Day 126 - THANK YOU!

I've been waiting for like 3 days to write this post. 3 days doesn't seem like a lot but every single day this week, I've spent out of the house and have come home utterly exhausted. Hm. Now that I'm stealing time away to write, I'm having a hard time getting it out. Shoulda thought about it more. Anyway... I'll just start typing out my thoughts... like I always do and we'll see what comes of it. Hopefully it'll make sense.

So... yes. I am very very thankful. I think what helps in being thankful is to remember... remember the past... remember people... just remember in general. A friend of mine has been sharing with me about what she's learned from reading through Leviticus lately. During one set of chapters, she was telling me about how God loves to party. OK, I went back and checked and it was the Law of Religious Festivals from Lev. 23. The Israelites had all kinds of festivals (not sure if they still celebrate today... but I think it's pretty neat) to commemorate or celebrate important events in history... like the passover, the feast of unleavened bread, and the feast of booths. And even when we have communion... it's to do this in remembrance of Jesus. So... let me remember...

I was talking to a few friends yesterday about last year's Thanksgiving... and I realized... last year... I had a boyfriend. We were engaged... but not planning yet. I was probably stressed out about school. It hit me how pivotal 2009 has been for me. I got married, I got licensed, I moved to Texas, moved back... started school again. So much has happened in 2009. This year's Thanksgiving... I'm 27 years old... my last name's Chen... and I'm widowed. But I'm thankful. VERY VERY thankful for my life... and super duper thankful for all of you.

Some of you have been following me since back in March... some of you have only recently started reading my musings. Some of you know me well, some have only seen my face on facebook, some I may not have even met yet. Regardless of whether or not what I write is read by others... I'm very thankful for being able to write and share my thoughts and feelings in this way. It's been a blessing for me to go back and see how far I've come and it's also been an exercise in purging my heart... which, I think, has been an essential part of my healing process.

I love to hear from you as well. Once in a while people really surprise me by replying. It's amazing to me that some people still read my super long posts. Your thoughts about the things I've written... I'm really glad that you guys can see a part of me and sometimes see a little bit of what we have in common... and also see our differences as well. I always benefit from your perspectives, from your thoughts and your experiences. I've been blessed to have NOT received anything negative or disparaging, which I think has been a super amazing thing since sometimes what I write can be a little controversial... and it's almost always very heavily motivated by my love for God and His love for me. I've been encouraged by all of you and I really feel loved and supported.

Our wedding. OMG. Last Monday I was telling a couple friends about our wedding story... I know they've probably heard about it or read about it in the past, but it somehow came up again and I told the story again. It was... a miracle. It was the most amazing display of collaboration and unity I've ever seen at FCBC Walnut. The sacrifices that everyone made to gift us with our wedding over the span of just 2 short days... nothing short of a miracle. I have never felt more loved by my church family and my friends as I did that weekend of January 10th, 2009. SO utterly thankful for EVERYTHING and EVERYONE who contributed to making the Tifferson Wedding the most spectacular event of my life. I still shed tears thinking about it... and I still remember making that left turn to walk down the aisle and being overcome with emotion as I looked into the smiling faces of all my family and friends who made an extra special effort to be there for us... at the decorations... the music... and most importantly... at my beloved groom waiting for me at the end of the aisle. He was such a handsome man. Dang, I seriously am so blessed to have married the best man I ever knew. Unbelievable how wonderful my life has been...

And then finding out about the tumor in the middle of my NCLEX review course. It was such a blessing that we found out when we did. It was the perfect rest point in my nursing program... right after I'd finished my pre-licensure coursework and during our winter break. I'd already set aside that entire month to study for the NCLEX so nothing much was going on. We found out, got married, and I decided to take time off from school to be with my husband. I'm also VERY thankful that I got licensed too. VERY VERY thankful... considering all the stuff that was going on in my personal life... it was seriously God's grace to me that I passed and then I didn't have to think too much about nursing after that. What a relief. Huge thanksgiving.

Also, I remember back when we were in Houston... I was away from the life I knew, from everything familiar to me... I had no friends other than my best friend, Anderson. I didn't have any of my "stuff" to comfort me... just a computer and craft kits from the hospital. Well, I did have a very large Target down the street from our apartment. Anyway... it could have been a very, very lonely time for me, but it wasn't. I was connected to my loved ones back at home through my email updates and through your replies back to me. I kept disciplined in reading the Bible with my friend via google docs. I love google, btw. Thankful for google and for accountability partners. God sustained me through His Word and through all of you who were loving us and praying for us from afar. I cannot ever thank you all enough for your outpouring of love on us... I don't ever feel like I've loved all of you (or have even been able to return love to you) even the tiniest bit compared to how much love you showered on us while we were in Houston.

I'm thankful for facebook and for helping us reconnect with people and friends who, through a fairly complex string of God-ordained events, got us to M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. Even in Anderson's medical insurance... it was totally God in that he got insured when he did... before we found out about the tumor... and that it totally helped us financially over the past 3 years. I'm so SO thankful for our circumstances and how things happened the way they did. Even the people we met in Houston... the doctors, the therapists, the nurses... volunteers... and the friends we made while we were there... they all touched our hearts and helped carry us through the difficult times. There were even people we met in the waiting rooms... you'd think that EVERYONE has their sad story for being there, but for some reason... one lady in particular who came up to talk to me... was really touched by us and she prayed for me right then and there. And every time she saw us again, she would say hi and tell us that she was praying for us. To this day, I don't know her name, but even encountering her for a brief time... I saw God through her and was encouraged... that even strangers have a common bond in Christ.

I'm also so thankful for the warm welcome we got when we came back from Houston. I was able to enroll in classes at the VERY last minute... probably a week or two before school started... everything fell into place. I've reconnected with so many people that I've lost contact with over the years... and seeing your smiling faces and learning about your lives over the past few years... such happiness to get to share life with you all again.

And I'm so thankful for the deepening of my friendships and relationships that I've experienced lately. I don't know if my heart's gotten so much bigger AND you guys have become more lovable, but I feel like I have so much more love in my life now than before. I might not have the same love I shared with my husband, but the love of my family and friends, although not quite the same, has been amazingly and remarkably... enough to keep me in a state of joyful euphoria a whole lot of the time. Something that used to keep me up at nights (in an insomniac kind of way)... was repeating the events of the day over and over again in my head. I don't know why it happens, but I think about things a lot afterwards... I hear bits and pieces of conversations again and instead of keeping me up at nights or disturbing me... nowadays they make me smile more often than not. Sometimes it makes me giggle. Out loud. And not that I'm inviting everyone to stare at me, but if you ever somehow catch me when I'm zoning out and I start to smile or laugh or I chuckle really slightly to myself... I'm not going crazy... (or maybe I am...) I'm probably thinking about some funny thing that someone said or reliving a very fond memory really quickly in my mind. I very often go to bed smiling now. Some days are hard, but most days... end with a smile. There's just so much happiness and joy all around me... such hope... such love... I thank God everyday for loving me through blessing me with all of you.

I could go on and on and on about all the things I'm thankful for, but the biggest and most important thing to be thankful for is God's love. I really really mean it! I used to say "God is love"... "God loves me and you" but I really don't think I fully understood what it meant and it had never really sunk in and grabbed hold of me like it does now. Last Sunday, someone shared this with me...

I admit I once lived by rumors of you;
now I have it all firsthand—from my own eyes and ears! (Job 42:5)

I'd been thinking about that ever since last Sunday. That experiencing God and God's love for me has been the biggest, most powerful... most breathtaking, knock-me-off-my-feet experience EVER. HANDS DOWN. All of these things that I'm thankful for... they were all orchestrated meticulously by my loving God... to show me how much and how powerfully and how lavishly He loves me and how much He yearns to win my heart. I can't even describe it. Words... fail me. How funny, huh? I write thousands of words in my posts and when it comes to God's love... I just can't seem to find any good enough. It's like Godiva hot chocolate on a freezing cold day... it warms your hands... and then your heart as the rich, silky smoothness travels slowly into the core of your being... and then permeates outward, bringing your entire body into a state of comfort and peace... and then you just close your eyes, inhale deeply and exhale that "ahhhhh..." that only comes when something truly "hits the spot" and fulfills you in all the ways you've been lacking amidst the frigidity that had threatened to consume you just moments earlier. K, it's sort of like that, but like a billion times better and longer than hot chocolate on a cold day. Turning elsewhere for that kind of comfort is more like... spilling hot chocolate on the chair you're sitting on. At first you're like... ooh, my butt's warm... and then it suddenly gets cold, sticky and yucky as you realize that you're soaking wet, embarrassingly stained, AND you've just wasted your liquid Gold-iva. Hot chocolate was meant to be drunk and not... sat on. Alritey... enough with this one... I think I've talked about it enough. But anyway... I really really want everyone to experience drinking hot chocolate on a cold day... everyday for the rest of your lives... it's the best thing that's ever happened to me and I'd love to pour you a cup and talk about it with you if you'd like.

Happy thanksgiving, friends... I'm both happy and thankful and I hope you are too.

All my <3,
Tiff

Day 123 - death by boys

I took a "personal day" today. Well, I intended to anyway. I felt like I just wanted some time away... time on my own... time to think... time to just "be".

Since I was meeting up with friends for lunch in Costa Mesa, I thought it would be lovely to spend some time alone on the beach. BUT... being the multi-tasker that I am... I decided that since I was in the area, I thought I'd try to call/arrange to possibly meet up with 3 other friends... just in case they were available to hang out. Sadly and thankfully, they all had plans or never got back to me. Looked like my day would be free and clear.

Catching up with friends you haven't seen in a long time is kind of a good way to sum up what's been going on with you over the years. Through recounting the major events of my life since college... I think it just somehow hit me that... boys ruin my life. LOL.

Maybe we had lots of finals in the quarter system, but my first two boyfriends somehow broke up with me right before finals... the first one actually broke up with me the day before my very first final Fall quarter of my freshman year. I also think I lost 20 pounds in less than a month because I couldn't eat; I was so depressed. Cruelty, thy name is untimely breakup.

Due to emotional turmoil and frequenting a far away city far too frequently my sophomore year, I lost my blessed regent's scholarship by 0.01 of a grade point, costing my parents thousands of dollars that they shouldn't have had to pay. Even more thousands when Schwarzenegger started office and UC fees started to hike. Every single tuition statement I received after my sophomore year was like pouring burning hot coals on my head for the mistakes I made that year. I recently caught up with my high school English teacher who, for over 10 years, told me that he's been recounting MY story of how financial aid comes in mysterious ways... and I was sad to disappoint him that my financial aid story had a lackluster ending. He then proceeded to comment on how expensive my failed relationships were. So sad. So true.

More than costing me grades and financial aid... those failed relationships caused me heartache. Although no one man has caused me more heartache than Anderson. You know I'm referring mostly to his death, but I was poking around some of my old files and I found some very angry letters that I wrote him early on in our relationship. Things weren't always peachy keen for us. Our first two years of dating were chock full of drama, fights, tears, nasty words spoken in anger (mostly by me...) and general unpleasantness... I don't even know why he stayed with me, honestly. We did international long distance and I still managed to be able to torment him from thousands of miles away. We only saw each other 3 months out of the year the first 3 years we dated and I remember it being excruciatingly painful. The first Christmas he spent in Brazil, I locked myself in my room and listened to audio Harry Potter while lying in bed... all day long. I think I did that for like 2-3 weeks. I probably listened to the first 4 Harry Potters that first winter he was abroad. Depression. Boys ruin my life.

I told my friend today that she could make sure that "death by boys" somehow ends up on my tombstone because knowing me, it would somehow end up being true. My lovely friend cannot comprehend how I've let boys and relationships ruin my life... how deeply I've struggled with boys over my conscious lifetime. Frankly, I wish it weren't so, but I've come to realize that I think for me... this is the way it had to be.

I do see how God has used the pain I allowed myself to be afflicted by through my endless pursuit of romantic affection to teach me the most powerful lessons of my life. I very consciously remember asking God to draw me closer to Him during my relationships... and very soon afterwards, going through a breakup... twice. When you hear people say, "be careful what you ask for"... at the time, I probably wished I could have gone back in time and taken back my request... but now that I have the wisdom of hindsight, I think I wished that I would have asked it sooner. Much, much sooner.

After each breakup, I had my closest encounters with God. As God shattered each and every one of my fragile hopes and dreams that I'd placed in such unworthy places... a little part of me died... and God in me increased. Culminating with Anderson... who embodied all my love, all my joy... all my future, my family, my life... when those hopes and dreams were shattered... I think that a huge part, if not the majority of me died with him... but it was a good thing. Death by boys = life in Christ.

The trials of life are sent to make us, not to break us. Financial troubles may destroy a person's business but build up his character. And a direct blow to the outer person may be the greatest blessing possible to the inner person. So if God places or allows anything difficult in our lives, we can be sure that the real danger or trouble will be what we will lose if we run or rebel against it. Malthie D. Babcock.

So my real troubles would have been had I chosen to remain in depression by focusing on what I didn't have... what I felt I deserved... what I thought I needed... or who I thought I needed. The depth of my pain, each and every time, was so severe and oppressive that I was left powerless against it. In my brokenness and pain, God's gentle hands were there to pick me up and cradle me against His chest and then work with me, in me, and through me to put me back together again... but not as the same person I was prior to the breakup... but a new creation, molded and shaped by the loving hands of an omniscient and omnipotent master artist.

It has often been said, and truthfully so, that Christianity is the only religion that can deal with a person's past... He is trustworthy to do it unreservedly. He does so not because of what we are but because of who He is. God forgives and heals and restores, for He is "the God of all grace" (1 Peter 5:10). May we praise Him and trust Him. - from Streams in the Desert, from Sunday School Times

OK. I'm tired. Beyond tired. Exhausted. Gonna stop typing now. Night all.

Day 122 - randoms on love

I don't think this post is going to make a whole lot of sense. I'm all swirled up and cloudy right now but maybe if I start writing about it... it'll at least help me sleep better tonight. Here goes...

I had a portion of this Shakespearean sonnet stuck in my head tonight:

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

I had a really good time catching up with a friend today. Most of what we talked about was love, loving, and being loved. There's something about love that's such a mystery... it makes people do some crazy things... in the name of love, caution is thrown to the wind... it can throw your life into such a confusing, sticky mess. I think a lot of people can relate to that. I also think... that... perhaps... that's not what love really is. Or at least it's not the kind that I want... the complicated kind.

I want the simple kind. The kind that simplifies your life... purifies it... clarifies and guides. Not the kind that drives me to insanity... but pushes me to goodness, wisdom, and reproduces that same love in response to having received it. Love should be easy. You shouldn't have to work hard for it... it should be freely given, but also never cheap or taken for granted. "whose worth is unknown, although his height be taken". Priceless love.

I want to be loved with a passion. I want to be loved so much that the lover would be willing to give up everything... for me. I want to be first... to feel precious... that no matter where I am... if I'm lost in a crowd... to know that somebody loves me and sees me. Truly SEES me... not for my face or my clothes or anything on the outside... but sees my heart and loves my heart. Someone who sees into the depths of my heart... even the ugly parts... and loves me the same. And no matter what silly, mean, or thoughtless things I say or do... that the love is still there... burning ever brighter and clearer for me and only me...despite how undeserving I am of such a precious gift.

I read something interesting the other day:

As a human being, your experience of joy is linked to your experience of sorrow. For example, in connecting with the pain of a divorce, you can also reconnect with the love that defined the relationship before the separation. -Marilyn Smith-Stoner, RN, MSN

For me... I can totally see how that was true in my life...and in Anderson's. Our joys were heightened beyond measure, because we also experienced sorrow beyond measure. Continually since we were engaged, back in June of 2008... immeasurable sorrows and devastation paved the way for equally powerful joy and happiness. Heard the saying that you don't know what you've got until it's gone? How bout tweaking it so that you appreciate what you have right now because tomorrow it might be gone...? I know what I had with Anderson. I appreciated what I had every single day I had it. He was my prince charming... we didn't live happily ever after (together)... but we did live happily... until death did us part.

So, this kind of love does exist. It's been written about. It's been sung about. Some of you may feel as though you've been searching your whole life for this kind of perfect love... and have found that it has eluded you... and maybe have given up and resigned because searching for this kind of love in this ugly world seems so futile. Disappointment after disappointment yielding to the depressing realization that love only happens to other people or only in chick flicks or fairy tales... but never for me. I've felt this way. Remembering that I've felt this way makes me appreciate the love I have all the more.

I still miss him. Man, do I miss him. Lately, I've just been missing my best friend. I miss just talking to him everyday about my day. I miss being able to tell him everything... little or big... I miss his sayings and his short but powerful tidbits of wisdom that he would speak into my life. I miss him pulling me back, making me slow down... keeping me from saying or doing things that would hurt other people. I miss him. I miss laughing with him, I miss dancing with him, I miss who I was when I was with him... completely free, completely understood, completely loved.

I've had a hard week. It was overall a happy week. But it was hard. I can blame the influx of hormones that come and go on a monthly basis, but it is not completely to blame. Ups and downs, stops and go's, mess ups, pull backs, and course corrections. My own human weakness.

In my moments of weakness... I looked around for encouragement... I looked for love in a lot of the wrong places and was consistently disappointed. I should have started out from the get go and went directly to the source of the most perfect, the most undefiled, the most sacrificial and unconditional love that I knew... and had I done that, I would have saved myself a lot of heartache and grief. I confess in my human weakness, I had my eyes set on things in the world... but God is gracious and He consistently reminds me, despite how many times I mess up, that He loves me, He seeks me out, He puts little love letters along my path for me to find and smile about... and He tells me... and shows me the amazing wonders of His love over and over and over again.

³⁸ And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. ³⁹ No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:38-39

Love so amazing, so divine, Demands my soul, my life, my all.

Scrolling up, I don't think any of this made sense at all. It's just a collection of thoughts that I had floating around in my head today. I'm still processing what's happened to me the past few days... lots and lots of good things... surprising things... things that caught me off guard... realizations... good chats... so many many good things. I'm tired. Going to sleep. Maybe I'll have more clarity tomorrow.

Day 117 - empty

How am I doing today? I'm doing pretty good, how bout you?

Interesting that my last post was entitled "fullness" and today's is "empty".

Yesterday was a hard day. I spent most of the day missing peace... in two ways... I missed peace as in I was longing for it... and I missed peace because it seemed to have eluded me. I went back and I read my post on fullness and even reading what I, myself, wrote... I almost felt like I was reading someone else's words. Where was she? She seemed so far, far away.

I felt lost. Sad. Closed off. I didn't want to reach out to anyone. I didn't want to do my homework. I even wanted to cancel whatever plans I'd made that day just so I could sit at home and mope. I didn't spend the entire day completely sad but it came and went in waves... it just kept coming back to emptiness more often than not.

Yesterday was the first day that I'd felt so down in a really really long time. I wrote to Anderson. The last time I wrote to Anderson was in September. I wrote a few pages... to my best friend. I told him I missed him. I felt lost and confused and I didn't know what to do. I wished that he was there to listen to me and to know my heart and to tell me what I should do. I really, really felt empty.

I looked at my to-do list and I had checked off the bare minimum to get me through the day. Good enough.

I knew why I'd felt yucky. I didn't spend enough time with God over the past weekend while I was in SF. I was really behind in my Bible reading. I was reminded of a quote from Streams in the Desert that I'd blogged about a while ago...

Waiting upon God is vital in order to see Him and receive a vision from Him. And the amount of time spent before Him is also critical, for our hearts are like a photographer's film-the longer exposed, the deeper the impression. For God's vision to be impressed on our hearts, we must sit in stillness at His feet for quite a long time. Remember, the troubled surface of a lake will not reflect an image.

So I read. I read quite a bit. I caught up to where I was supposed to be. God did speak to me through reading Acts. I was still in a bit of a funk. I thought about what I should be doing... I should be reaching out... I should be letting my friends know that I'm struggling and I need their help. I should be removing my focus off myself and turn my eyes to Jesus and to serving others. I just didn't feel like it. Why couldn't someone just read my mind and just reach out to ME without me asking for it? (horribly selfish, I know...)

And then I got an e-card from Anderson. :) It is so amazing to me that even in my moments of sinful weakness that God still had sovereignly planned to have Anderson send me an e-card in His perfect timing to remind me that Jesus loves me... and so did he. He wrote that I was always in his thoughts. And he wrote again that he loved me. Only 3 short sentences. I broke down in tears at that point. I let God's love and Anderson's love wash over me like a breath of fresh air. You know sometimes when you open the door to a large building and the air pressure changes and you get hit in the face with a gust of wind? Or when you're going up an escalator and somehow a little bit of air kinda just hits you in the face for a few seconds? I remember it happening a few days ago when I was going up an escalator... maybe out of the subway or something... and the air just blew the hair off my face... kinda like the tender touch of a loved one... I don't know if you know what I'm talking about or what I'm trying to say. I remember in that moment, I closed my eyes, smiled and just let the wind kiss my face... just for a moment. Anyway... back to yesterday... I got the e-card... I saved it, I smiled. And went on with my day.

A little bit later, another dear friend sent me an email. A very encouraging email. My heart had been heavy for her for at least a week. The beauty of her words... her transparency... her communion with God... I hope she doesn't mind but I very often find her to be very quotable... here's one that particularly encouraged me and lifted me out of whatever was left of my funk.

You have existed as my God-given stronghold in all the heartaches of a broken world; one that has withstood the battles of distance and time, and remained close in the revolution and redemption of my ailing soul. All this odd and perhaps ridiculous imagery to say that your life and your friendship through the years have disproved and answered to all of my excuses, all of my buts, and all of my useless suffering in believing that love always dies to selfishness.

In all my weakness... in all my emptiness... even despite my refusal to do what I knew I should do... God still met me where I was and used others to touch me and remind me that He loves me and so do other people. How can your heart NOT be moved by such a powerful showing of love?

Not only that, but today... as I was finishing up the last of my BSF homework in John 6... God really spoke to me and answered my heart's desire for guidance, for someone to know my heart, to show me the way... and I didn't need my husband to do it for me... I have Jesus and that's all I need. He is the epitome... the paragon of masculinity and genius... and He chose to empty Himself... make Himself nothing and be completely obedient to His Father's will... even to the point of death. That's what I should be doing! Not only that... but that He chose not to do His own will because He was so consumed with the mind and heart of His Father that there wasn't any room or any time for His own stuff. Once again! Guidance and instruction! Through obedience and being filled with the Spirit... my joy will be made full and complete.

... so that I may finish my race with joy, and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God... Acts 20:24b

mmm... I think that's all for "how I'm doing today". Still have a few more topics related to lavish love that I wanted to finish writing about... later, I guess... thanks for reading my essays. :)

Day 108 - Fullness

So... perhaps I shouldn't have drunk that coke at dinner... but I have so many thoughts running around in my head that I can't sleep. So I thought I'd try writing. My mom told me to think less and talk more. Does writing count?



A handful of you responded with your thoughts. I'm very thankful to receive them. I'm always thankful for your feedback and the chance to possibly start a conversation with you. Please don't hesitate to write me, call me, text me, facebook me... I really like hearing your thoughts.

So what are my thoughts when I see this picture... a few of you told me that you couldn't bear to look at it. As for me... I really can't stop looking at it for so many reasons. For one, it's a really good picture. Aesthetics. Laurie Au is the photographer. Secondly... I'm a nurse. It's almost like an "identify the equipment" picture... there's so much going on. There's the IV pump, the vent, the orotrach, the dressing from the central line they removed, the feeding tube, the feeding bag, the ambu-bag, the Q4 toothette things... and then there's the memories... there's me doing his oral care... wiping his face... stroking his forehead... talking into his ear... trying to find some open skin on his face so he could possibly feel the kisses I would give him. It brings me back there. A part of me doesn't mind remembering... a part of me is comforted by it... but another part of me is sad that he is now but a memory... one that is quickly distancing itself from my consciousness.

I found this picture while I was looking for other pictures... happy pictures... to put on a photo keychain for my mother-in-law. This particular picture was mixed in with a lot of other really happy pictures that we took while we were in Houston. The juxtaposition of them... really kind of broke my heart... and made me think. There I go again... thinking...

I think... I miss him. I think I will always miss him. He was my best best friend in the whole wide world. He was my soul mate. My lover. He was me and I was him... we were one. And now, it's just me.

I had a really good conversation with my mom yesterday or two days ago. It started out with tears, like it always does with my mom, but it ended with a lot of peace in my heart... and joy. I really feel like every single desire of my heart... God has provided. This past Sunday, I told God that I wanted to have a better relationship with my parents. And this week, God blessed me with a good conversation with my mom. It's a start. The conversation actually was a quick summary of what God had been teaching me lately and also what God had been revealing to me about the events of my entire life. Heavy. Kinda.

My mom found it hard to start a conversation with me. It was a little bit of a wake-up call for me. I, for one, feel very few barriers to talking to my mom... the major one seems to be time... for me at the moment anyway. I've been out of the house so much lately that when I'm home, I really need to do homework or get some sleep. I've been so intentional to spend time with my friends that I hadn't made the time to intentionally spend time with my parents. Also lately... I'd been kind of sick... physically... which meant more time sleeping... anyway... getting back to the conversation...

I thought that talking about what we'd learned at BSF would be a good start if she was having a hard time finding things to talk about with me. So I shared about what God was teaching me this week. There were 2 lessons that I learned from reading about the Samaritan woman at the well. (1) that when confronted with her sin, she made no excuses. She asked and God answered her... and (2) to trust God with everything and have faith in His sovereignty. The application question asked how I'd put those two lessons into action this week. For (1)... I had decided that I should not make any excuses, especially when God prompts me to share Him with my friends... or even people who aren't my friends. (2) I prayed for a husband.

I shall elaborate on point number 2. I'm not saying I'm ready yet. It is just something that I decided that I needed to submit to God, trust in Him and live as though He's already taken care of me. I think, in the depths of my heart, I still desire to have someone to love on this earth, someone to take care of me... I'd been struggling with that desire. I hadn't identified it until very recently. I desire it. But not more than I desire God. Even still, the desire is there and God... even though He knows all... He still wants us to ask. And in our asking... to lay it at His feet and trust that He has already taken care of it. I just need to wait for His plan to unfold.

My mom shared with me a few things. Hope she doesn't mind that it's being emailed out to like 200+ ppl and posted on facebook. Eh. I don't know how many of you read these posts anymore anyway. She shared with me that she has gone through times of being angry at God. That her faith in prayer and healing has been shaken. She said she used to pray for healing... and now she just prays for quick deliverance. It was sad for me to hear. It was a sad realization that I'd been so wrapped up in my own healing, my own joy, my own transformation that I didn't bother to ask the others around me how/if they were/are still struggling with Anderson's death. If anything, I thought that I would have had the biggest struggle... but now I see it's not always the case.

So I explained to her what I felt about suffering... about Anderson's death. God did not heal Anderson of his physical ailments on earth. But God healed him spiritually and healed me as well. I can only speak for myself, but the intimacy I experience with God right now... the lavish love that I took so many words to write about in the past two posts and still have much more to say...the abundant life... the JOY in Christ that I had never EVER before experienced in my 20+ years as a Christian... the healing that occurred not only in my heart, but in my spirit... THAT is more important than healing the body. The body will pass... eventually... sooner or later, it will. But the spirit is eternal. To quote Jim Eliot again... he is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose. That was from memory. Hope I remembered it right. The spiritual healing is more important and more valuable than physical healing. We should all be praying for everyone's spiritual healing... as well as their physical healing.

Now... on the topic of suffering... I explained that as I was asking God for a husband... He revealed to me that HE was my husband... He is the bridegroom and I am His bride... (reference Lavish Love, part I). When I submitted my longing for earthly love at His feet... God opened my eyes... awakened me, if you will... with the realization of HIS love for me and how much more powerful, more abundant, and even MORE wonderful than any love I could have imagined for myself. He loved me so much He masterfully orchestrated every single detail of my life to prepare me to receive His love. I was awestruck. Speechless. I was knocked off my feet. It was breathtaking how much He loves me... how He knows every intimate detail about me and about my heart and how every single crisis, every blessing, every turn, every stumbling block, every course correction... was all leading me right here... right into the arms of my loving God. He's been waiting for me to come to Him... He's been waiting my whole life. Just for me. I asked for earthly love and He opened my eyes to His great love for me. Amazing.

Some notable and relevant quotes from Streams in the Desert:

Revelation 3:19. Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline.
God selects the best and most notable of His servants for the best and most notable afflictions, for those who have received the most grace from Him are able to endure the most afflictions. In fact, an affliction hits a believer never by chance but by God's divine direction. He does not haphazardly aim His arrows, for each one is on a special mission and touches only the heart for whom it is intended. It is not only the grace of God but also His glory that is revealed when a believer can stand and quietly endure an affliction. -Joseph Caryl

And also from a few days back...

Malachi 3:3. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver.
Our Father, who seeks to perfect His saints in holiness, knows the value of the refiner's fire. It is with the most precious metals that a metallurgist will take the greatest care. He subjects the metal to a hot fire, for only the refiner's fire will melt the metal, release the dross, and allow the remaining, pure metal to take a new and perfect shape in the mold. A good refiner never leaves the crucible but, as the above verse indicates, "will sit" down by it so the fire will not become even one degree too hot and possibly harm the metal. And as soon as he skims the last bit of dross from the surface and sees his face reflected in the pure metal, he extinguishes the fire-Arthur Tappan Pierson.

Any and all afflictions have a purpose. A specific, intended purpose. The arrow is not haphazardly shot... it is aimed. At me. At you. I'm not quite sure how you feel about Anderson's death, but I definitely got a bit fat arrow aimed at me. Ouchie. So why did my refiner's fire have to burn Anderson away? Anderson embodied my biggest idol. In Anderson, I laid my security, my heart, my everything. My husband, my future, my life. Until I was willing to submit and let go of my husband, my future, my life... I was unable to fully receive God's love for me in all its fullness and glory. Not even saying that my love for God is perfect, but it is so so SO much more than before... so much more than even 6 months ago... 3 months ago. So much more than all the love I'd ever experienced in my life combined.

So... I'm not angry. I'm not upset at God. God took my husband out of my arms, but gave me room to hold on to Someone greater and better... God Himself. When my "dross" was released, I was able to take a new and shiny shape. And right at the perfect moment... not too short, not too long... the PERFECT moment for me... God extinguished the fire.

He's already taken care of me. And yet He still wants us to ask. So I ask. Every little whim, every thought, every desire...I ask. Why not?

Day 103 - a penny for...

your thoughts? your feelings?

Day 102 - Lavish Love Part Deux

There was so much more I wanted to write in the last post, but I didn't get a chance to. Now seems as good a time as any to continue my thoughts... except that I have a lot of homework to do... but who can do homework when my brain is filled with thoughts on lavish love? :P I will unload the lavish love and maybe my brain will be able to handle my papers and presentations.

During the same small group time when we were discussing Ephesians 5 and about husbands and wives (mentioned in my previous post), I distinctly remember someone asking, "what does it feel like to be loved the way Christ loves the church? A love that purifies you?" Christ loved us (the church) so lavishly that He died for us. He died so that we could be together.

I was discussing with another friend at another time... and we were talking about what it feels like to love with passionate love... to love someone with passion... to love God with passion? I've loved Anderson with a passion... and it has helped me learn how to love God with a passion... but I really think that someone who has never loved a human being with passion can know what it feels like to love and be loved. The apostle Paul never got married. Maybe I just needed a little help along the way so God gave me Anderson to teach me how to love. I dunno.

What does it feel like to be loved? I watched our wedding video again just now. What did it feel like to be loved by Anderson? Honestly... I almost feel like I'm forgetting what it feels like to have a husband, to be loved by a husband... to love a husband. It makes me sad, in a way, that a certain part of me is being left behind...but I don't feel a lack of love... I don't feel unloved or that I have no one or nothing to love. I hope you never get tired of hearing me say that my heart belongs to God and that it's a wonderful and beautiful thing to be in love with Him.

One of my favorite songs right now is Be Thou My Vision:

Thou and Thou only, first in my heart,
High King of Heaven, my Treasure Thou art.

There's so much to say about love... I'll try writing about what it feels like to be the recipient of lavish love first.

Actually, when I first started writing day 98's post about Lavish Love, I had God in mind. Anderson's note made me think of the term, lavish love, but it was God who awed me by all He's done for me and it was the realization of God's love that pushed me to write about it. It was in the realization that everything in my life... every single circumstance, every turn, every situation... all was orchestrated masterfully out of love for me. Even bringing Anderson into my life, the good stuff, the bad stuff, the struggles, the suffering... was allowed out of love for me. I had 6 months of a wonderful marriage... to show me with high intensity the beauty of earthly love and whet my appetite for God's unfathomable love for me. It was like a bread crumb trail that I was intently following and I suddenly looked up and saw the feast from which the bread crumbs were falling from. It was breathtaking. I still can't fully put it into words.

Two things that I experience out of being the recipient of lavish love is... freedom and peace. I am confident in His love for me. I never have to look anywhere else... He is IT. He's the ONE. I have security in knowing that this love will never falter, this love will never fail, this love will never abandon me. Even in our wedding vows... it was for better or worse, in sickness in health... until death do us part. Death has parted me and Anderson for a while, but God's love for him and God's love for me enables us to see each other again in heaven one day. It is such a gift and blessing to know that God loves me and would even take care of my earthly love, Anderson, and me. All is taken care of. I have freedom and peace in that and I can go on living my life with full confidence that everything's taken care of.

Another thing is that God is all-powerful and all-knowing... and He loves me and wants the best for me. And the best for me is to be with Him and to do what He says. An earthly example... I'm not very aware of my surroundings. When Anderson and I were in Rio, he'd tell me to stay close to him and do what he said and don't ask questions. It was for my own safety because he noticed and he could see what was going on with the people around us, the little kids who look to pick pocket... the dangers on the street. He saw them and I didn't. He had my best interests in mind by telling me to listen to him and if he told me to do something to just do it and don't ask questions. I'd be stupid to think that I knew more than him and to question him. He was protecting me. It's kinda like that, except God sees and knows all across time and space. How can we question what we don't know or understand? He asks us to obey. OK. I trust Him.

It's not always easy though. I remember telling that friend who asked what it felt like to be loved with a love that purifies... that in order to be presented in white, without wrinkle, spot, or blemish... that you have to be cleaned and pressed. Cleaning and pressing is not a passive process...for the one who's cleaning. It takes water and soap, friction... and to be pressed... it takes intense heat and pressure. Might be stretching that image a bit, but that's kinda what it meant to me when I read it. You know what's funny about cleaning... you do it best when the object you're cleaning is passive and ready to receive it. Ever tried to change a diaper and wipe off gooey poo when the little guy is squirming around and wants to turn over and crawl away every 2 seconds? Ever tried to wash a dog that didn't want to be washed? The more you fight it, the longer the cleaning takes, the messier it is, the less efficient it is. Don't fight it. Receive it. Embrace it. It's kinda painful for a while, but the end result is very much worth the scrubbing.

OK, I'm so distracted I can't even finish this post right now. Might need a Part Trois (3) next time.