, and found no one to empathize. It is in Him that she finds the courage to press forward when the enemy glamorizes the ease of giving up and giving in. It is through His eyes she sees herself in the mirror when the enemy reminds her of the weight she's gained during these years in school, work, and motherhood. It is His value of her worth that she fights for, not the enemy's lies which place her worth in her waistline or in the opinions of men.
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Christmas at The Office
Who knew that I would get my best therapeutic techniques from watching The Office? Yep, I learned alllll about alcoholism and interventions. I thought I would share the wisdom...
---
if I can skin a mule deer in less than ten minutes I oughta be able to cut my way out of this.
this is equal parts scotch, absinth, rum, gin vermouth, triple sec and two packs of Splenda, I call it a One of Everything.
an intervention is a surprise party for people who have addictions. You get in their face and you scream at them and you make them feel really badly about themselves and then they stop.
when I was in college I used to get wicked hammered. my nickname was Puke. I would chug a fifth of soko sneak into a frat party, polish off a few people’s empties, some brewskies, some jello shots, do some body shots off myself, pass out. Wake up the next morning, boot, rally, more soko, head to class, probably would have gotten expelled if I would have let it affect my grades but I aced all my courses, they called me Ace. It was totally awesome. Got straight B’s. They called me Buzz.
Intervention questions:
have you ever used alcohol to alter your mood or deliberately change your state of mind?
do you sometimes have a drink to celebrate a special occasion or mark a holiday?
have you ever, under the influence of alcohol, questioned the teachings of the mormon church?
Five fingered intervention:
Awareness
Education
Control
Acceptance
Punching
As it turns out, you can’t check someone into rehab against their will, they have to do it voluntarily, they need to hit rock bottom. So I think I know what I need to do at this point. I need to find ways to push Meredith to the bottom, um, I think I can do it, I did it with Jan.
There are several ways to kill a zombie, but the most satisfying one is to stab it in the brain with a wooden stick.
---
if I can skin a mule deer in less than ten minutes I oughta be able to cut my way out of this.
this is equal parts scotch, absinth, rum, gin vermouth, triple sec and two packs of Splenda, I call it a One of Everything.
an intervention is a surprise party for people who have addictions. You get in their face and you scream at them and you make them feel really badly about themselves and then they stop.
when I was in college I used to get wicked hammered. my nickname was Puke. I would chug a fifth of soko sneak into a frat party, polish off a few people’s empties, some brewskies, some jello shots, do some body shots off myself, pass out. Wake up the next morning, boot, rally, more soko, head to class, probably would have gotten expelled if I would have let it affect my grades but I aced all my courses, they called me Ace. It was totally awesome. Got straight B’s. They called me Buzz.
Intervention questions:
have you ever used alcohol to alter your mood or deliberately change your state of mind?
do you sometimes have a drink to celebrate a special occasion or mark a holiday?
have you ever, under the influence of alcohol, questioned the teachings of the mormon church?
Five fingered intervention:
Awareness
Education
Control
Acceptance
Punching
As it turns out, you can’t check someone into rehab against their will, they have to do it voluntarily, they need to hit rock bottom. So I think I know what I need to do at this point. I need to find ways to push Meredith to the bottom, um, I think I can do it, I did it with Jan.
There are several ways to kill a zombie, but the most satisfying one is to stab it in the brain with a wooden stick.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
KE's Dream
My friend had a weird dream and I emailed her about it. I was just digging through a Word file looking for my homework and I came across my response. During the holidays we have a tendency to feel forlorn and miss the people who were significant from our past. So I thought I'd share my email to her about her dream, I'm sure you don't need to know what hers was about in order to find the value YOU might need to take from my reply.
It was nice and reassuring for me to re-read too, I almost forgot that I wrote it! Ha!
-----
You still love him. Somewhere down in there, you deny it, you don't want it, but you do. But do you really and truly love HIM or what he REPRESENTS?
You've been feeling lonely and wanting intimacy.
Our hearts can romanticize the beautiful things in another person because we want what we think they can give us: stability, love, romance, companionship, the knowledge of who we are intrinsically. When we are vulnerable and we are meditating on one specific thing we begin to visualize it in our life. We are willing it to us. We are praying it to us.
But I think that sometimes our wires get crossed and we inadvertently get confused.
We left them. They left us. For whatever reason the love is unequally yoked. Even if both our hearts are still tied at the soul, in reality we still know it's not meant to be, or we'd be. So in our earnest longing for a love in our life we remember. Remembering fills the void. Remembering is tangible- kind of. Remembering is YOURS and yours alone and the only other person who can share that memory is him, and that makes you close.
I wonder if in your dream you were feeling those soul ties. I wonder if it was your way of calling out to love. I don't know about you, but I love to love. I love the little things that people overlook, I love to think about how I can surprise him and show my love in the everyday... That's what I love. It's not the receiving that gets me going so much, I don't daydream about what someone can do for me, but what we can do together or what I can do for him. I love to love! ***
You know, I have a sneaking suspicion that you're a lot like me. I think your dream was you calling out to love. Not calling FOR love, but to it. He was that last man you loved.
And if he is lying there dying, he can love you in return, he can accept your love, but he cannot show it back and you cannot be disappointed. So maybe it is also your heart's way of telling you to let him go. The old love that you hold on to. The old love is the love that you long for deep down. Maybe your heart knows that God has a new love for you. Because it's new it's foreign and you cannot long for it. How do you long for something you don't know? It's love, but it's a new love, a God love, a love more profound that you'll be able to say, "Wow, this was worth waiting for."
Either way, I think it's your way of realizing that the relationship you had with him is dead (as is he), that you two will always share something that will transcend other relationships (and that's okay & will not degrade your marriage relationship as that will be transcendent on its own), and that you are longing to give love and to be a helper. I do believe that you are growing ready as your soul is crying out to God and to your heart. I am certain that it will be sooner rather than later that your partner will come.
For now, REJOICE in your singleness. You know, I've never been on a missions trip and I've always wanted to. My son is almost ten and we already have passports. I wonder if there's a church going for a week, and I wonder how we would join them? Maybe you don't need a man to go on missions with you, maybe you just need a friend. Maybe, just maybe, your man is waiting for you to join him on his trip…
(***side note*** that's what I remember loving as like... it's been a long, long time... I wonder if I'm still that girl... yes, yes I am... I will always love, I don't know any other way to live my life but through a loving heart)
It was nice and reassuring for me to re-read too, I almost forgot that I wrote it! Ha!
-----
You still love him. Somewhere down in there, you deny it, you don't want it, but you do. But do you really and truly love HIM or what he REPRESENTS?
You've been feeling lonely and wanting intimacy.
Our hearts can romanticize the beautiful things in another person because we want what we think they can give us: stability, love, romance, companionship, the knowledge of who we are intrinsically. When we are vulnerable and we are meditating on one specific thing we begin to visualize it in our life. We are willing it to us. We are praying it to us.
But I think that sometimes our wires get crossed and we inadvertently get confused.
We left them. They left us. For whatever reason the love is unequally yoked. Even if both our hearts are still tied at the soul, in reality we still know it's not meant to be, or we'd be. So in our earnest longing for a love in our life we remember. Remembering fills the void. Remembering is tangible- kind of. Remembering is YOURS and yours alone and the only other person who can share that memory is him, and that makes you close.
I wonder if in your dream you were feeling those soul ties. I wonder if it was your way of calling out to love. I don't know about you, but I love to love. I love the little things that people overlook, I love to think about how I can surprise him and show my love in the everyday... That's what I love. It's not the receiving that gets me going so much, I don't daydream about what someone can do for me, but what we can do together or what I can do for him. I love to love! ***
You know, I have a sneaking suspicion that you're a lot like me. I think your dream was you calling out to love. Not calling FOR love, but to it. He was that last man you loved.
And if he is lying there dying, he can love you in return, he can accept your love, but he cannot show it back and you cannot be disappointed. So maybe it is also your heart's way of telling you to let him go. The old love that you hold on to. The old love is the love that you long for deep down. Maybe your heart knows that God has a new love for you. Because it's new it's foreign and you cannot long for it. How do you long for something you don't know? It's love, but it's a new love, a God love, a love more profound that you'll be able to say, "Wow, this was worth waiting for."
Either way, I think it's your way of realizing that the relationship you had with him is dead (as is he), that you two will always share something that will transcend other relationships (and that's okay & will not degrade your marriage relationship as that will be transcendent on its own), and that you are longing to give love and to be a helper. I do believe that you are growing ready as your soul is crying out to God and to your heart. I am certain that it will be sooner rather than later that your partner will come.
For now, REJOICE in your singleness. You know, I've never been on a missions trip and I've always wanted to. My son is almost ten and we already have passports. I wonder if there's a church going for a week, and I wonder how we would join them? Maybe you don't need a man to go on missions with you, maybe you just need a friend. Maybe, just maybe, your man is waiting for you to join him on his trip…
(***side note*** that's what I remember loving as like... it's been a long, long time... I wonder if I'm still that girl... yes, yes I am... I will always love, I don't know any other way to live my life but through a loving heart)
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
One of my infamous emails to a friend:
One of my friends sent this article to me this morning and I just finished reading it. It totally made me think of you and how you have isolated yourself through fishing. Little comments you’ve made… I don’t know, I think my subconscious picks up on more things than I do and then I attach certain things to people. So please don’t take offence that I’m sending you this. It’s really just to show you what you COULD become if you allow yourself to dwell.
I do personally know what it’s like to reflect back. I was talking with Kathy the other day about how I pray that God will not bring me a man who is short and skinny (whew, good thing I don’t have any short and skinny guy friends!). She could relate to that feeling and assured me that even if he was a midget God would make sure I was attracted to him.
But I have this tendency to look around at my friends and their respective relationships, and then I inadvertantly find myself thinking about the few past relationships I've had. Then my thoughts take a turn for the worse.
Guys always want to “own” me. They want to talk on the phone every day, hang out constantly, know where I am and what I’m doing and with whom I’m doing it. They get in the way of my time with my friends and hate it when I spend an hour on the phone talking about nothing. I have to share the remote and watch stupid things like NASCAR. There’s complaining when I want to watch three episodes of What Not To Wear on a Sunday while I clean.
Is it too much to ask for healthy autonomy? Our own lives and lives together? Lives in Christ and filled with trust, love, understanding and commitment? Not needing to reassure each other all the time, but having a consensus of love? Is that a superficial ideal that I have created to keep people away? Are my standards too high?
When I look at the relationships around me I feel disheartened because I don't want what they have. They have power and control over each other. I don't want power over another person. I don't want to give control over me. I just want to love and be loved in return. So when I turn and see this "love" around me, I want nothing to do with "love."
Nothing.
I’ll promote love for everyone else, I’ll sing the happy song of the wonder and beauty of love. I will encourage second chances. I will point out that there is no perfect man or woman, I will illustrate the value of LOVE. Singing, dancing, rolling in my meadow of change, I will look you in the eyes and I will profess how deserving you are of unconditional love and acceptance, and I will sell you on the opportunity cost of risk… you will leave from our conversation or email refreshed and renewed in a spirit of hope and love.
But for me…
Oh for me…
I will not step on that plank. There are too many sharks in those waters!!!!
Heck no!
I don’t know how to bait a shark and then fend him off. I’m shark bait waiting to bleed if I even put a toe in the shallow end.
Wow.
I’m such a hypocrite.
How do I look in the mirror?
Oh, through rationalization and justification. When I’m done with school I’ll date. When I lose the freshman 15 I gained I’ll date. When my apartment is clean I’ll date. When I finish practicum I’ll date. When God puts His man right in front of me, on my doorstep with flowers and a card that says, “I’m your gift from God and I will not break your heart or try to control you.” THEN I’ll date…
I bet that sounds familiar to you too…
Something tells me that while you might not actually think all those thoughts, they’re floating around back there. They are whispering sweet nothings in your ear. They are tickling your thoughts and they are shackling your actions. They are your ball and chain. You are more committed to them than you have been to any woman.
Am I close???
Anyway, here’s the article that made me think of you. I thought you could get as much out of it as I did. I’m going to re-read it before bed too because I think my subconscious needs to hear it. That little voice in my head sure likes to point out potential rejections far louder than any potential acceptance…
Who am I to give advice?
I’m as scared as you…
OUR COMMON SORROW
by Hudson Russell Davis
Crosswalk. com Contributing Writer
Like yours, my heart is a library of loneliness, longing to be read, but most people come only to browse. All too often the real feelings go back on the shelf.
— Tim Hansel
One of Satan’s chief means of crippling us is to convince us in our loneliness that we are truly alone, not simply without a mate but without a friend, without help and without God—forsaken. He whispers that whatever cries we utter are spoken into thin air and deaf ears, both human and divine. He tells us that people do not care and that God does not care, but it is not so.
Everything that has overtaken us is common to humankind. We all suffer loneliness. We all suffer rejection. We all raise up hope only to know disappointment. This is true of the single and it is true of the married, true under the limelight of success and the clouds of failure. We all know, to some degree, what it is to be misunderstood or ignored.
This does not mean that our sufferings are not individual, not unique; it means we do not suffer alone. I cannot know the ways you have been cut or the bruises you bear, but I care. We can never truly “understand” but need only love. While it is wonderful if someone understands, it is better if they care.
Each of us knows a particular sorrow, but we all know the pain of loneliness and the hurt of dreams deferred. We could resolve not to dream, but that is not wise. We could resolve not to feel, but that is not practical. By never speaking we could withdraw from the dangers of miscommunication, but that is not human. It seems so simple—no dreams no waking horrors, no feelings no hurt, no misunderstanding no discord. Isolation is a natural answer, but it is spiritual suicide.
If we choose not to risk we loose ever so subtly, the sharp edge to our faith. Over time we become people whose lives are as bland as our dreamless nights. Over time we become the boring but safe people who squash the dreams of others and tell them they should be “realistic.” Over time we may convince ourselves that we are the only unhappy souls in the world. We may even come to believe that a tasteless existence is really contentment. It is not. It is a numb, anesthetized, existence that falls short of living. It is a coma.
Self-deceit would rather ask nothing of God than wrestle with the answers he does or does not give. Isolation would rather resolve to need no one than risk failed relationships—even failed friendships. Because that is what it will come to if we never make peace with the loneliness. If it is suppressed, it may one day explode.
If ever we withdraw behind our carefully constructed barricades and for fear of disappointment relinquish hope, we shut out wife, husband and all living things. That is the danger—numbness not only to the hopes and dreams we harbored in our youth, but numbness to all dreams and hopes that life naturally cultivates.
Years of loneliness can warp our thinking and sap our strength. In time we may imagine that over that dune and the next dune is nothing more than sun, sand—and loneliness. So many of you have shared with me you felt lonely and alone in your loneliness. You have been very kind in telling me that my honesty eased your loneliness. I want to tell you that you were never alone. Alone is what the desert makes us feel, but we are not alone.
Indeed not only do I suffer the same trials, but also many of those you encounter weekly as you suffer in silence. How do I know? They have written and told me—a stranger—what they were afraid to tell you. And you have written and told me—a stranger—what you were afraid to tell them. Perhaps some of you felt comfortable with me because I had opened my heart and because you need not look me in the eyes and fear my rebuke. I have encouraged everyone that they are not alone, but want to add one last charge: break the silence! Open up and let someone in. And if someone speaks to you, listen between the lines for the pain that words cannot express.
Be a safe harbor for hurting hearts. Paul writes, “Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ” (Gal. 6:2). You may find the comfort you have enjoyed here—in knowing my heart—closer than expected. Perhaps someone near you is waiting for you to break the silence and live by honesty. It is the surest turn in our healing to understand that we are not alone, that we share a common sorrow, a common longing, which is not our own private nightmare.
It is the Enemy’s greatest tool to cripple us, to isolate us in our loneliness. He then attempts to convince us that all the whispers and all the laughter is about us—that we are diseased or damaged and that everyone we meet knows it. But it is not true. He is a liar and the Father of Lies. There is no truth in him (John 8:44). Our greatest weapon is the faith we have been given in a God who loved us enough to rescue us “while we were still sinners” (Rom. 5:8). Our greatest weapon against the isolation is to confess both our love of God and our genuine longing to a living, breathing, person who can touch us and restore us in love.
Beware! Not everyone loves honesty. Those who have already given up hope will not want their memories stirred, will not want the embers poked. They fear disappointment. I fear disappointment. For some, who have found peace in simple answers, the complexity of a real God who acts in ways we do not understand and cannot explain will be too much. But if ever the Christian community is to rise above the charge of “hypocrite” we must come out of the shadows and honestly state that we are content but not satisfied.
Here, I will start: “Hi. My name is Hudson and I am lonely.”
Now you. ...
Saturday, November 8, 2008
Starting from Scratch
My mantra has been my countdown. It's almost like I'm Will Smith in I Am Legend and I'm keeping record of my days in this craphole of a city that was once so beloved and so familiar and is now so desolate. I see the remnants of the life I once had while I stoically hold onto the hope and knowledge that I will be able to put it right again. I am tormented by the awareness that this was all my own doing, the choices I have made, the songs I have sung, the poems I have written.
As I walk past a mirror I do not recognize the woman who passes.
She is beautiful and confused. She is happy and swirling. She is confident and self-conscious. She is scared and alone and filled with love and friends. She is one woman with so many contradictory thoughts and longings. She is the old Jessica, the one who was married and heavy and insecure and was living an after-school-special. She is the modern Jessica, the lady who was in love and athletic and living a fairytale. She is Jessie, the little girl who the grown-ups said "doesn't have a mean bone in her body." She is Jess, the fiercely loyal friend who takes on her friends' battles on their behalves. And she is a new person. A woman.
In a crux.
A new identity on the verge of blossom. A cicada nymph ready and yearning to shed her skin, depart from her borough and emerge in the daylight. After years as a chrysalis, I am screaming to be relieved of my cocoon!
I daydream of a circadian rhythm. I daydream. I can feel the sun on my face as the romance of my life-past dances across my closed eyelids. I can feel my body emerge from my bed, well rested and happy. I can smell my Madagascar vanilla red tea brewing in the morning as I lie in the dark of my living room before the sun has risen. I can hear the waves, the guitar and the melodic voice of the pilates instructor whispering from my television as I begin my workday before the world has risen. My lungs shudder in the piercing cold of the dawn as I run down the street to greet the sun, a song in my heart and a playlist in my mind. My eyes can see the pavement change from sidewalk, to gravel, to street, to gutter, to overpass, to my front step. My intelligence can remember its freedom of thought during those morning runs when it could run-wild. My derrière can feel the sofa underneath as I sit and snuggle while watching a movie or reading a book. My hands find the idle time used to chop vegetables and experiment with dinner. My teeth chew slowly and my mouth savors my meal. My lips smile as they laugh with friends because they know that there is no agenda for the next day or month and they can just relax and smile. My body is easy in its sway because it knows that its own agenda is to heal and love.
My soul lights like a candle.
And so I count the months, weeks and days.
And I hope and I pray that I don't disappoint myself.
But the difference,
the one small thing,
the tiny, minute, variance
of this new woman whose arms can feel that finish line and whose fingernails are prying through the opening in her shell,
is that her lungs fill with the cool, refreshing, hope-filled air of confidence in the Holy Spirit.
THIS WOMAN is assured.
This woman sings of His love for her with every step she takes because it is His hand which has held her up when she has felt like crumpling into the carpet. It is His shoulder she has cried upon when school and work have found her weary to the bone. It is the heartbeat in His chest that she has listened to when she has laid alone in her bed, lonely and longing. It is His words of comfort that she has read when she just needed someone to understand, looked around, and found no one to empathize. It is in Him that she finds the courage to press forward when the enemy glamorizes the ease of giving up and giving in. It is through His eyes she sees herself in the mirror when the enemy reminds her of the weight she's gained during these years in school, work, and motherhood. It is His value of her worth that she fights for, not the enemy's lies which place her worth in her waistline or the opinions of men.
This woman, this Jess, Jessie, Jessica, Jessiepalooza, Reindeer Love, this daughter, mother, sister, aunt, friend, student, employee, coworker, princess, child of God,
this woman is not going to stop,
she will not give up.
Remember, she is a lioness, she is in the grasses of the prairie chasing her change and embracing it.
She is connected to her feelings subjectively and objectively. She is dualism incarnate. A woman and a child, the past, present and future of her own making guided by the careful hands of God. Quietly listening for his direction, trusting in Him.
I am ready to love and to live, and this countdown is excruciating. But my-oh-my, will these lungs fill clean, fresh and true the evening of December 20th, 2008.
***after posting this I started listening to a sermon podcast, I arbitrarily chose one on apostleship. Five minutes in, the pastor says this:
There are two main ways to know what you're supposed to be doing with your life. The first one is, what do you love? … What you are passionate for you were born to do. And the second way that you know what to do with your life is, what are you afraid of?
How many of you know that the dogs of doom stand at the door to your destiny? The children of Israel were supposed to go into where? The Promised Land. How many of you know what they were afraid to do? Go into The Promised Land. What you're supposed to do with your life you'll be scared to death to do.
How many of you know that the dogs of doom stand at the door to your destiny? Many of us never enter into our destiny because the devil put the dogs of doom there? Whenever you get close to these barking dogs you know your destiny lies on the other side of that. What you're supposed to be doing, you'll be scared to death to do.
Jesus said, "he who wants to save his life will lose it." …
-----Welp, I don't know if you see where I'm going with this, but if you've been reading what I've written these past couple of years then you're having an a-ha moment with me. The dogs are barking! They're yelping! So then, I know that I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing, and I gave up my life to save it.
Clean, fresh breaths fill my lungs! I will fill my lungs with words of invitation to God.
As I walk past a mirror I do not recognize the woman who passes.
She is beautiful and confused. She is happy and swirling. She is confident and self-conscious. She is scared and alone and filled with love and friends. She is one woman with so many contradictory thoughts and longings. She is the old Jessica, the one who was married and heavy and insecure and was living an after-school-special. She is the modern Jessica, the lady who was in love and athletic and living a fairytale. She is Jessie, the little girl who the grown-ups said "doesn't have a mean bone in her body." She is Jess, the fiercely loyal friend who takes on her friends' battles on their behalves. And she is a new person. A woman.
In a crux.
A new identity on the verge of blossom. A cicada nymph ready and yearning to shed her skin, depart from her borough and emerge in the daylight. After years as a chrysalis, I am screaming to be relieved of my cocoon!
I daydream of a circadian rhythm. I daydream. I can feel the sun on my face as the romance of my life-past dances across my closed eyelids. I can feel my body emerge from my bed, well rested and happy. I can smell my Madagascar vanilla red tea brewing in the morning as I lie in the dark of my living room before the sun has risen. I can hear the waves, the guitar and the melodic voice of the pilates instructor whispering from my television as I begin my workday before the world has risen. My lungs shudder in the piercing cold of the dawn as I run down the street to greet the sun, a song in my heart and a playlist in my mind. My eyes can see the pavement change from sidewalk, to gravel, to street, to gutter, to overpass, to my front step. My intelligence can remember its freedom of thought during those morning runs when it could run-wild. My derrière can feel the sofa underneath as I sit and snuggle while watching a movie or reading a book. My hands find the idle time used to chop vegetables and experiment with dinner. My teeth chew slowly and my mouth savors my meal. My lips smile as they laugh with friends because they know that there is no agenda for the next day or month and they can just relax and smile. My body is easy in its sway because it knows that its own agenda is to heal and love.
My soul lights like a candle.
And so I count the months, weeks and days.
And I hope and I pray that I don't disappoint myself.
But the difference,
the one small thing,
the tiny, minute, variance
of this new woman whose arms can feel that finish line and whose fingernails are prying through the opening in her shell,
is that her lungs fill with the cool, refreshing, hope-filled air of confidence in the Holy Spirit.
THIS WOMAN is assured.
This woman sings of His love for her with every step she takes because it is His hand which has held her up when she has felt like crumpling into the carpet. It is His shoulder she has cried upon when school and work have found her weary to the bone. It is the heartbeat in His chest that she has listened to when she has laid alone in her bed, lonely and longing. It is His words of comfort that she has read when she just needed someone to understand, looked around, and found no one to empathize. It is in Him that she finds the courage to press forward when the enemy glamorizes the ease of giving up and giving in. It is through His eyes she sees herself in the mirror when the enemy reminds her of the weight she's gained during these years in school, work, and motherhood. It is His value of her worth that she fights for, not the enemy's lies which place her worth in her waistline or the opinions of men.
This woman, this Jess, Jessie, Jessica, Jessiepalooza, Reindeer Love, this daughter, mother, sister, aunt, friend, student, employee, coworker, princess, child of God,
this woman is not going to stop,
she will not give up.
Remember, she is a lioness, she is in the grasses of the prairie chasing her change and embracing it.
She is connected to her feelings subjectively and objectively. She is dualism incarnate. A woman and a child, the past, present and future of her own making guided by the careful hands of God. Quietly listening for his direction, trusting in Him.
I am ready to love and to live, and this countdown is excruciating. But my-oh-my, will these lungs fill clean, fresh and true the evening of December 20th, 2008.
***after posting this I started listening to a sermon podcast, I arbitrarily chose one on apostleship. Five minutes in, the pastor says this:
There are two main ways to know what you're supposed to be doing with your life. The first one is, what do you love? … What you are passionate for you were born to do. And the second way that you know what to do with your life is, what are you afraid of?
How many of you know that the dogs of doom stand at the door to your destiny? The children of Israel were supposed to go into where? The Promised Land. How many of you know what they were afraid to do? Go into The Promised Land. What you're supposed to do with your life you'll be scared to death to do.
How many of you know that the dogs of doom stand at the door to your destiny? Many of us never enter into our destiny because the devil put the dogs of doom there? Whenever you get close to these barking dogs you know your destiny lies on the other side of that. What you're supposed to be doing, you'll be scared to death to do.
Jesus said, "he who wants to save his life will lose it." …
-----Welp, I don't know if you see where I'm going with this, but if you've been reading what I've written these past couple of years then you're having an a-ha moment with me. The dogs are barking! They're yelping! So then, I know that I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing, and I gave up my life to save it.
Clean, fresh breaths fill my lungs! I will fill my lungs with words of invitation to God.
Sunday, October 26, 2008
...sometimes moms have a way...
Most of you remember last September when my mom had her plane ticket, days off work and was going to fly up to see Aidan and me... except that she didn't actually have the ticket or the days off, so she didn't come. That was pretty disappointing, and I will admit that I got the little-girl lump in my throat and my eyes got a little bit wet. Then I got so frustrated with myself for allowing myself that hope.
I'm actually over that. You know how much therapy they make you get when you're going into the field of therapy?!?! They don't want you bringing your baggage to the table when you have a client sitting in front of you. But tonight I read a blog that brought some of that up. It a good, healthy, sustainable sort of way. So when I read my friend's blog I felt compelled to send him a message. Then I remembered that I have a couple of you who can completely relate. So I thought I'd share... enjoy!
------------------
Just don't let the crazy people in your life harden your heart to the good and loving ones out there. Just think to yourself that they are diseased. They may not have a tangible cancer, but their mind is black and that is not a reflection on your worth. Nor is it an example of the others in this world who claim to love you- or those in the future who will love you.
Nowadays, we have a tendency toward self-protection and it creeps up on us. It creeps so that we never see it coming. And sometimes some people never even realize it's there. Remember that. Hold onto whatever naiveté you might still have. Cultivate it and grow it. Love it like your lover. Let it grow as you think about how all those people passed you except that one van. Think about how he was probably going somewhere and stopped to go out of his way for a struggling stranger. Pay it forward.
Love for the sake of it.
Love because your mother doesn't know how.
Love because there's extra in this world, since she's so full of hate.
Let her have yours. Your hate. Shrug it off, don't own it, let her have it because you refuse to give into it. Let her have the sorrow of losing a wonderful man from her life. Because as you grow your love, you will be rich and she will be poor, and she will envy your riches.
My mom is similar to yours, but worse. Mine loves me. No. Mine pretends she loves me. She tells me she loves me. Then moves to Texas when I'm 19, unwed and pregnant. Mine loves me. She calls and tells me so. She calls and tells my son how much she loves him. Then she tells him how I ran away from home when I was a teenager and that if he ever needs to leave she will be there. My son was 7 when she said that. But my mom loves me. She tells me so. She sends me Hallmark cards with flowers and poems and sappy crap. That means she really, super loves me. My mom loves me so much that she was never here when I was despairing and needing a mother, rather I had a sofa, an empty apartment and my arms wrapped around my knees because I just needed a hug. But she loves me, and because she tells me she loves me so profusely, I forget not to believe her. I forget until I'm crying again.
Sometimes I get angry and I wish she would disown me. Because I grow my love goshdarnit. I grow it because I refuse to let her have it. I choose to love her. I'm better than her. When I tell her I love her, I mean it. When I cry in a disappointment in only tears she can elicit at the ripe ol' age of thirty, I mean every tear. I feel each one. You know why?
Because I love.
Because I choose to love.
Because I am hopeful.
I am not hopeful she will change. She is diseased. You can't cure that, only mask the symptoms. But I am hopeful. I am hopeful that I will raise my son to know how to love and to know how to hurt. I will raise my son to know that hurting is human and because it's SO WONDERFUL to love, you have to accept that sometimes the consequence is pain. But to cut off the pain is to dull the love.
And why dull something so joyous? Love like you're a little kid and your mom loves you and the sun is shining and the bluebirds are singing. Love her like that through your anger and pain and frustration. Just don't let her know it. Don't let her exploit it. Don't let her abuse your love. It's YOUR love.
I'm actually over that. You know how much therapy they make you get when you're going into the field of therapy?!?! They don't want you bringing your baggage to the table when you have a client sitting in front of you. But tonight I read a blog that brought some of that up. It a good, healthy, sustainable sort of way. So when I read my friend's blog I felt compelled to send him a message. Then I remembered that I have a couple of you who can completely relate. So I thought I'd share... enjoy!
------------------
Just don't let the crazy people in your life harden your heart to the good and loving ones out there. Just think to yourself that they are diseased. They may not have a tangible cancer, but their mind is black and that is not a reflection on your worth. Nor is it an example of the others in this world who claim to love you- or those in the future who will love you.
Nowadays, we have a tendency toward self-protection and it creeps up on us. It creeps so that we never see it coming. And sometimes some people never even realize it's there. Remember that. Hold onto whatever naiveté you might still have. Cultivate it and grow it. Love it like your lover. Let it grow as you think about how all those people passed you except that one van. Think about how he was probably going somewhere and stopped to go out of his way for a struggling stranger. Pay it forward.
Love for the sake of it.
Love because your mother doesn't know how.
Love because there's extra in this world, since she's so full of hate.
Let her have yours. Your hate. Shrug it off, don't own it, let her have it because you refuse to give into it. Let her have the sorrow of losing a wonderful man from her life. Because as you grow your love, you will be rich and she will be poor, and she will envy your riches.
My mom is similar to yours, but worse. Mine loves me. No. Mine pretends she loves me. She tells me she loves me. Then moves to Texas when I'm 19, unwed and pregnant. Mine loves me. She calls and tells me so. She calls and tells my son how much she loves him. Then she tells him how I ran away from home when I was a teenager and that if he ever needs to leave she will be there. My son was 7 when she said that. But my mom loves me. She tells me so. She sends me Hallmark cards with flowers and poems and sappy crap. That means she really, super loves me. My mom loves me so much that she was never here when I was despairing and needing a mother, rather I had a sofa, an empty apartment and my arms wrapped around my knees because I just needed a hug. But she loves me, and because she tells me she loves me so profusely, I forget not to believe her. I forget until I'm crying again.
Sometimes I get angry and I wish she would disown me. Because I grow my love goshdarnit. I grow it because I refuse to let her have it. I choose to love her. I'm better than her. When I tell her I love her, I mean it. When I cry in a disappointment in only tears she can elicit at the ripe ol' age of thirty, I mean every tear. I feel each one. You know why?
Because I love.
Because I choose to love.
Because I am hopeful.
I am not hopeful she will change. She is diseased. You can't cure that, only mask the symptoms. But I am hopeful. I am hopeful that I will raise my son to know how to love and to know how to hurt. I will raise my son to know that hurting is human and because it's SO WONDERFUL to love, you have to accept that sometimes the consequence is pain. But to cut off the pain is to dull the love.
And why dull something so joyous? Love like you're a little kid and your mom loves you and the sun is shining and the bluebirds are singing. Love her like that through your anger and pain and frustration. Just don't let her know it. Don't let her exploit it. Don't let her abuse your love. It's YOUR love.
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Reflecting
I am cleaning and listening to podcasts from services I missed (like my bday & fresno dome trip), and one thing the pastor said was that Jesus said "if you have not left everything then you cannot be my disciple."
Do you remember, two years ago when I wasn't going to church regularly? It was Thursday, November 16th 2006 that I left Adam. It was two weeks later that I got that email from Lindsey that made me decide to cut her and the rest of that group from my life. So it was the first of December that I left it all. Mid-December I went to church with Matt & Anna and then in January I start going every week to The Stirring. February I applied for National and March I started school. I left my dreams of moving up in business banking. In October I had that near-death experience, and it was that day that I feel I died. I did. I died that day. The me who I used to be, the me who I had always known. I still think back to that day and get a lump in my throat and praise God because as scary as it was, it was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that was His work.
I had been talking on the phone about Matt & Anna, and Billy & Heather's relationships and how someday that's what I wanted. I had never been around people my age who were in a relationship and it was God centered. I didn't have friends like that before, my mom didn't model it, and I was so excited talking about how all the ideas I'd had of my future partner were dead because THIS is what I wanted someday.
It wasn't the house or the handsome, tall man. It wasn't the stability of our joint income. It was the love of God. It was the compatibility of each other and the mutual desire to make God the center of the relationship; rather than focusing on each other or ourselves, focusing on climbing the social ladder and being better than the Jone's. It wasn't a narcissistic love, but a whole one! It was the best kind of love triangle! I don't think anyone in that group of friends I once had knows how to do that or what that looks like, and so I didn't either. How would you be able to see that you were missing out on something so great if you had never witnessed it before?
So I left it all.
I left the only man I had ever loved. I left the only friends I had ever loved. I left my sense of belonging. I left my dreams of career. I turned my back on all of it. And without purposely connecting it, I turned toward church and toward God.
I answered the longing I had in my heart my whole life. I went back to the 15 year old crying after youth group because she wanted to know God more, and didn't know how. I went back to the little girl who loved church and hated to be late. I went back to the innocense I had before I "grew up."
I didn't know what I was doing back then. I didn't see it (although the whole church did as I sat alone in the back and cried every Sunday for a year). Isn't hindsight so 20/20? It's so true.
And so I keep growing in God. As I told you the other day, I am so thirsty! It's not even like the blogs I've done about the fire in my veins, it's a thirst or a hunger. It's different. It doesn't spark when I'm in church, it's just ever-present and it's growing. Heck, I'm listening to sermons on podcast while I get all OCD cleaning the top of my fridge (which you KNOW is looooong overdue). I am counting down the days until I'm done with school (69 days!) and I can start practicum. Because then I will no longer be on standby.
I really see that everything is happening in His time. If I had not left my friends and my love, I would not know the feeling of isolation or abandonment (you still feel abandoned even when you are the one who leaves). If I had not loved, I would not know that I know how to love and how wonderful it is to risk. If I had not left my life I would not know to appreciate my life. If I had not done all that I have done with work/school/mom over these two years, I would not know my strength and stamina. If I had not struggled I would not know my cheerleaders! And I have so many, and I am SO GRATEFUL! If I had not struggled, I would not know gratitude.
And I am learning every day how to let go and put my life in His hands through faith because He has already been so faithful. Even when I'm in self-pity over my exhausting schedule He gives me teachers who see the burn-out and cut me slack!
Looking back, I have gone through some scary and difficult times and transitions, but I see that they were all necessary. A coworker told me yesterday, "Jessica, you are the most patient person I know." And the old Jessica would have scoffed at that comment because it would have been an outright lie! I have learned patience. And fortitude.
And I learned this because I left everything.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hey, do you have any favorite sermons that especially touch you? Something I can download and listen to? Jamie told me her favorite from Bethel, but there are so many to choose from on my church's and hers that it would sure be helpful to hear about others so I don't have to listen to every single one!
Ok, I'd better get back to cleaning! I've created a bigger mess than there was to start out with! I'm sure that can be used toward an analogy of some sort. Happy Saturday!
J
Do you remember, two years ago when I wasn't going to church regularly? It was Thursday, November 16th 2006 that I left Adam. It was two weeks later that I got that email from Lindsey that made me decide to cut her and the rest of that group from my life. So it was the first of December that I left it all. Mid-December I went to church with Matt & Anna and then in January I start going every week to The Stirring. February I applied for National and March I started school. I left my dreams of moving up in business banking. In October I had that near-death experience, and it was that day that I feel I died. I did. I died that day. The me who I used to be, the me who I had always known. I still think back to that day and get a lump in my throat and praise God because as scary as it was, it was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that was His work.
I had been talking on the phone about Matt & Anna, and Billy & Heather's relationships and how someday that's what I wanted. I had never been around people my age who were in a relationship and it was God centered. I didn't have friends like that before, my mom didn't model it, and I was so excited talking about how all the ideas I'd had of my future partner were dead because THIS is what I wanted someday.
It wasn't the house or the handsome, tall man. It wasn't the stability of our joint income. It was the love of God. It was the compatibility of each other and the mutual desire to make God the center of the relationship; rather than focusing on each other or ourselves, focusing on climbing the social ladder and being better than the Jone's. It wasn't a narcissistic love, but a whole one! It was the best kind of love triangle! I don't think anyone in that group of friends I once had knows how to do that or what that looks like, and so I didn't either. How would you be able to see that you were missing out on something so great if you had never witnessed it before?
So I left it all.
I left the only man I had ever loved. I left the only friends I had ever loved. I left my sense of belonging. I left my dreams of career. I turned my back on all of it. And without purposely connecting it, I turned toward church and toward God.
I answered the longing I had in my heart my whole life. I went back to the 15 year old crying after youth group because she wanted to know God more, and didn't know how. I went back to the little girl who loved church and hated to be late. I went back to the innocense I had before I "grew up."
I didn't know what I was doing back then. I didn't see it (although the whole church did as I sat alone in the back and cried every Sunday for a year). Isn't hindsight so 20/20? It's so true.
And so I keep growing in God. As I told you the other day, I am so thirsty! It's not even like the blogs I've done about the fire in my veins, it's a thirst or a hunger. It's different. It doesn't spark when I'm in church, it's just ever-present and it's growing. Heck, I'm listening to sermons on podcast while I get all OCD cleaning the top of my fridge (which you KNOW is looooong overdue). I am counting down the days until I'm done with school (69 days!) and I can start practicum. Because then I will no longer be on standby.
I really see that everything is happening in His time. If I had not left my friends and my love, I would not know the feeling of isolation or abandonment (you still feel abandoned even when you are the one who leaves). If I had not loved, I would not know that I know how to love and how wonderful it is to risk. If I had not left my life I would not know to appreciate my life. If I had not done all that I have done with work/school/mom over these two years, I would not know my strength and stamina. If I had not struggled I would not know my cheerleaders! And I have so many, and I am SO GRATEFUL! If I had not struggled, I would not know gratitude.
And I am learning every day how to let go and put my life in His hands through faith because He has already been so faithful. Even when I'm in self-pity over my exhausting schedule He gives me teachers who see the burn-out and cut me slack!
Looking back, I have gone through some scary and difficult times and transitions, but I see that they were all necessary. A coworker told me yesterday, "Jessica, you are the most patient person I know." And the old Jessica would have scoffed at that comment because it would have been an outright lie! I have learned patience. And fortitude.
And I learned this because I left everything.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hey, do you have any favorite sermons that especially touch you? Something I can download and listen to? Jamie told me her favorite from Bethel, but there are so many to choose from on my church's and hers that it would sure be helpful to hear about others so I don't have to listen to every single one!
Ok, I'd better get back to cleaning! I've created a bigger mess than there was to start out with! I'm sure that can be used toward an analogy of some sort. Happy Saturday!
J
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
I am Jessie
...i post this again...
...to serve as a reminder to myself...
Something inside me is burning. It's welling up and it's forcing its way out. Out of my heart, out of my mind, out of my soul; it consumes me. Through my fingers and from my tongue it spills. It is toxic. It is killing me. It is killing the self-defeating me. It is inspiring me. It is working itself around in my veins. It is lovingly purging the ghetto of my mind, it is repainting and repairing. There is no where to run; no where to hide. But in all its glory it pulls me from the shadows and allows me to bask in its truth. In all its love it burns me from the inside-out. It seeps from my skin, smelling sweetly. It is not me... and yet... it is the essence of who I am. And I am Jessie.
...to serve as a reminder to myself...
Something inside me is burning. It's welling up and it's forcing its way out. Out of my heart, out of my mind, out of my soul; it consumes me. Through my fingers and from my tongue it spills. It is toxic. It is killing me. It is killing the self-defeating me. It is inspiring me. It is working itself around in my veins. It is lovingly purging the ghetto of my mind, it is repainting and repairing. There is no where to run; no where to hide. But in all its glory it pulls me from the shadows and allows me to bask in its truth. In all its love it burns me from the inside-out. It seeps from my skin, smelling sweetly. It is not me... and yet... it is the essence of who I am. And I am Jessie.
Monday, September 22, 2008
Ode to My Friends
I've always loved God and was a Christian. But I never felt this passion or fire for my faith as I have this past year. I never would have talked about it openly, and now I feel that when you just look at me it's written all over my face and it pours from my lips. I feel like honey is the trail I leave behind when I walk because I am so blessed.
I feel like the Exodus. I feel like I have journied far and wide, and I feel like I have sand in my toes. I feel like I have been accompanied by wise friends, lost souls, merrymakers and dissenters. I feel like I am finally confident and free and able and willing to tell someone no, and I am finally vulnerable and loving and understanding to tell someone yes. I feel like in this last two years I have learned the true meaning of unconditional love.
There's a fire and I'm burning.
In three months I'll be set free. I'll burn my village and build a new one. I'll climb to the mountain top and ignite my love into all the stars, because I don't know where else to put it. I will slowly control it, and learn to love through the melody which is my love. I will learn to harmonize my fire and my flame.
No rain can cause this to smolder and die; no onslaught, no barrage, no tumult is too great! When I fear that His "love spreading agenda" is too powerful for me, and I am too small; my flame is fanned by my friends and their love.
Out of the woodwork they come, one at a time... filling me with their encouraging words and faith.
When I feel lonely or disheartened or overwhelmed, they stand up and shine a light on my path so I don't lose my way. When I fear my road is too arduous, they take my hand and walk with me so that I don't look too deeply in the woods, losing myself or my goal. When I feel like this task is too monumental or I am unqualified to be who God has designed me to be (us all to be), He has His gentle way of reaching into my heart and showing me my posture. He has His way of filling my heart with His love. He fans my flame.
And I am so blessed.
And I am so loved.
I am unworthy.
I am humble.
I love God.
I burn.
I feel like the Exodus. I feel like I have journied far and wide, and I feel like I have sand in my toes. I feel like I have been accompanied by wise friends, lost souls, merrymakers and dissenters. I feel like I am finally confident and free and able and willing to tell someone no, and I am finally vulnerable and loving and understanding to tell someone yes. I feel like in this last two years I have learned the true meaning of unconditional love.
There's a fire and I'm burning.
In three months I'll be set free. I'll burn my village and build a new one. I'll climb to the mountain top and ignite my love into all the stars, because I don't know where else to put it. I will slowly control it, and learn to love through the melody which is my love. I will learn to harmonize my fire and my flame.
No rain can cause this to smolder and die; no onslaught, no barrage, no tumult is too great! When I fear that His "love spreading agenda" is too powerful for me, and I am too small; my flame is fanned by my friends and their love.
Out of the woodwork they come, one at a time... filling me with their encouraging words and faith.
When I feel lonely or disheartened or overwhelmed, they stand up and shine a light on my path so I don't lose my way. When I fear my road is too arduous, they take my hand and walk with me so that I don't look too deeply in the woods, losing myself or my goal. When I feel like this task is too monumental or I am unqualified to be who God has designed me to be (us all to be), He has His gentle way of reaching into my heart and showing me my posture. He has His way of filling my heart with His love. He fans my flame.
And I am so blessed.
And I am so loved.
I am unworthy.
I am humble.
I love God.
I burn.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Beautiful Struggle
That is true, no one is perfect. The beauty is in our struggle. Our struggle to do what is right and to be true to ourselves and our higher power. To be true to our intuition and to our gut. Our struggle to fall and then to face the music. Our struggle to repent and to stay that way the best we can... and if needed, repent again...
The beauty is that we are imperfect, and that we don't have to be perfect to be good and loved and loveable.
The beauty is that we try.
The beauty is that we keep going.
The beauty is that we are beautiful
and we are beautiful because we struggle so beautifully...
... and it is only by grace...
and
...I need all the grace I can get because my beautiful struggle is sometimes so ugly.
The beauty is that we are imperfect, and that we don't have to be perfect to be good and loved and loveable.
The beauty is that we try.
The beauty is that we keep going.
The beauty is that we are beautiful
and we are beautiful because we struggle so beautifully...
... and it is only by grace...
and
...I need all the grace I can get because my beautiful struggle is sometimes so ugly.
Sunday, August 17, 2008
An Abundance of Blessings!
So two months ago, I was so stressed with school, work, little league, etc. that I was on the verge of a breakdown. It had all just accumulated to a point where I just couldn't do it. I physically could not understand the words on the page. I was a zombie. I think it was the most difficult time in my life so far...
And then I got to have a month off school to start practicum. And now I've had these two easy classes. And remember, I said the next four classes are going to be really hard (equivalent to the last ones that had me in pieces). I just got that email saying it's going to be on independent study and I'll only meet three times for the whole month and that will end at 7pm.
HOLY JESUS!
He just keeps blessing me and blessing me and blessing me!!!
Aidan will still be at his dad's til 10pm. So I'll have that time to do homework, clean, work out, find a practicum site, whatever. Then I'll only have three classes left of the hard stuff. After all these months of recovery, I'll TOTALLY be able to do those three classes just fine!!!
I have just recently learned out to give it to God and then forget about it. Is that 'true faith'? So then I've just come to a place where I've really learned to be truly faithful? I don't know, but He is sure showing me what that means and how awesome he is when I do it! I have totally just given my schooling up to Him because I know this is His plan for me. I have to stop 'leaning on my own understanding' (the topic tonight at church), and LOOK! LOOK!!!!!!! NO CLASS NEXT MONTH- mostly... YEAY!!!!
Jenn House told me a while back that when she thinks of me, she thinks of a little girl in a party dress with her heart in her hand and no matter what comes along I just don't give up or give in. I keep standing there unphased in my party dress with my heart. She said that she aspires to have that sort of innocense and determination (I wonder if it's more of a naivite), and that it's just that which God favors and blesses. I don't really know... but I sure feel blessed right now!
It's like, my heart is happy!
And a person doesn't really have control over the happiness of his heart. You can talk yourself out of feeling bad, and you can feel better. But you cannot force a happy heart!
and it's like, I know that He is blessing me, and I know that it's not ME, and I want to pay it forward or pay it back or share the love, and I just don't know how. So then it feels all bottled up and waiting to explode, but it's a joyous explosion! Confetti of the heart! Spiritual radiation- hiroshima of happy! And how odd and awkward to have that inside me, and not know what to do with it.
Do I skip?
Do I leap?
Do I sing terribly offkey, and yet beautifully to His ear while I spin in circles with my arms outstreched?
Do I jumprope til I fall?
Do I find a trampoline?
Do I run and run and run and run?
What do you do with it?
Do I sit in thankful prayer? Do I sing His praises to my friends and contemporaries?
Do I accept His blessings with thanks and keep Him in my mind, heart and works as I go throughout my day representing Him?
Wooo hoooo!
And then I got to have a month off school to start practicum. And now I've had these two easy classes. And remember, I said the next four classes are going to be really hard (equivalent to the last ones that had me in pieces). I just got that email saying it's going to be on independent study and I'll only meet three times for the whole month and that will end at 7pm.
HOLY JESUS!
He just keeps blessing me and blessing me and blessing me!!!
Aidan will still be at his dad's til 10pm. So I'll have that time to do homework, clean, work out, find a practicum site, whatever. Then I'll only have three classes left of the hard stuff. After all these months of recovery, I'll TOTALLY be able to do those three classes just fine!!!
I have just recently learned out to give it to God and then forget about it. Is that 'true faith'? So then I've just come to a place where I've really learned to be truly faithful? I don't know, but He is sure showing me what that means and how awesome he is when I do it! I have totally just given my schooling up to Him because I know this is His plan for me. I have to stop 'leaning on my own understanding' (the topic tonight at church), and LOOK! LOOK!!!!!!! NO CLASS NEXT MONTH- mostly... YEAY!!!!
Jenn House told me a while back that when she thinks of me, she thinks of a little girl in a party dress with her heart in her hand and no matter what comes along I just don't give up or give in. I keep standing there unphased in my party dress with my heart. She said that she aspires to have that sort of innocense and determination (I wonder if it's more of a naivite), and that it's just that which God favors and blesses. I don't really know... but I sure feel blessed right now!
It's like, my heart is happy!
And a person doesn't really have control over the happiness of his heart. You can talk yourself out of feeling bad, and you can feel better. But you cannot force a happy heart!
and it's like, I know that He is blessing me, and I know that it's not ME, and I want to pay it forward or pay it back or share the love, and I just don't know how. So then it feels all bottled up and waiting to explode, but it's a joyous explosion! Confetti of the heart! Spiritual radiation- hiroshima of happy! And how odd and awkward to have that inside me, and not know what to do with it.
Do I skip?
Do I leap?
Do I sing terribly offkey, and yet beautifully to His ear while I spin in circles with my arms outstreched?
Do I jumprope til I fall?
Do I find a trampoline?
Do I run and run and run and run?
What do you do with it?
Do I sit in thankful prayer? Do I sing His praises to my friends and contemporaries?
Do I accept His blessings with thanks and keep Him in my mind, heart and works as I go throughout my day representing Him?
Wooo hoooo!
Saturday, August 2, 2008
Reimbursed
Another story of how cool God has been to me:
I bought groceries for this guy.
I was really torn if I should buy them. I changed from salary to hourly and the bank's crazy math meant that my next check would be missing FOUR DAYS of pay on it. Helllooooo, I'm a single mom in grad school, I can't afford to lose four days of pay!!! My friend Lesa had been in town and I really, really wanted her to read The Prayer of Jabez because I thought it would be really applicable for her life right now. I couldn't find my copy so I ran to Barnes to get her a copy. I didn't even think about my budget, I just wanted her to have it. It's like $10, it'll be fine.
Then I get there and this guy is standing in the parking lot, sleeping while standing. Like, he was on that movie Rat Race and he fell asleep while walking. I smiled a big smile as I drove by (hey, it always cheers up my day to get an authentic smile from someone, those don't come around very often) and thought to myself, I just made him happy. I know, I'm silly. And then I park and get out of my car and he was already there! Developmentally disabled Sonic the Hedgehog? In his stutter he started telling me that he could tell I was a Christian and he's a Christian and would I buy him a sandwich.
While he's talking I was wondering, "how do you tell one of God's broken from someone who is just trying to get something from you? How do you tell if they are broken because they are one of God's needy, and they're broken because they are bad?" And as he was talking I just decided that I'd get him a sandwich, it'll be fine. Then he wanted to go to Hometown. I said no, I'd get him a sandwich at Barnes. Then he asked that instead of buying an expensive sandwich that wont fill him up if I'd get him some groceries.
I was like, "what!"
I said I would get him the sandwich. He proceeded to tell me how he can eat several meals for the same price if I got him sandwich fixings at Food Maxx.
I told him, "Fine, you walk over there and after I buy this book I'll meet you there." It's just not safe to let people in your car, it's not too far for him to walk. After I got the book I went over. He wrote me a list. what! a list?!
So it just had bologna, hamburger buns, gingerale and little debbie snack cakes.
Instead, I got him grapes, peaches, bananas, wheat bread, meat, cheese, chips and ginger ale.
Anyway, as I was taking his list and grabbing a cart I thought the words, "I'm losing four days of pay, I don't know if I can buy groceries for my home, much less for someone else!" and then, "Whatever, it's the right thing to do and God will take care of it." I didn't consider it again til I got to the checkout and then I thought those same things again.
When I handed it to him he thanked me and told me that he doesn't eat fruit. I told him that fruit is our gift from God and if there's anything in the bag from Him then it's the fruit. He thanked me again, looked up and thanked God, and then said, "God, bless the woman who has done this for me!"
So then the next day my cavity abscessed and I had a puffy face. The day after was payday and I looked like the Elephant Man ("I am not an animal! I am a man!"). I checked my account online and it said that it was about $17 more than normal. NOT short four days, and overpaid by $17. I called HR and told them of their error (I don't need them taking it out later in the pay period!) and they offered to spread the deficit over four paychecks. That wasn't an option before, they were taking it all out at once. If the money hadn't been in there I would have been short.
AND THEN, on Thursday the dentist was able to get me in for the root canal and it was $46 LESS than what they had quoted me. The groceries I bought that man cost me $46.
I went out to spend money I didn't have on a book to encourage Lesa spiritually, ended up spending another $46 on that man and now I was reimbursed through that discount and the paycheck issue is being spread out!!!
ISN'T THAT TOTALLY AWESOME!!!
That man looked to the sky and asked God to bless the woman who did this for him, AND HE DID!
I bought groceries for this guy.
I was really torn if I should buy them. I changed from salary to hourly and the bank's crazy math meant that my next check would be missing FOUR DAYS of pay on it. Helllooooo, I'm a single mom in grad school, I can't afford to lose four days of pay!!! My friend Lesa had been in town and I really, really wanted her to read The Prayer of Jabez because I thought it would be really applicable for her life right now. I couldn't find my copy so I ran to Barnes to get her a copy. I didn't even think about my budget, I just wanted her to have it. It's like $10, it'll be fine.
Then I get there and this guy is standing in the parking lot, sleeping while standing. Like, he was on that movie Rat Race and he fell asleep while walking. I smiled a big smile as I drove by (hey, it always cheers up my day to get an authentic smile from someone, those don't come around very often) and thought to myself, I just made him happy. I know, I'm silly. And then I park and get out of my car and he was already there! Developmentally disabled Sonic the Hedgehog? In his stutter he started telling me that he could tell I was a Christian and he's a Christian and would I buy him a sandwich.
While he's talking I was wondering, "how do you tell one of God's broken from someone who is just trying to get something from you? How do you tell if they are broken because they are one of God's needy, and they're broken because they are bad?" And as he was talking I just decided that I'd get him a sandwich, it'll be fine. Then he wanted to go to Hometown. I said no, I'd get him a sandwich at Barnes. Then he asked that instead of buying an expensive sandwich that wont fill him up if I'd get him some groceries.
I was like, "what!"
I said I would get him the sandwich. He proceeded to tell me how he can eat several meals for the same price if I got him sandwich fixings at Food Maxx.
I told him, "Fine, you walk over there and after I buy this book I'll meet you there." It's just not safe to let people in your car, it's not too far for him to walk. After I got the book I went over. He wrote me a list. what! a list?!
So it just had bologna, hamburger buns, gingerale and little debbie snack cakes.
Instead, I got him grapes, peaches, bananas, wheat bread, meat, cheese, chips and ginger ale.
Anyway, as I was taking his list and grabbing a cart I thought the words, "I'm losing four days of pay, I don't know if I can buy groceries for my home, much less for someone else!" and then, "Whatever, it's the right thing to do and God will take care of it." I didn't consider it again til I got to the checkout and then I thought those same things again.
When I handed it to him he thanked me and told me that he doesn't eat fruit. I told him that fruit is our gift from God and if there's anything in the bag from Him then it's the fruit. He thanked me again, looked up and thanked God, and then said, "God, bless the woman who has done this for me!"
So then the next day my cavity abscessed and I had a puffy face. The day after was payday and I looked like the Elephant Man ("I am not an animal! I am a man!"). I checked my account online and it said that it was about $17 more than normal. NOT short four days, and overpaid by $17. I called HR and told them of their error (I don't need them taking it out later in the pay period!) and they offered to spread the deficit over four paychecks. That wasn't an option before, they were taking it all out at once. If the money hadn't been in there I would have been short.
AND THEN, on Thursday the dentist was able to get me in for the root canal and it was $46 LESS than what they had quoted me. The groceries I bought that man cost me $46.
I went out to spend money I didn't have on a book to encourage Lesa spiritually, ended up spending another $46 on that man and now I was reimbursed through that discount and the paycheck issue is being spread out!!!
ISN'T THAT TOTALLY AWESOME!!!
That man looked to the sky and asked God to bless the woman who did this for him, AND HE DID!
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Potential or Porcelain?
Potential or porcelain?
Can I be a promise? Can I be an evolution all my own? Can my potential solidify into reality, creating greater potential? An everlasting quest, a never-ending well of potential?
Can I be pottery? Can I be strong and solid? Can I hold what you thirst for? Can I be molded through fire and flame? Can I be a chalice, vulnerable to the clumsy hands of the jester, while cherished to the guardian's lips?
Would you hide me away from the jokers, locked in a cabinet where only you can see my beauty and know my worth? Would you display me behind glass where others can look and revel, but not hold and know? Would you love me as your own creation and carry me as your favored? Would you drink from me and then fill me back up?
Do I sing the songs of love, but not dance in my own moonlight?
Do I fill and overflow?
Look at me, am I not drenched? Is my oil not ignited and burning so that I myself do not fear the fire?
It is the chill… the cold… the ice… the glacier blue… the dripping from the icicles that terrify me. The frosty discontent of unfulfilled expectations dropped into the porcelain chalice that that makes me so brittle. The cold, cold breath in the air; nipping at the warm fingers and heart, tingling and fighting to stay warm.
Oh! What relentless tragedy that begets! Upon itself it builds as the ice and snow pile, snuffing out the flame within. Oh what relentless fire in my heart! What burning, smoldering, seething fire rains through my love! What hope have I if I allow myself to inhale the potential of winter, when my breath is of faithful fire?
Can I be a promise? Can I be an evolution all my own? Can my potential solidify into reality, creating greater potential? An everlasting quest, a never-ending well of potential?
Can I be pottery? Can I be strong and solid? Can I hold what you thirst for? Can I be molded through fire and flame? Can I be a chalice, vulnerable to the clumsy hands of the jester, while cherished to the guardian's lips?
Would you hide me away from the jokers, locked in a cabinet where only you can see my beauty and know my worth? Would you display me behind glass where others can look and revel, but not hold and know? Would you love me as your own creation and carry me as your favored? Would you drink from me and then fill me back up?
Do I sing the songs of love, but not dance in my own moonlight?
Do I fill and overflow?
Look at me, am I not drenched? Is my oil not ignited and burning so that I myself do not fear the fire?
It is the chill… the cold… the ice… the glacier blue… the dripping from the icicles that terrify me. The frosty discontent of unfulfilled expectations dropped into the porcelain chalice that that makes me so brittle. The cold, cold breath in the air; nipping at the warm fingers and heart, tingling and fighting to stay warm.
Oh! What relentless tragedy that begets! Upon itself it builds as the ice and snow pile, snuffing out the flame within. Oh what relentless fire in my heart! What burning, smoldering, seething fire rains through my love! What hope have I if I allow myself to inhale the potential of winter, when my breath is of faithful fire?
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Heart in a Cage
(an ode to my lovelorn friends)
I do believe that you can love someone so much that you can physically ache for them when that love line is severed. When you give yourself, your heart, your love, and you really and truly give it- then it is no longer yours. If you've given it and "it's over" then you have to re-grow your love and your heart. You can feel vulnerable and exposed. Empty and fear the worst will fill that void. Succumb to that fear, let it fill that space that once housed your heart. Cripple yourself as you dissolve into the mire, as you sink and sulk and allow it to consume you- because really, nothing is as glorious as the love that once called you home. And if you can't have that, then what's the point in fighting off the demons longing to live there in its stead?
The thing is, you can't give away what's not already yours. Your heart. Your love. It's yours and it's always there. It always will be there. What determines the power of its presence is how you choose to cherish it. You may have fully given your love, and now you feel incomplete, but you're not. You must nurture what is still there as the piece you kept was merely on accident. You intended to give it all away...
How will you cherish it? Will you hoard it? Will you apply this pain of heartbreak to this piece of heart you have left? Will you grow to believe your heart is something that causes pain? Will you hide it away and never give the best you have to give?
Or will you grow it? Will you take that little piece you have left? Will You love that piece with the same love that itself contains? Will you grow it and trust it that it can give you that love you so long for... only by giving it away again? You grow your children to give them to the world. You grow your heart to give it to your Love. The both of these, your child and your heart (sometimes synonymous!) you grow to give away, but you first give them to God. And because you've given them to God, because you are faithful and WORTHY, you can trust that they are both safe.
But I don't believe many people love like this nowadays- which is a shame. I think it's because people give up before they give their heart. There is a difference between discernment, testing the waters, waiting until the man/woman has proven themselves worthy of your heart, and just holding onto it indefinitely out of fear or greed.
I do believe that you can love someone so much that you can physically ache for them when that love line is severed. When you give yourself, your heart, your love, and you really and truly give it- then it is no longer yours. If you've given it and "it's over" then you have to re-grow your love and your heart. You can feel vulnerable and exposed. Empty and fear the worst will fill that void. Succumb to that fear, let it fill that space that once housed your heart. Cripple yourself as you dissolve into the mire, as you sink and sulk and allow it to consume you- because really, nothing is as glorious as the love that once called you home. And if you can't have that, then what's the point in fighting off the demons longing to live there in its stead?
The thing is, you can't give away what's not already yours. Your heart. Your love. It's yours and it's always there. It always will be there. What determines the power of its presence is how you choose to cherish it. You may have fully given your love, and now you feel incomplete, but you're not. You must nurture what is still there as the piece you kept was merely on accident. You intended to give it all away...
How will you cherish it? Will you hoard it? Will you apply this pain of heartbreak to this piece of heart you have left? Will you grow to believe your heart is something that causes pain? Will you hide it away and never give the best you have to give?
Or will you grow it? Will you take that little piece you have left? Will You love that piece with the same love that itself contains? Will you grow it and trust it that it can give you that love you so long for... only by giving it away again? You grow your children to give them to the world. You grow your heart to give it to your Love. The both of these, your child and your heart (sometimes synonymous!) you grow to give away, but you first give them to God. And because you've given them to God, because you are faithful and WORTHY, you can trust that they are both safe.
But I don't believe many people love like this nowadays- which is a shame. I think it's because people give up before they give their heart. There is a difference between discernment, testing the waters, waiting until the man/woman has proven themselves worthy of your heart, and just holding onto it indefinitely out of fear or greed.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
My Darling Aunts: Purdue's Golden Girls
NOW IT ALLLL MAKES SENSE! WHY I LOVE TO GYRATE ON THE DANCE FLOOR... WHO'S A FLIRT? NOT ME!
I just found an article about when aunt Adelaide marched on the field of Notre Dame. Grandma told me about how Adelaide was the first woman to step on the field of Notre Dame and look what I found!!!!! I know there are two more articles out there, the one mentioned in the Chicago Tribune about Teddy and there's another Sport's Illustraited one about Adelaide. Woo hoo!!!
In their own words..
Purdue Band alums share special memories of Golden Girls
William Burk: I remember arriving in the caravan of buses at the Notre Dame practice field next to their dorms. Teddy Darling was dressed in gold toreador pants that almost looked like she had been painted with gold paint. The "men" of Notre Dame literally flowed out of their dorms to google at Teddy and the other girls. When we marched to and from the stadium we had to surround the girls with the first few ranks of trombones.
Larry Burkhart: While at Purdue, I got a job at the outdoor ice rink behind the Co-Rec Gym as a rink guard. We went early to "shovel off" the ice before skating began. One evening, Teddy Darling arrived early and asked if she could practice with racing blades, which were prohibited during public skating. "Sure you can skate" was the answer. We discussed the AAMB and all the activities often. One day Teddie said she had something that would go well with my hat and keep my neck warm while on the outdoor rink. She took off a long silk gold scarf and gave it to me and said thanks for letting her skate early. After that, I wore the scarf when at the rink. Along with many other memories, I still have the gold scarf and a Chicago Tribune magazine with Teddy Darling featured on the front cover.
Brian William "Bill" Maxey: I have one Golden Girl story I can share, dating back to when Adelaide Darling was Golden Girl. It was 1957 or 58 and the band was playing on national television at Notre Dame. The half-time show included a hula dance by the Golden Girl, with appropriate accompanying music and motion from the band. From my position in the trumpet section, I was so captivated by Addie's seductive gyrations that I messed up the routine! With my eyes fixed where they shouldn't have been fixed, I failed to bow down from the waist along with all the other band members, and was on national TV standing straight up while everyone else had swayed down. I didn't mind the national TV exposure of this error, the real problem was in the videotape which Al G. Wright played on Monday, and re-played, and re-played. I got a boatload of demerits and, yes, I got to carry the FUBAR board for that week. In my years with the Purdue band, that was my one moment of fame. Make that infamy.
http://www.purdue.edu/BANDS/goldengirl/memories.htm
She had even made it into sports illustrated!!!! Check this one out:
WOMEN IN MOTION
Now all together, let us face Up to a relatively new problem in human affairs: Woman's Place on the Football Field. Not to be lightly regarded either, mind you, for here is a question that has aroused controversy across a goodly chunk of mid-America recently. There is, for your first consideration, Purdue's Golden Girl, a Miss Adelaide Darling. Miss Darling, to the dismay of her sister coeds, appeared at half time of the Purdue-Notre Dame game in the fetching, skin-tight, gold lamé whatchamacallit you see at the left. Her twitching performance was a hula dance, she said, but another girl reflected: "She not only walks and talks but wiggles excessively." So much tittle-tattle to Adelaide, who only slightly modified her act at the Illinois game last week.
http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1003077/index.htm
AND here's where her "gyrations" are further discussed:
In 1958, Purdue's "Golden Girl," a gold spangled freshman majorette named Adelaide Darling, "wiggled too much in doing her hula dance last weekend at the Purdue-Notre Dame game," as the AP story explained, and after complaints from Purdue coeds she had to be de-wiggled for the Illinois contest. The resulting crush of photographers the following Saturday forced officials to ask sweet Adelaide to move away from the Purdue bench before the game. Such stories invariable indulged in at least one cheap pun, in this case the comment that "the blonde freshman from Manteca, Cal., went thru her halftime show without any backfield-in-motion penalites being called." Sports Illustrated rhapsodized over Miss Darling's "fetching, skin-tight, gold lame whatchamacallit" ...
King Football: Sport and Spectacle in the Golden Age of Radio http://books.google.com/books?id=Sh7mAxJ9WKgC&pg=PA187&lpg=PA187&dq=Adelaide+Darling&source=web&ots=yO6nXuX_Ci&sig=uhlRLrLeUG1OxIT9btvx5nLxHoQ&hl=en
I just found an article about when aunt Adelaide marched on the field of Notre Dame. Grandma told me about how Adelaide was the first woman to step on the field of Notre Dame and look what I found!!!!! I know there are two more articles out there, the one mentioned in the Chicago Tribune about Teddy and there's another Sport's Illustraited one about Adelaide. Woo hoo!!!
In their own words..
Purdue Band alums share special memories of Golden Girls
William Burk: I remember arriving in the caravan of buses at the Notre Dame practice field next to their dorms. Teddy Darling was dressed in gold toreador pants that almost looked like she had been painted with gold paint. The "men" of Notre Dame literally flowed out of their dorms to google at Teddy and the other girls. When we marched to and from the stadium we had to surround the girls with the first few ranks of trombones.
Larry Burkhart: While at Purdue, I got a job at the outdoor ice rink behind the Co-Rec Gym as a rink guard. We went early to "shovel off" the ice before skating began. One evening, Teddy Darling arrived early and asked if she could practice with racing blades, which were prohibited during public skating. "Sure you can skate" was the answer. We discussed the AAMB and all the activities often. One day Teddie said she had something that would go well with my hat and keep my neck warm while on the outdoor rink. She took off a long silk gold scarf and gave it to me and said thanks for letting her skate early. After that, I wore the scarf when at the rink. Along with many other memories, I still have the gold scarf and a Chicago Tribune magazine with Teddy Darling featured on the front cover.
Brian William "Bill" Maxey: I have one Golden Girl story I can share, dating back to when Adelaide Darling was Golden Girl. It was 1957 or 58 and the band was playing on national television at Notre Dame. The half-time show included a hula dance by the Golden Girl, with appropriate accompanying music and motion from the band. From my position in the trumpet section, I was so captivated by Addie's seductive gyrations that I messed up the routine! With my eyes fixed where they shouldn't have been fixed, I failed to bow down from the waist along with all the other band members, and was on national TV standing straight up while everyone else had swayed down. I didn't mind the national TV exposure of this error, the real problem was in the videotape which Al G. Wright played on Monday, and re-played, and re-played. I got a boatload of demerits and, yes, I got to carry the FUBAR board for that week. In my years with the Purdue band, that was my one moment of fame. Make that infamy.
http://www.purdue.edu/BANDS/goldengirl/memories.htm
She had even made it into sports illustrated!!!! Check this one out:
WOMEN IN MOTION
Now all together, let us face Up to a relatively new problem in human affairs: Woman's Place on the Football Field. Not to be lightly regarded either, mind you, for here is a question that has aroused controversy across a goodly chunk of mid-America recently. There is, for your first consideration, Purdue's Golden Girl, a Miss Adelaide Darling. Miss Darling, to the dismay of her sister coeds, appeared at half time of the Purdue-Notre Dame game in the fetching, skin-tight, gold lamé whatchamacallit you see at the left. Her twitching performance was a hula dance, she said, but another girl reflected: "She not only walks and talks but wiggles excessively." So much tittle-tattle to Adelaide, who only slightly modified her act at the Illinois game last week.
http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1003077/index.htm
AND here's where her "gyrations" are further discussed:
In 1958, Purdue's "Golden Girl," a gold spangled freshman majorette named Adelaide Darling, "wiggled too much in doing her hula dance last weekend at the Purdue-Notre Dame game," as the AP story explained, and after complaints from Purdue coeds she had to be de-wiggled for the Illinois contest. The resulting crush of photographers the following Saturday forced officials to ask sweet Adelaide to move away from the Purdue bench before the game. Such stories invariable indulged in at least one cheap pun, in this case the comment that "the blonde freshman from Manteca, Cal., went thru her halftime show without any backfield-in-motion penalites being called." Sports Illustrated rhapsodized over Miss Darling's "fetching, skin-tight, gold lame whatchamacallit" ...
King Football: Sport and Spectacle in the Golden Age of Radio http://books.google.com/books?id=Sh7mAxJ9WKgC&pg=PA187&lpg=PA187&dq=Adelaide+Darling&source=web&ots=yO6nXuX_Ci&sig=uhlRLrLeUG1OxIT9btvx5nLxHoQ&hl=en
Friday, May 9, 2008
Matters of the Heart
My friend told me today that he has achieved the things he has aspired for and doesn't feel that anything is happening in his life to make it feel worthwhile. While not talking in a depressed way, I feel that he is in a place where he is readying himself mentally for change. Isn't that what this life is all about? Were we created to revel in complacency or were we given these gifts of internal metamorphosis for a reason? When do we look around and find ourselves in the center of the grey? When we can see that we've found balance from either end of the spectrum and we are not struggling and striving? And when we find that, will we feel that life is too easy and seemingly pointless? Is it the struggle that makes us happy?
The millionaire mogul isn't content sitting at home spending his money, he is out making more; not because he needs it or wants it, but because the chase of it fuels him.
Then I wonder, is it really the chase and the struggle that keeps us motivated or is it the idea of change? Such as, what if my friend mentioned above did ONE thing different. What if he chose another path to enhance this equilibrium he has achieved in his life? What if he became a mentor to a boy without a dad? What would my friend's life look like then? What if my friend took the risky leap of love or entrepreneurship or bungee jumping? What hurricane could those butterflies wings do to inspire him and shake him up enough to spread the warm fuzzies through his being? The fuzzies akin to requited love. You know that feeling, you made your first big deal at work and it was as satisfying as your first kiss from your long-time crush.
I think my friend is starting to stir. Something inside has started to flutter and he doesn't know what to do with it. He can't name it- and what do you do with something when it's nameless? How do you handle it? You begin to distrust it. You feel uneasy about it. You want to question it down to its root, it's origin, it's genesis, so that you can compartmentalize it along with all the other things you already know about yourself and your life. That's a slippery slope my friend, a slippery slope when your on the cusp of CHANGE.
I have no advice to give.
No words of wisdom.
But as someone who has embrased the flutter, I have done the dance. Towards change, I have run through the praries as though running into my lover's arms, only to find moments later that I have turned on my heels and run, run, run away. The thing is... that change... that fluttering... that longing it instills... no matter where I run it's always there and I always find myself hypnotized by it... and I always find myself in that prarie. And each time I run closer to my lovers embrase, my lover, my personal change, before I turn away. Am I turning away from me? Am I turning away from the old me or the new me? Am I turning from my God? Am I turning from all the things that I want and fear will evade me? Do I fear it's all a mirage and the intangibility will become a reality when I reach my lover, my change?
I don't know. That's why I have no advice. Not that anyone is asking for it.
But what I do know, is that my lover, my change, myself, the Jessie who I am deep down and who I want to be is the woman who I embrace. I know she is not an illusion. She has fought long and hard for her authenticity and her VOICE.
Hear me ROAR!
Find me in the golden prarie.
Rolling around
amongst the flowers.
Down here I can't run
and
I'm not hiding
I'm allowing it all to happen
without fear
I am risking.
Down in the golden prarie the lion can stalk its prey...
...but my ROAR is LOUDER...
BRING IT ON!
"Whatever you have forgotten, you can remember. Whatever you have buried you can unearth. If you are willing to look deep into your own nature, if you are willing to peel away the layers of not-self you have adopted in making your way through the tribulations of life, you will find that your true self is not as far removed as you think."
- Meredith Jordan
The millionaire mogul isn't content sitting at home spending his money, he is out making more; not because he needs it or wants it, but because the chase of it fuels him.
Then I wonder, is it really the chase and the struggle that keeps us motivated or is it the idea of change? Such as, what if my friend mentioned above did ONE thing different. What if he chose another path to enhance this equilibrium he has achieved in his life? What if he became a mentor to a boy without a dad? What would my friend's life look like then? What if my friend took the risky leap of love or entrepreneurship or bungee jumping? What hurricane could those butterflies wings do to inspire him and shake him up enough to spread the warm fuzzies through his being? The fuzzies akin to requited love. You know that feeling, you made your first big deal at work and it was as satisfying as your first kiss from your long-time crush.
I think my friend is starting to stir. Something inside has started to flutter and he doesn't know what to do with it. He can't name it- and what do you do with something when it's nameless? How do you handle it? You begin to distrust it. You feel uneasy about it. You want to question it down to its root, it's origin, it's genesis, so that you can compartmentalize it along with all the other things you already know about yourself and your life. That's a slippery slope my friend, a slippery slope when your on the cusp of CHANGE.
I have no advice to give.
No words of wisdom.
But as someone who has embrased the flutter, I have done the dance. Towards change, I have run through the praries as though running into my lover's arms, only to find moments later that I have turned on my heels and run, run, run away. The thing is... that change... that fluttering... that longing it instills... no matter where I run it's always there and I always find myself hypnotized by it... and I always find myself in that prarie. And each time I run closer to my lovers embrase, my lover, my personal change, before I turn away. Am I turning away from me? Am I turning away from the old me or the new me? Am I turning from my God? Am I turning from all the things that I want and fear will evade me? Do I fear it's all a mirage and the intangibility will become a reality when I reach my lover, my change?
I don't know. That's why I have no advice. Not that anyone is asking for it.
But what I do know, is that my lover, my change, myself, the Jessie who I am deep down and who I want to be is the woman who I embrace. I know she is not an illusion. She has fought long and hard for her authenticity and her VOICE.
Hear me ROAR!
Find me in the golden prarie.
Rolling around
amongst the flowers.
Down here I can't run
and
I'm not hiding
I'm allowing it all to happen
without fear
I am risking.
Down in the golden prarie the lion can stalk its prey...
...but my ROAR is LOUDER...
BRING IT ON!
"Whatever you have forgotten, you can remember. Whatever you have buried you can unearth. If you are willing to look deep into your own nature, if you are willing to peel away the layers of not-self you have adopted in making your way through the tribulations of life, you will find that your true self is not as far removed as you think."
- Meredith Jordan
Monday, April 28, 2008
just questioning
Can you tell me where your strong belief came from? As a child, where did you get it? I'm just curious...just questioning!
You know, I'm not really sure. Let's see... we went to a different church all the time. We'd go to one for about a year, then quit church for a while, then go to a different one. We tried all the different denominations of protestant Christianity (which just means we protested Catholicism and are "just Christian").
I think around age fourteen we just stopped going. But I still went to Wednesday youth groups on my own. There was one walking distance down the road.
But once I turned 16 working and living life was more important.
Diego and I got married by my friend's dad who's a pastor. So then we'd go here and there to the church he worked for (and now going back to it on Christmas I can see why it didn't inspire me to keep going- it's like the old painting of velvet elvis in the basement, it's beautiful to the old people who bought it, but I need an electric elvis for my wall). Then I didn't go to church again until my relationship with Adam was coming to a close.
I suddenly started listening to AirOne (Christian alternative) and then started attending the church across from my apartment. I was still going there during the breakup, but I just wasn't really feeling "it" about that place. I liked the band, but didn't feel like the pastor was very educating. Then a guy I worked with invited me to this one.
The first sermon was about how Jesus' first miracle was to extend the party by making more wine and pointing out that while Jesus and his family had been invited to the wedding, all the diciples had not. So he crashed it with his buddies. His mom is the one who confronted him to make the wine. So the Elvis in the basement was suddenly more relatable... no longer some dingy old velvet canvas that everyone else "got" but now he was this electric Elvis who was a little more like me than I thought.
So I started attending regularly because I wanted to see what he had to say. I wanted to see if the pastor was just spinning things so people would hear what they wanted. But what was happening was it was actually making me take a look at my own faith. It was challenging me to think for myself. He was able to apply biblical teachings to things that were happening to me right then (my pastor is 30 and the congregation averages between 20-35 years old).
Did you read my blog: Strokes on the Canvas? It was really what happened that night that solidified my faith to the unwavering it is now. I was nonchalantly Christian before, comme ci comme ca... I believed but wouldn't have wanted anyone to ask me questions about it. And now I say, "bring it on!" I don't know much about doctrine- but that's why I don't practice "religion."
"Religion" is about changing what you do on the outside in order to appease a higher power. That's not what Jesus taught. He wants you to change yourself from the inside out. He said "what good is it to only love those who love you?" He instructs you to love those you wish ill of you, because that's where the struggle is, that's the action that deserves reward. But how do you FAKE LOVE? You can't fake love in your heart, you can fake act like you love someone. But He wasn't telling you to ACT like you love someone. He was directing you to facilitate a verb.
That's the difference. Religion is doing what you are supposed to do because you were told to do it and if you do it then you are right. Following the guidelines. Walking the walk, talking the talk... maybe... no one's perfect...
To me, this is about more than that. It's about changing who I am on the inside to reflect my beliefs. It's about learning to forgive, and then doing it. When you change the inside, your mind, your heart, you invariably change your outside and end up accidentaly following doctrine... That's what he was getting at.
You don't use people. You don't use yourself.
Send me the link to your blog! You're freakin' amazing!
I just can't get into religion. I see too much of it around me here and it seems very hypocritical. Then there's that creepy Pastor on TV who wrote the Purpose Driven Life. He's kinda gay.
I may have said this before, but I admire Christians to a degree. I admire that they find peace in thinking that some higher power will take care of them....although all one has to do is look at the poverty and suffering on this planet...so do they think that they are better than the staving child in Rwanda? It's just so illogical to me.
Ha! Thinking too deep to be @ work!
To answer your question, no.
Well, in any industry or religion you'll find hypocrites. The Starbucks mogul who abhors coffee, the libral who pickets abortion, the pot smoking hippy who secretly listens to the Backstreet Boys, the petitioner for the spotted owl who buys paper products from the very companies cutting down his favorite forest... I feel that people hold Christianity to a higher tier because it's so popular and it's easier to find fault.
Also, there are all those people who misrepresent. There are teachers out there belittling and degrading students and giving the educational institution a bad name. There are bankers who embezzle, but that doesn't mean the bank itself is shady. Are all Islamics bad because there are those terrorists? Does that mean the terrorists represent the true fundamentals of that faith?
No. Christ came to an unwed teenager during a time when she would be stoned to death for sex outside wedlock. It was blasphemous to even talk to lepers. Jesus ate with rich as well as poor. He said to the rich not to only throw dinner parties for their friends knowing the friends will repay them, he said to feed the people who cannot feed themselves because that is the principle behind our life here on Earth.
No, my sweet sister/aunt, it is by the GRACE of God that I was born in this country and that my biggest problem is that I have school paid for and a mom who is kind of weird. One of the things I have always felt called toward is working in the Peace Corps. I truly believe that when Aidan is a little older and I am more financially and professionally stable I will be able to use this experience in banking and my education in psychology to do something great for impoverished lands. I would love to bring Aidan, go on missions, go help others in some way.
I believe that all of our souls look beautifully and uniquely the same. Just as no matter what race we are, we all have red blood in our veins. We all make our choices, we all have an obstacle to overcome- some greater than others, but deep down, we are all loved equally by God. I can't quote the bible, but from my learnings and readings the way I understand it, the poor, beaten, starving, etc are all guaranteed places in Heaven. It is you and I. The ones who have it easy. The ones who are not persecuted who have the greatest responsibility of all! We need to be humble, we need to not be arrogant thinking that we are above those less fortunate, we need to use what we have to help and to be of service the best way we know how.
That does not mean that we must put ourselves in their position. For then we will need the help! What good is that! But we are not to walk by. We are not to turn a blind eye and a deaf ear. We are to love those who don't love us. We are to TRY OUR BEST to live the way Jesus taught us to live. But we can't beat ourselves up either, because we are HUMAN and God created us to fail. If we weren't meant to fail then we'd be perfect, we'd be God.
It's the struggle. The the falling down. It's the acknowledging that you're not perfect and asking for forgiveness. It's realizing that you don't have it all together and you don't have to.
It's not being a teenager saying that you don't know what job to get or keep because you're going to let God decide (you mentioned that before). If he wanted marrionettes he would have built us with strings and without FREE WILL. We are still responsible for the decisions we make and paths we take.
You know, I'm not really sure. Let's see... we went to a different church all the time. We'd go to one for about a year, then quit church for a while, then go to a different one. We tried all the different denominations of protestant Christianity (which just means we protested Catholicism and are "just Christian").
I think around age fourteen we just stopped going. But I still went to Wednesday youth groups on my own. There was one walking distance down the road.
But once I turned 16 working and living life was more important.
Diego and I got married by my friend's dad who's a pastor. So then we'd go here and there to the church he worked for (and now going back to it on Christmas I can see why it didn't inspire me to keep going- it's like the old painting of velvet elvis in the basement, it's beautiful to the old people who bought it, but I need an electric elvis for my wall). Then I didn't go to church again until my relationship with Adam was coming to a close.
I suddenly started listening to AirOne (Christian alternative) and then started attending the church across from my apartment. I was still going there during the breakup, but I just wasn't really feeling "it" about that place. I liked the band, but didn't feel like the pastor was very educating. Then a guy I worked with invited me to this one.
The first sermon was about how Jesus' first miracle was to extend the party by making more wine and pointing out that while Jesus and his family had been invited to the wedding, all the diciples had not. So he crashed it with his buddies. His mom is the one who confronted him to make the wine. So the Elvis in the basement was suddenly more relatable... no longer some dingy old velvet canvas that everyone else "got" but now he was this electric Elvis who was a little more like me than I thought.
So I started attending regularly because I wanted to see what he had to say. I wanted to see if the pastor was just spinning things so people would hear what they wanted. But what was happening was it was actually making me take a look at my own faith. It was challenging me to think for myself. He was able to apply biblical teachings to things that were happening to me right then (my pastor is 30 and the congregation averages between 20-35 years old).
Did you read my blog: Strokes on the Canvas? It was really what happened that night that solidified my faith to the unwavering it is now. I was nonchalantly Christian before, comme ci comme ca... I believed but wouldn't have wanted anyone to ask me questions about it. And now I say, "bring it on!" I don't know much about doctrine- but that's why I don't practice "religion."
"Religion" is about changing what you do on the outside in order to appease a higher power. That's not what Jesus taught. He wants you to change yourself from the inside out. He said "what good is it to only love those who love you?" He instructs you to love those you wish ill of you, because that's where the struggle is, that's the action that deserves reward. But how do you FAKE LOVE? You can't fake love in your heart, you can fake act like you love someone. But He wasn't telling you to ACT like you love someone. He was directing you to facilitate a verb.
That's the difference. Religion is doing what you are supposed to do because you were told to do it and if you do it then you are right. Following the guidelines. Walking the walk, talking the talk... maybe... no one's perfect...
To me, this is about more than that. It's about changing who I am on the inside to reflect my beliefs. It's about learning to forgive, and then doing it. When you change the inside, your mind, your heart, you invariably change your outside and end up accidentaly following doctrine... That's what he was getting at.
You don't use people. You don't use yourself.
Send me the link to your blog! You're freakin' amazing!
I just can't get into religion. I see too much of it around me here and it seems very hypocritical. Then there's that creepy Pastor on TV who wrote the Purpose Driven Life. He's kinda gay.
I may have said this before, but I admire Christians to a degree. I admire that they find peace in thinking that some higher power will take care of them....although all one has to do is look at the poverty and suffering on this planet...so do they think that they are better than the staving child in Rwanda? It's just so illogical to me.
Ha! Thinking too deep to be @ work!
To answer your question, no.
Well, in any industry or religion you'll find hypocrites. The Starbucks mogul who abhors coffee, the libral who pickets abortion, the pot smoking hippy who secretly listens to the Backstreet Boys, the petitioner for the spotted owl who buys paper products from the very companies cutting down his favorite forest... I feel that people hold Christianity to a higher tier because it's so popular and it's easier to find fault.
Also, there are all those people who misrepresent. There are teachers out there belittling and degrading students and giving the educational institution a bad name. There are bankers who embezzle, but that doesn't mean the bank itself is shady. Are all Islamics bad because there are those terrorists? Does that mean the terrorists represent the true fundamentals of that faith?
No. Christ came to an unwed teenager during a time when she would be stoned to death for sex outside wedlock. It was blasphemous to even talk to lepers. Jesus ate with rich as well as poor. He said to the rich not to only throw dinner parties for their friends knowing the friends will repay them, he said to feed the people who cannot feed themselves because that is the principle behind our life here on Earth.
No, my sweet sister/aunt, it is by the GRACE of God that I was born in this country and that my biggest problem is that I have school paid for and a mom who is kind of weird. One of the things I have always felt called toward is working in the Peace Corps. I truly believe that when Aidan is a little older and I am more financially and professionally stable I will be able to use this experience in banking and my education in psychology to do something great for impoverished lands. I would love to bring Aidan, go on missions, go help others in some way.
I believe that all of our souls look beautifully and uniquely the same. Just as no matter what race we are, we all have red blood in our veins. We all make our choices, we all have an obstacle to overcome- some greater than others, but deep down, we are all loved equally by God. I can't quote the bible, but from my learnings and readings the way I understand it, the poor, beaten, starving, etc are all guaranteed places in Heaven. It is you and I. The ones who have it easy. The ones who are not persecuted who have the greatest responsibility of all! We need to be humble, we need to not be arrogant thinking that we are above those less fortunate, we need to use what we have to help and to be of service the best way we know how.
That does not mean that we must put ourselves in their position. For then we will need the help! What good is that! But we are not to walk by. We are not to turn a blind eye and a deaf ear. We are to love those who don't love us. We are to TRY OUR BEST to live the way Jesus taught us to live. But we can't beat ourselves up either, because we are HUMAN and God created us to fail. If we weren't meant to fail then we'd be perfect, we'd be God.
It's the struggle. The the falling down. It's the acknowledging that you're not perfect and asking for forgiveness. It's realizing that you don't have it all together and you don't have to.
It's not being a teenager saying that you don't know what job to get or keep because you're going to let God decide (you mentioned that before). If he wanted marrionettes he would have built us with strings and without FREE WILL. We are still responsible for the decisions we make and paths we take.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
...on that note...
So I've been in such a weird place lately. I've gone MONTHS without even going on a "real" date- self-imposed exile of course! And I am still totally okay with it considering that between work, school and motherhood I really don't have the a) time for a date, b) time to play the get-to-know-ya game, c) space in my brain for one more thing/person, d) space in my life to try to make time or room for anyone else.
...and most importantly...
e) I don't even have the time to keep up with my friends who I care about and value (see all top eight), who have already earned their place in my mind/time/life.
It does feel good to have made the decision of abstinence and purposeful singlehood during this time. It's like I've made my choice and I'm sticking to it. Friends have told me, "Jessica, the time is never right, if "the one" comes along you need to be open and receptive to him." But really, if "the one" comes along and wants me to squeeze him in and isn't willing respect my life of chaotic cramming for tests, research papers, etc. and realize that I don't have room for yet another priority- then is he really "the one?" Would "the one" WANT to further pile onto my plate? And yes, my friend Nick once told me that "the one" wont further pile my plate but instead help me to clear it--- well, if there's not time for thoughtful discernment, then that means just accepting any ol' joe that comes along. And I'm picky...
...and that, my friend, just opens yet another can of worms... another soapbox for another day...
So,
I've been feeling frustrated and powerless. I have CHOSEN to go back to school. I KNEW it would completely take over my life. But I guess I didn't understand the DEGREE of my life that would be consumed! Maybe it's because I took that three month break- I got a taste of freedom... Maybe it's because I've had this schedule for four months since that break (and over a year total) and it's just "time" for a break (breaking point?). Maybe I was able to focus on working out, chillin' with Aidan, get my body and mind back during my break. And maybe because I hit the ground running at 6am, using my lunch hours for research at the college, spend my evenings either in class, cooking dinner, cleaning the apartment, or studying- so that I've gotten chubby again :( and I don't have that mental release that comes from running.
But I've been thinking all these thoughts about my life, my schedule, body, friend and love relationships and they've been sitting on the back of my mind CONSTANTLY.
So although I haven't been "heartbroken" in quite a long while (and you have beared witness to that lengthy healing process- thankfully it's done and over!), but I opened Sex God by Rob Bell last night because "relationship" is the topic it exactly speaks about (relationship= friends, lovers, pain, happiness, etc).
I read this and thought I'd share:
This is why for thousands of years Christians have found the cross to be so central to life. It speaks to us of God's suffering, God's pain, God's broken heart. It's God making the first move and then waiting for our response.
If you have ever given yourself to someone and had your heart broken, you know how God feels.
If you have ever given yourself to someone and found yourself waiting for their response, exposed and vulnerable, left hanging in the balance, you know how God feels.
If you have ever given yourself to someone and they responded, they reciprocated with love of their own, you know how God feels.
The cross is God's way of saying, 'I know what it's like.'
The execution stake is the creator of the universe saying, 'I know how you feel.'
Our tendency in the midst of suffering is to turn on God. To get angry and bitter and shake our fist at the sky and say, 'God, you don't know what it's like! You don't understand! You have no idea what I'm going through. You don't have a clue how much this hurts.'
The cross is God's way of taking away all of our accusations, excuses, and arguments.
The cross is God taking on flesh and blood and saying, 'Me too.'
This can transform our experience of heartbreak. Instead of being something that distances us from God, causing us to question, 'Where are you?' every poem by a lover spurned, every song sung with an ache, every movie with a gut-wrenching scene, every late-night coversation and empty box of kleenex are glimpses into the life of God.
Our first need is not for people to fix our problems. People who charge in and have all the answers and try to make things right without first joining us in our pain generally annoy us, or worse yet, they push us away. They have nothing to give us. The God that Jesus points us to is not a god who stands at a distance, wringing his hads and saying, 'If only you'd listened to me.'
This is the God who holds out his hands and asks, 'Would you like to see the holes where the nails went? Would that help?'
It's the place we find out that we're not alone, where we find strength to go on. Not a strength that comes from within ourselves but a strength that comes from God. The God who keeps going. Who keeps offering. Who keeps loving. Who keeps risking.
A God who knows what it's like.
The cross is where we present our wounds to God and say, 'Here, you take them.'
Our healing begins when we participate in the suffering of God. When we don't avoid it but enter into it, and in the process enter into the life of God. When we see our pain not as separating us from but connecting us to our maker.
And in this connection, there's always the chance we'll find a reason to risk again.
If God can continue to risk, then maybe we can too.
Perhaps you have had your heart broken by somebody. You risked and extended and offered yourself, and they rejected and turned away and didn't return your love.
There is something divine in your pain.
You know how God feels.
Really good, loving people get hurt. It's how things are.
Maybe you're living in the wake of a relationship that fell apart. You have to dig those moments up. The parts that hurt and the awkward conversations and the anger and the failure and the misunderstanding and the betrayal. You have to dig them up and acknowledge them before you are ever going to heal.
The danger is that you will decide it isn't worth it. Why risk if it's going to hurt like this? The tragedy would be for you to shut down, to allow a wall to be built around your heart, and for something within you to die.
A decision not to risk again is a decision not to love again. They go together.
Why is it those we love the most are the ones capable of hurting us the most? Our greatest wounds rarely come from strangers. They probably come from an ex-fiance, a former friend, a roommate, a sister, a business partner.
Even in healthy relationships, an offhanded comment or a rolling of the eyes can cripple us for days or years or even a lifetime. This is because the more we open ourselves up, the more vulnerable we are. The more exposed we are, the more it hurts. The more we let someone in, the greater the risk. Surprise, anger, shock, betrayal, helplessness- it all gets mixed in together.
There's a phrase that I have heard used to explain how God loves everybody equaly. People say that 'the ground at the foot of the cross is level.' The idea that God has no favorites, that no matter where you're coming from and what you've done and who you've been with and how badly you've screwed it up, the cross is the place where God looks past it all and forgives and accepts and wipes the slate clean.
In the matters of love, it's as if God has agreed to play by the same rules we do. God can do anything- that's what makes God, God. But God can't do everything. God can't make us love him- that's our choice.
Love is risky for God too.
...and most importantly...
e) I don't even have the time to keep up with my friends who I care about and value (see all top eight), who have already earned their place in my mind/time/life.
It does feel good to have made the decision of abstinence and purposeful singlehood during this time. It's like I've made my choice and I'm sticking to it. Friends have told me, "Jessica, the time is never right, if "the one" comes along you need to be open and receptive to him." But really, if "the one" comes along and wants me to squeeze him in and isn't willing respect my life of chaotic cramming for tests, research papers, etc. and realize that I don't have room for yet another priority- then is he really "the one?" Would "the one" WANT to further pile onto my plate? And yes, my friend Nick once told me that "the one" wont further pile my plate but instead help me to clear it--- well, if there's not time for thoughtful discernment, then that means just accepting any ol' joe that comes along. And I'm picky...
...and that, my friend, just opens yet another can of worms... another soapbox for another day...
So,
I've been feeling frustrated and powerless. I have CHOSEN to go back to school. I KNEW it would completely take over my life. But I guess I didn't understand the DEGREE of my life that would be consumed! Maybe it's because I took that three month break- I got a taste of freedom... Maybe it's because I've had this schedule for four months since that break (and over a year total) and it's just "time" for a break (breaking point?). Maybe I was able to focus on working out, chillin' with Aidan, get my body and mind back during my break. And maybe because I hit the ground running at 6am, using my lunch hours for research at the college, spend my evenings either in class, cooking dinner, cleaning the apartment, or studying- so that I've gotten chubby again :( and I don't have that mental release that comes from running.
But I've been thinking all these thoughts about my life, my schedule, body, friend and love relationships and they've been sitting on the back of my mind CONSTANTLY.
So although I haven't been "heartbroken" in quite a long while (and you have beared witness to that lengthy healing process- thankfully it's done and over!), but I opened Sex God by Rob Bell last night because "relationship" is the topic it exactly speaks about (relationship= friends, lovers, pain, happiness, etc).
I read this and thought I'd share:
This is why for thousands of years Christians have found the cross to be so central to life. It speaks to us of God's suffering, God's pain, God's broken heart. It's God making the first move and then waiting for our response.
If you have ever given yourself to someone and had your heart broken, you know how God feels.
If you have ever given yourself to someone and found yourself waiting for their response, exposed and vulnerable, left hanging in the balance, you know how God feels.
If you have ever given yourself to someone and they responded, they reciprocated with love of their own, you know how God feels.
The cross is God's way of saying, 'I know what it's like.'
The execution stake is the creator of the universe saying, 'I know how you feel.'
Our tendency in the midst of suffering is to turn on God. To get angry and bitter and shake our fist at the sky and say, 'God, you don't know what it's like! You don't understand! You have no idea what I'm going through. You don't have a clue how much this hurts.'
The cross is God's way of taking away all of our accusations, excuses, and arguments.
The cross is God taking on flesh and blood and saying, 'Me too.'
This can transform our experience of heartbreak. Instead of being something that distances us from God, causing us to question, 'Where are you?' every poem by a lover spurned, every song sung with an ache, every movie with a gut-wrenching scene, every late-night coversation and empty box of kleenex are glimpses into the life of God.
Our first need is not for people to fix our problems. People who charge in and have all the answers and try to make things right without first joining us in our pain generally annoy us, or worse yet, they push us away. They have nothing to give us. The God that Jesus points us to is not a god who stands at a distance, wringing his hads and saying, 'If only you'd listened to me.'
This is the God who holds out his hands and asks, 'Would you like to see the holes where the nails went? Would that help?'
It's the place we find out that we're not alone, where we find strength to go on. Not a strength that comes from within ourselves but a strength that comes from God. The God who keeps going. Who keeps offering. Who keeps loving. Who keeps risking.
A God who knows what it's like.
The cross is where we present our wounds to God and say, 'Here, you take them.'
Our healing begins when we participate in the suffering of God. When we don't avoid it but enter into it, and in the process enter into the life of God. When we see our pain not as separating us from but connecting us to our maker.
And in this connection, there's always the chance we'll find a reason to risk again.
If God can continue to risk, then maybe we can too.
Perhaps you have had your heart broken by somebody. You risked and extended and offered yourself, and they rejected and turned away and didn't return your love.
There is something divine in your pain.
You know how God feels.
Really good, loving people get hurt. It's how things are.
Maybe you're living in the wake of a relationship that fell apart. You have to dig those moments up. The parts that hurt and the awkward conversations and the anger and the failure and the misunderstanding and the betrayal. You have to dig them up and acknowledge them before you are ever going to heal.
The danger is that you will decide it isn't worth it. Why risk if it's going to hurt like this? The tragedy would be for you to shut down, to allow a wall to be built around your heart, and for something within you to die.
A decision not to risk again is a decision not to love again. They go together.
Why is it those we love the most are the ones capable of hurting us the most? Our greatest wounds rarely come from strangers. They probably come from an ex-fiance, a former friend, a roommate, a sister, a business partner.
Even in healthy relationships, an offhanded comment or a rolling of the eyes can cripple us for days or years or even a lifetime. This is because the more we open ourselves up, the more vulnerable we are. The more exposed we are, the more it hurts. The more we let someone in, the greater the risk. Surprise, anger, shock, betrayal, helplessness- it all gets mixed in together.
There's a phrase that I have heard used to explain how God loves everybody equaly. People say that 'the ground at the foot of the cross is level.' The idea that God has no favorites, that no matter where you're coming from and what you've done and who you've been with and how badly you've screwed it up, the cross is the place where God looks past it all and forgives and accepts and wipes the slate clean.
In the matters of love, it's as if God has agreed to play by the same rules we do. God can do anything- that's what makes God, God. But God can't do everything. God can't make us love him- that's our choice.
Love is risky for God too.
Saturday, February 23, 2008
J-Swan's Message
Hi there,
So my friend J-Swan and I were emailing and she gave me permission to post this email from her to me. It was so incredibly touching and so applicable to my girlfriends that I am so compelled to put it here for you.
As I read this a second time I found so much more worth than that which I read the first time. I would encourage you to read it today, mull it over, and then read it again in a day or two.
Jessie
Dear Jessica
I will do the best I can to answer your email from last week. I do not feel God has given me the green light to leave the mountain yet. I realize my need for Him is far greater than my need for socialization right now. You see, I was very narcissist. I was very depressed a lot and "introspective" simply because I loved paying attention to me. I was teased mercilessly in high school and I hated the attention. I wanted to disappear…the more I wanted that it was like the more they noticed me. I decided I would not allow this anymore. I figured if I was going to get attention I would be in CONTROL of when I got it and how. I changed. I dropped God, I dropped my morals, I went into debt buying sensual clothing, and controlled my weight like a mad woman… all uncontrollable behavior. You want to know what's behind this? Satan. Yes that is an easy answer, however I must take responsibility for WHAT I DID WITH HIS TEMPTATION.
…He convinced me that thinking on myself wasn't such a bad thing after all if I didn't look out for J-Swan who would. He then convinced me to find my beauty and worth extrinsically. Yes. I became obsessed. You may be wondering what my obsession was. I wanted male attention and I wanted it bad. No cost. Nothing was too high. I was hurt by my insecurities and therefore I decided to be in control. I was in such deep deception at this point I couldn't even see that my being in "control" was killing me. "Satan comes to steal, kill and destroy" John 10:10...Yes, he uses us against ourselves. I have several people who can attest to this, I could attract any guy I wanted. Even ones that were out of my league in all natural respects. Is that odd? Nope. Satan is able to bring about things that are otherwise not possible so long as he can continue to influence us to the point of death.
I loved bar hoping, texting, pix texting because it was a game of seduction. That game turned into a thing called fantasy. Yes, fantasy for me as well as the men who I attracted. What happens in fantasy? The men crave what I give and I am controlled by the need for their attention. Even though I thought I had power over them. It was about making sure I was the most detached, the most spontaneous, hard to reach dame out there. I made sure that no one touched my heart…..even though inside I longed and wondered what it would be like to feel again. To actually be living. I loved having cute, sensual pictures of me to give them because they craved them and it was enough to get their minds going. I tell you this Jessica not to brag. I tell you this because I fear this is something not talked about and if you say you have a similar past to mine and are on the same journey as me, then I plead with you to listen to me and take this very very very seriously. I decided I better pay attention when God began to reveal these things to me. God isn't to be taken lightly…I've learned that the hard way---
I decided to look up what fantasy means: Unrestrained, an imagined or conjured up sequence fulfilling a psychological need, a supposition based on no solid foundation.
And synonyms for fantasy: self-deception, snare, monster.
That last one was me Jessica. I became a monster. I wanted men to see me. To like me. To be captivated by me. To be enthralled. Did this happen? You bet. Sex can do that. What did this do to me? It convinced me that I had really nothing else to offer but what I was giving and portraying. I believe you are serious about Christ. If you are wanting to be truly filled in Him, then it will mean you laying everything down at His feet and being honest with yourself and with Him. You see, the thing about God is that He see's where we are really at. I would try and pretend I didn't want those things anymore, but I wouldn't give up ALL of it. ALL of it meant me not longing and desiring men around me non-stop like they had been for over a decade.
Jessica I pray for you every day. I know you are Royalty. Now that you have come to the knowledge of Christ, you are HIS. His beloved bride worth far more than you can imagine. I want you to know that I can not move because I am utterly dependant on Him to continue and finish this work that He started in me. I have many things to overcome and I am, through Christ. I don't want to be broken and attach God's name to it. You see, that's why I turned from God in the first place. I thought why do I need Him if people are still really messed up and just as bad as non-Christians….so now I fight. I fight hard. This is a battle and it's not for quitters. I refuse to give up. I refuse to let the old J-Swan convince me that partying, attention seeking, drinking, promiscuity (even in the most minor forms) are what I want. I very much try to pray without ceasing like the Bible commands. I don't pray to think about myself, I pray to get me off myself! God help me!
I am desperately captivated by God. Hence forth I am His. I have no right to use my body as a thing to attract and seduce. I do not fear. For the Word says if God is before me, who can be against me. I do not dare look at my life and be disgruntled. For I have tasted and experienced the most divine love. He took me from the midst of it all and said, "She is mine. This one is mine." I would like to share my love story found in Hosea.
Hosea 2:6 "Therefore, behold I will hedge up your way with thorns and wall her in
So that she can not find her paths. She will chase her lovers, but not overtake them. Yes, she will seek them, but not find them. Then she will say "I will go and return to my first husband (Christ) for it was better for me then.
Vs.14 "The Lord says, Therefore, I will allure her, will bring her into the wilderness and speak comfort to her. I will give her vineyards and the Valley of Achor as a door of Hope. She shall sing there as in the days of her youth…And it shall be in that day she no longer calls me Master, but calls me Husband."
I love these because I can't think of better verses to describe how I was. I chased after all sorts of lovers (doesn't have to be men only), but I never could catch them….we can never find love in anything other than seeking Him with our whole hearts. I want to be a holy, living sacrifice for Him. I've spent years running, I beg God to use the rest of my life as an offering to Him! I love you!
God Bless you!
J-Swan
So my friend J-Swan and I were emailing and she gave me permission to post this email from her to me. It was so incredibly touching and so applicable to my girlfriends that I am so compelled to put it here for you.
As I read this a second time I found so much more worth than that which I read the first time. I would encourage you to read it today, mull it over, and then read it again in a day or two.
Jessie
Dear Jessica
I will do the best I can to answer your email from last week. I do not feel God has given me the green light to leave the mountain yet. I realize my need for Him is far greater than my need for socialization right now. You see, I was very narcissist. I was very depressed a lot and "introspective" simply because I loved paying attention to me. I was teased mercilessly in high school and I hated the attention. I wanted to disappear…the more I wanted that it was like the more they noticed me. I decided I would not allow this anymore. I figured if I was going to get attention I would be in CONTROL of when I got it and how. I changed. I dropped God, I dropped my morals, I went into debt buying sensual clothing, and controlled my weight like a mad woman… all uncontrollable behavior. You want to know what's behind this? Satan. Yes that is an easy answer, however I must take responsibility for WHAT I DID WITH HIS TEMPTATION.
…He convinced me that thinking on myself wasn't such a bad thing after all if I didn't look out for J-Swan who would. He then convinced me to find my beauty and worth extrinsically. Yes. I became obsessed. You may be wondering what my obsession was. I wanted male attention and I wanted it bad. No cost. Nothing was too high. I was hurt by my insecurities and therefore I decided to be in control. I was in such deep deception at this point I couldn't even see that my being in "control" was killing me. "Satan comes to steal, kill and destroy" John 10:10...Yes, he uses us against ourselves. I have several people who can attest to this, I could attract any guy I wanted. Even ones that were out of my league in all natural respects. Is that odd? Nope. Satan is able to bring about things that are otherwise not possible so long as he can continue to influence us to the point of death.
I loved bar hoping, texting, pix texting because it was a game of seduction. That game turned into a thing called fantasy. Yes, fantasy for me as well as the men who I attracted. What happens in fantasy? The men crave what I give and I am controlled by the need for their attention. Even though I thought I had power over them. It was about making sure I was the most detached, the most spontaneous, hard to reach dame out there. I made sure that no one touched my heart…..even though inside I longed and wondered what it would be like to feel again. To actually be living. I loved having cute, sensual pictures of me to give them because they craved them and it was enough to get their minds going. I tell you this Jessica not to brag. I tell you this because I fear this is something not talked about and if you say you have a similar past to mine and are on the same journey as me, then I plead with you to listen to me and take this very very very seriously. I decided I better pay attention when God began to reveal these things to me. God isn't to be taken lightly…I've learned that the hard way---
I decided to look up what fantasy means: Unrestrained, an imagined or conjured up sequence fulfilling a psychological need, a supposition based on no solid foundation.
And synonyms for fantasy: self-deception, snare, monster.
That last one was me Jessica. I became a monster. I wanted men to see me. To like me. To be captivated by me. To be enthralled. Did this happen? You bet. Sex can do that. What did this do to me? It convinced me that I had really nothing else to offer but what I was giving and portraying. I believe you are serious about Christ. If you are wanting to be truly filled in Him, then it will mean you laying everything down at His feet and being honest with yourself and with Him. You see, the thing about God is that He see's where we are really at. I would try and pretend I didn't want those things anymore, but I wouldn't give up ALL of it. ALL of it meant me not longing and desiring men around me non-stop like they had been for over a decade.
Jessica I pray for you every day. I know you are Royalty. Now that you have come to the knowledge of Christ, you are HIS. His beloved bride worth far more than you can imagine. I want you to know that I can not move because I am utterly dependant on Him to continue and finish this work that He started in me. I have many things to overcome and I am, through Christ. I don't want to be broken and attach God's name to it. You see, that's why I turned from God in the first place. I thought why do I need Him if people are still really messed up and just as bad as non-Christians….so now I fight. I fight hard. This is a battle and it's not for quitters. I refuse to give up. I refuse to let the old J-Swan convince me that partying, attention seeking, drinking, promiscuity (even in the most minor forms) are what I want. I very much try to pray without ceasing like the Bible commands. I don't pray to think about myself, I pray to get me off myself! God help me!
I am desperately captivated by God. Hence forth I am His. I have no right to use my body as a thing to attract and seduce. I do not fear. For the Word says if God is before me, who can be against me. I do not dare look at my life and be disgruntled. For I have tasted and experienced the most divine love. He took me from the midst of it all and said, "She is mine. This one is mine." I would like to share my love story found in Hosea.
Hosea 2:6 "Therefore, behold I will hedge up your way with thorns and wall her in
So that she can not find her paths. She will chase her lovers, but not overtake them. Yes, she will seek them, but not find them. Then she will say "I will go and return to my first husband (Christ) for it was better for me then.
Vs.14 "The Lord says, Therefore, I will allure her, will bring her into the wilderness and speak comfort to her. I will give her vineyards and the Valley of Achor as a door of Hope. She shall sing there as in the days of her youth…And it shall be in that day she no longer calls me Master, but calls me Husband."
I love these because I can't think of better verses to describe how I was. I chased after all sorts of lovers (doesn't have to be men only), but I never could catch them….we can never find love in anything other than seeking Him with our whole hearts. I want to be a holy, living sacrifice for Him. I've spent years running, I beg God to use the rest of my life as an offering to Him! I love you!
God Bless you!
J-Swan
Monday, January 7, 2008
Jenn's Inspiration
I know, dear reader, that you do not know the context behind this email message, but take from it what YOU need because we all need a little inspiration and someone who believes in us.
-------------------------
Oh my sweet friend!
Remember, this is just a temporary reclusion you are doing. God has given you such vibrance and love, and he did not intend you to shut yourself off from the world indefinately. So when you feel isolated without your texting and your friends down here just remember that you are there to do a job. YOU are far more important than anyone else right now. If you don't take care of yourself- your heart, mind and soul, no one else will. When you feel strong and confident with yourself and the Lord you will be able to come home and be the spotted bark!
Even Mother Theresa struggled with her relationship with God. Remember, He created us imperfect. He created us and He created us so that we were going to fall down and fail and struggle to be what He wants us to be. He does not shake his head in disappointment at us, instead he rejoices when we pick up, dust off and try again. It's the struggle that he's watching. He's watching how we fight against our own personal demons. He's watching our hearts and how we succumb and drift into those struggles and how we fight and claw and scratch our ways against the desires of our flesh. It's the INTENTIONS of our hearts that he watches and values.
He gave us our gifts to use. I do think that maybe one of the reasons you, Missy and me all get along so well is because we have similar gifts. And MAYBE when we have all grown appropriately in our spirituality we are all together supposed to do something with it. I don't know a lot about your upbringing (you have a pastor for a dad and you're from BFE). But you know Missy's upbringing and her resiliance to all her struggles. Me, we'll say, I've had my share and I will discuss those with you in person when it comes up.
To paraphrase: grew up super poor, chaotic family, pregnant at 19, tumultuous marriage, divorced, graduated with my BA and then I took a year to live. Met Adam. Fell in love. He hit on other women, manipulated and belittled, was just shady in general. It BROKE MY HEART to leave him. None of the other events in my life stand up to the pain and bleeding I have done by leaving Adam. Nothing. There was never a time in my life where I wanted to sink and dissolve into the world and into my pain the way I hurt losing him (if you have read any of my myspace blogs you'd know some of that struggle). Oh how I loved that man more than I had ever loved another human being (aside from Aidan). ---funny how after you are truly and utterly over it, you can empathetically remember the bleeding feeling and yet NOT feel it any longer. I'm so GRATEFUL to be done, healed and whole from all of that!
But what hurt more was that although I knew he loved me, he didn't respect me. And what is love without respect? Empty.
So I was giving a full love and receiving an empty one in return.
And so this year I have searched and I have sought for the meaning of it all.
And I still don't know.
But you know what? If you were to do a biography of my life and you were to interview the people I have known, they will all tell you of this vibrance I have. They will tell you that I am PERPETUALLY HAPPY! They will sing my praises of strength, resiliance, humor, funness, intellect, positivity, etc.
I have gone from helpless, sad, ragamuffin to business school grad, banker, and pschyology grad student. I have a little boy who loves going to church and we have a stable home. I am loved and respected by my peers. I am looked up to by friends.
Is any of this actually mine? Is it really my accomplishment? NO!
I wasn't trying. I don't try to be happy and silly or insightful. It's not purposeful. I don't know how or where it comes from, the single mom going to school and working while maintaining friendships and a positive attitude and vision for her future. I just know that I would be broken if I stopped right now. I would be heart broken if I didn't keep on keepin' on. I just feel that in my core being I was made for more and it's SO EXCITING! It drives me and carries me and moves me forward!
I know that this last year I have focused on dating, accomodating friends, and my own search for my soul. I feel like I have satisfied those. Mostly. So this year I will buckle down and focus on doing God's work through psychology. It feels so good and satisfying to know that.
You and I, my friend,
We have this vibrance.
That is our gift from God. Vibrance that pulses and radiates from us so that people WANT to be around us. People love being around us and that is why we have a lot of friends and things to do and places to go, people to see! That vibrance is intoxicating to the empty because it fills them. They find meaning in our meaning. They feel full because our lights shine so dang bright.
Well, guess what.
Why do you think that you need to turn off your texting Jenn? Why do you think you have a reason to isolate yourself in the hills to find an empty place?
You are full of the love and light of God!
You are the salt and the light!
And that is what these men who chase you want from you. This is why you feel the need to run to the hills!
They want more from you than you want to give. They want it because they know you have it. It's not your sex they want, they just don't know it. They are conufising their desire. They feel the call to you, they feel it in their bodies and so they are confusing it because in today's world the sexual desire is so all emcompassing that it is the default explanation. They are empty, they want to be filled and know that you can do it. They KNOW it. Because you can.
I know this also because of this last year of dating and soul searching. This is also true for ME.
But you have to be strong. You have to put them in their place. If they become attracted to you sexually you have to put your foot down and tell them how much you like and respect them. You tell them how you value them intrinsically. You sing their praises of beauty, humor, etc. You tell them all the things you like/love about them. And you tell them that it is not going to go anywhere relationally because that is not what you are about. Don't specify "right now." Don't say, right now, I'm not getting into relationships. That leaves the door open.
Then you know, when you least expect it, someone who is truly down for the count. Someone who values YOU intrinsically will honor that. A man will come along and yes, he may be human and misinterpret his longing as sexual, but you will put him in his place and he will be down for the count. He will stick around just to bask in your joy and he will DESIRE to fill you with his. He will not want to just take from you, but he will want reciprocity in its purest form. He will respect your choice of abstinence and he will think you are awesome because of it!
You are doing a great job Jenn. You have made a sacrifise because you knew it was the right thing for YOU.
And sometimes putting ourselves first is the hardest choice to make.
Take it from someone who knows!
I love you, and my door (or email) is always open to you.
jessie
-------------------------
Oh my sweet friend!
Remember, this is just a temporary reclusion you are doing. God has given you such vibrance and love, and he did not intend you to shut yourself off from the world indefinately. So when you feel isolated without your texting and your friends down here just remember that you are there to do a job. YOU are far more important than anyone else right now. If you don't take care of yourself- your heart, mind and soul, no one else will. When you feel strong and confident with yourself and the Lord you will be able to come home and be the spotted bark!
Even Mother Theresa struggled with her relationship with God. Remember, He created us imperfect. He created us and He created us so that we were going to fall down and fail and struggle to be what He wants us to be. He does not shake his head in disappointment at us, instead he rejoices when we pick up, dust off and try again. It's the struggle that he's watching. He's watching how we fight against our own personal demons. He's watching our hearts and how we succumb and drift into those struggles and how we fight and claw and scratch our ways against the desires of our flesh. It's the INTENTIONS of our hearts that he watches and values.
He gave us our gifts to use. I do think that maybe one of the reasons you, Missy and me all get along so well is because we have similar gifts. And MAYBE when we have all grown appropriately in our spirituality we are all together supposed to do something with it. I don't know a lot about your upbringing (you have a pastor for a dad and you're from BFE). But you know Missy's upbringing and her resiliance to all her struggles. Me, we'll say, I've had my share and I will discuss those with you in person when it comes up.
To paraphrase: grew up super poor, chaotic family, pregnant at 19, tumultuous marriage, divorced, graduated with my BA and then I took a year to live. Met Adam. Fell in love. He hit on other women, manipulated and belittled, was just shady in general. It BROKE MY HEART to leave him. None of the other events in my life stand up to the pain and bleeding I have done by leaving Adam. Nothing. There was never a time in my life where I wanted to sink and dissolve into the world and into my pain the way I hurt losing him (if you have read any of my myspace blogs you'd know some of that struggle). Oh how I loved that man more than I had ever loved another human being (aside from Aidan). ---funny how after you are truly and utterly over it, you can empathetically remember the bleeding feeling and yet NOT feel it any longer. I'm so GRATEFUL to be done, healed and whole from all of that!
But what hurt more was that although I knew he loved me, he didn't respect me. And what is love without respect? Empty.
So I was giving a full love and receiving an empty one in return.
And so this year I have searched and I have sought for the meaning of it all.
And I still don't know.
But you know what? If you were to do a biography of my life and you were to interview the people I have known, they will all tell you of this vibrance I have. They will tell you that I am PERPETUALLY HAPPY! They will sing my praises of strength, resiliance, humor, funness, intellect, positivity, etc.
I have gone from helpless, sad, ragamuffin to business school grad, banker, and pschyology grad student. I have a little boy who loves going to church and we have a stable home. I am loved and respected by my peers. I am looked up to by friends.
Is any of this actually mine? Is it really my accomplishment? NO!
I wasn't trying. I don't try to be happy and silly or insightful. It's not purposeful. I don't know how or where it comes from, the single mom going to school and working while maintaining friendships and a positive attitude and vision for her future. I just know that I would be broken if I stopped right now. I would be heart broken if I didn't keep on keepin' on. I just feel that in my core being I was made for more and it's SO EXCITING! It drives me and carries me and moves me forward!
I know that this last year I have focused on dating, accomodating friends, and my own search for my soul. I feel like I have satisfied those. Mostly. So this year I will buckle down and focus on doing God's work through psychology. It feels so good and satisfying to know that.
You and I, my friend,
We have this vibrance.
That is our gift from God. Vibrance that pulses and radiates from us so that people WANT to be around us. People love being around us and that is why we have a lot of friends and things to do and places to go, people to see! That vibrance is intoxicating to the empty because it fills them. They find meaning in our meaning. They feel full because our lights shine so dang bright.
Well, guess what.
Why do you think that you need to turn off your texting Jenn? Why do you think you have a reason to isolate yourself in the hills to find an empty place?
You are full of the love and light of God!
You are the salt and the light!
And that is what these men who chase you want from you. This is why you feel the need to run to the hills!
They want more from you than you want to give. They want it because they know you have it. It's not your sex they want, they just don't know it. They are conufising their desire. They feel the call to you, they feel it in their bodies and so they are confusing it because in today's world the sexual desire is so all emcompassing that it is the default explanation. They are empty, they want to be filled and know that you can do it. They KNOW it. Because you can.
I know this also because of this last year of dating and soul searching. This is also true for ME.
But you have to be strong. You have to put them in their place. If they become attracted to you sexually you have to put your foot down and tell them how much you like and respect them. You tell them how you value them intrinsically. You sing their praises of beauty, humor, etc. You tell them all the things you like/love about them. And you tell them that it is not going to go anywhere relationally because that is not what you are about. Don't specify "right now." Don't say, right now, I'm not getting into relationships. That leaves the door open.
Then you know, when you least expect it, someone who is truly down for the count. Someone who values YOU intrinsically will honor that. A man will come along and yes, he may be human and misinterpret his longing as sexual, but you will put him in his place and he will be down for the count. He will stick around just to bask in your joy and he will DESIRE to fill you with his. He will not want to just take from you, but he will want reciprocity in its purest form. He will respect your choice of abstinence and he will think you are awesome because of it!
You are doing a great job Jenn. You have made a sacrifise because you knew it was the right thing for YOU.
And sometimes putting ourselves first is the hardest choice to make.
Take it from someone who knows!
I love you, and my door (or email) is always open to you.
jessie
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