Tag Archives: True Life

Today Is About Trust

28 Monday May 2012

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But even if he is absolutely fully to blame we still have to forgive him; and even if ninety-nine percent of his apparent guilt can be explained away by really good excuses, the problem of forgiveness begins with the one percent guilt which is left over. To excuse what can really produce good excuses is not Christian character; it is only fairness. To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable, because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you.

This is hard. It is perhaps not so hard to forgive a single great injury. But to forgive the incessant provocations of daily life—to keep on forgiving the bossy mother-in-law, the bullying husband, the nagging wife, the selfish daughter, the deceitful son—how can we do it? Only, I think, by remembering where we stand, by meaning our words when we say in our prayers each night ‘forgive our trespasses as we forgive those that trespass against us.’ We are offered forgiveness on no other terms. To refuse it is to refuse God’s mercy for ourselves. There is no hint of exceptions and God means what He says. – C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

I’ve been thinking about how things happen in life that we can’t figure out, about how people hurt us and we can’t understand why, and about how we are supposed to respond to this. I may have mentioned multiple times that I’m a fan of looking at things from the devil’s perspective so I can figure out why bad things are happening and our correct way to handle them from the side of a believer, and I’ve been doing it recently regarding a situation that I believe is designed to plant disbelief in the hearts of those involved.

It’s easy to let disbelief in when someone has hurt you, because it comes not necessarily in the form of not forgiving them but in the form of walls. Our tendency to build walls up around our hearts in order to protect ourselves is a way of telling God we don’t believe he will be able to protect us as well as we can. It’s a way of telling him that he can’t heal whatever hurts, or fix whatever breaks. And that can lead to a growth of unbelief that we don’t even realize we’re cultivating.

I’ve done it. I still do it. But I’m struggling against it because I know that Christ, when he was walking this earth, didn’t bother to put up walls. He was so vulnerable that his best friends abandoned him and his enemies led him to the slaughter, and he still chose to love and save them, us. Every painful thing in life is designed by the devil to pull us away from God, and every plan the devil has made for evil the Lord has already established to bring about good, and to give him glory.

“Christian worship is the response of God’s redeemed people to his self-revelation that exalts God’s glory in Christ in our minds, affections, and wills, in the power of the Holy Spirit.” – D.A. Carson

Ps I got the wonderful quotes from a few entries at Thoughts from Fabs, which I adore and recommend.

What I’ve Learned About Life From School Thus Far.

25 Wednesday Apr 2012

Posted by in Human Interest

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  1. I’ve developed this technique that I use whenever I want someone to continue doing something, it is being super positive about whatever it is that I want him or her to do continually.  The only problem is that when it comes to doing this to guys it involves complimenting them in a way that makes me sound like a horny grandmother. A kid at school gets his awful perm cut off and my response is “You look so handsome!  I didn’t know you were so handsome before!” and “Look, he’s got a good smile!  I couldn’t see it past that awful jerry curl.”  I know that those aren’t the best examples, but considering the fact that I mean these compliments in platonic ways and they can be taken in any way, shape or form… Yeah.  I’m not going to stop doing it anytime soon.  Too much fun.
  2. Each and every Gran in existence has the right idea about things.  Why not get your hair set once or twice a week?  All that gel adds volume, and you get to have a great Do for days.  That and layering on the lipstick, which should smell just like lipstick, and you have instant class.
  3. I need breakfast and coffee every morning before school or else I could become demon possessed.  I went crazy on Monday, quite a sight from what I understand, because of a lack of breakfast sandwich and iced coffee with caramel and cream.  Funny, my ex’s dad thought that Harry Potter would be the way I would get myself a demon, but it turns out it’s caffine deprivation.
  4. Everyone is insecure in some way.  That manifests in different forms: fear of everything, a need to be better than, a need to be desirable to the opposite gender, questioning one’s own abilities or even the simple waffling of the mind.  It’s something that backs so many actions that I can’t get mad at people when I look at their real incentives.
  5. Loyalty is hard to come by.  This isn’t entirely new to me, as I learned what loyalty is by being the opposite of the definition.  My best friend in the entire world taught me where the lines were because I kept on crossing them.  At this point I’m still learning continually how to be as loyal as she is, but I can see clearly how it isn’t played out with everyone and how it affects the trust that you thought was built in a friendship.
  6. Everyone has an agenda, and if you’re not a part of it you’re in the way.
  7. Ecclesiastes 3:15 – “That which is now already has been, and that which is to be already has been; and God seeks that which has passed by [so that history repeats itself].”  Everything that is in the world of fashion, the world of beauty, is an altered image of something we have already seen.  That’s the way it goes.  What is new is just something that is old filtered through a new lens.  An understanding of this is what helps enable you to create new things.

Happy Easter.

07 Saturday Apr 2012

Posted by in Holidays, Human Interest

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Last year the message of Easter for me was to let go.

Last year I heard clearly that I needed to release the un-forgiveness I’d been harboring, and to set myself free from it’s chains.

Last year what I did was let myself become open to the opportunities before me.

Last year I was ready to fall in love.

Last year I was sure that there would be good things to come of my decisions.

This year I’m alone.  I’m not allowing myself the terror of considering romance again; it’s disappointing.  And I’m figuring out how God used the past year to draw me closer to Him.  He did, that is for sure.  He used my joy and my pain, and I know that without placing myself in His hands before everything else I would be devastated.

There is still hope.  God can use what turned out to be a variety pack of emotions and grab-bag of mistakes and sin for His good.  And Christ doesn’t have to die again to save me, he’s covered me completely for the rest of eternity.  He loves the mess he has saved.

My Do Nothing to Do Anything Productive Ratio is Sad.

02 Friday Mar 2012

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I’ve been putting off posting since Monday because dearest Tink got engaged but made those who knew promise not to tell until she announced it officially (via Facebook, of course).  I’m so happy for her, and not surprised, and really glad to be a part of all the joy.

Another reason I couldn’t write or post this week is because I let myself be absolutely miserable the entire day on Tuesday and it took a few days to kick back into gear.  I just mourned the parts of my life that are going away, and the absences they accentuate.  Not only is one of my dearest friends getting married but I won’t be able to spend as much time with her to help plan, and I just moved and I had a great weekend with my BFF and now we’re separated again and school is starting on Monday and I’ll have to wake up soooooooo early and I’m single.  I was so pathetic.  I didn’t think of killing myself, but I did consider my funeral and what it’d be like if I died soon.  Dramatic, I know.  It’s really difficult to think clearly when in a haze of strong and deadly emotions.  Being lonely is the worst!

I realized that I’ve reached a new low.  It’s not just because I walked around boston in the cold rain so much that I may have pulled my hip muscle, and it’s not because I have been comparing and relating my life to the lives of lead characters from romantic comedies.  It’s not even the fact that I was deciding if my life was 27 Dresses or The Wedding Planner… It’s that The Wedding Planner won.

Both movies are soft core porn for women’s hearts, with similar stories and outcomes.  But the little things, the details of the women’s lives… that’s where I would say I’m more JLO than Heigl.  For instance, Heigl has a snarky BFF she works with who is always a little hung over and going for every guy in the room.  JLO has her dad’s friends that she grew up playing scrabble with who are all over the age of 60 and a work friend that she only sees at work (played, incidentally, by the same girl who is Heigl’s snarky BFF).

I firmly believe, were I in her position, I would be the 30-something who goes home to an empty house to watch Antiques Road Show, especially if my ex-fiancé had left me for his high school girlfriend who had thrown me a bridal shower.  That is way too much of a betrayal to trust other women over.

JLO says in The Wedding Planner “You know those who can’t do, teach?  Those who can’t wed…plan.”  I like that this is self-depreciating yet still says that she knows her shit, and well enough to make a good living from it.  Heigl?  She just loves weddings.  She wants to be a part of all the moments, and I think it’s selfish of her to do that, especially since she doesn’t seem to have friendships with women outside of the period of time in which they are engaged.  At least JLO is smart enough to let the people who have real relationships get their moments without her butting in with her epic curves.  She just creates the prettiness and takes home a paycheck, knowing she helped their day be unforgettable in the best way.  I consider myself a little more like a behind-the-scenes helper as well, not a bridesmaid who hogs the spotlight by always helping.

Another thing I like about JLO’s character is that she is willing to do the right thing even when it’s obviously the wrong thing for her.  She was willing to marry the guy her dad tried to set her up with because she was unwilling to be a home wrecker, no matter what could have happened without his girlfriend knowing.  She doesn’t get the guy in trouble, because she knows that he’s right when he calls her out on being bitter.  Heigl refuses to listen to everyone who calls her wedding obsession a little bonkers, and consequently puts herself into stressful situations where she ends up doing the wrong thing at the wrong time, like busting up her little sister’s engagement because she has feelings for the guy.  Some would call these character flaws relatable, but I call them an excuse for women to try doing mean and catty things while still ending up with a fairy tale ending.

But one of the biggest issues I have with myself getting so carried away into this comparison, not that it stopped me from writing it up, is that I’m not ever going to be these women.  And that’s because I have God.  I don’t need to idolize a moment of happiness, turn it into a career.  I can be free to live in the moments of joy through the closeness and love I have with Christ.

I continually go back to Psalm 131 these days to remind myself that I don’t want to think about things too big for me, like who I’ll spend the rest of my life with.  I can quiet my soul and dwell on the hope I have in the Lord.  I like how the amplified text says “Surely I have calmed and quieted my soul; like a weaned child with his mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me [ceased from fretting].” I think that my tendencies to worry about these things are absolutely a sign of immaturity, and my clinging to romantic stories is like a child clinging to its mother.

I’d like to see the Christian romantic comedy, where’s THAT one?  You know, the one where the guy is the girl’s friend’s ex-boyfriend so she won’t give him a chance.  The one where being in a physical relationship can be understood as playing with fire, but told in a relatable and funny way, because it is funny sometimes!  The story where the boy meets the girl at a mission’s retreat and instead of asking her out they fast and pray together to seek God’s will for their relationship.  Or I’d love to see the story that shows how a promising relationship doesn’t work out, but the girl has a knight in shining armor protecting her heart the entire time because she trusts that Christ has a good plan for her.  One where the Bible is presented as the ultimate romance novel, and the girl sees from a perspective that saves her from wallowing in self pity (most of the time) because she honestly loves God more than her own idea of a husband.

I think Focus Features will call me about this one.  They did the new Pride and Prejudice.  Or Summit Entertainment.  They did Twilight, I know they love this kind of thing.

Why I Like Travelling, or How To Make A Positive Out Of A Stressful Situation

24 Friday Feb 2012

Posted by in Dirty's Reports

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I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned this before in multiple places on my blog (that no one reads or else they’d all comment, obviously), but I love travelling and I love travelling alone.  I find few others who enjoy it the same way that I do, most people enjoy travelling with others and a some enjoy travelling alone but I can never figure out why they do because it’s usually a convoluted, modern, flakey-gypsy girl reason.  “I enjoy getting to visit places I’ve never been to and see what the earth is made of in a new perspective” or “I get to watch people and pretend that I’m someone else, it feels so glamorous” usually end up in the explanations as to why travelling alone is so much fun.  I, on the other hand, have entirely different reasons that seem to be particularly true only to me.

  1. I take public transportation a lot, and in order to do so successfully I must be at certain places on time in order to get on certain things, like the bus or the train.  And that journey in and of itself is an adventure!  No matter how early I am to get on the vehicle I am always convinced that I am late, therefore adding a strong dose of anxiety to my stride and a strange reaction to anything and everyone I cross paths with.  Strangers must think I’m crazy because my reactions to anyone within 3 feet of me is a strange surprise and twitch.  Inevitably I am on time, although the times I’ve been late have usually been the days that I feel overly confident that I will be on time and have to run to the station, thereby reinstating the fact that I’m out of shape.  Every time I curse myself for not always having a liter of water on hand.
  2. I like trains and airplanes for two reasons: I can’t react strongly to the traffic around me like in a car while freaking out about how fast we’re going or if we’re  going to be late.  Also, I am able to read.  I get carsick reading in the car or on the bus, but on the train or the plane I finish entire book series!  It’s excellent.
  3.  The reason I’m able to read, aside from not dealing with nausea, is because for some reason trains and planes put me into a super subdued version of stress.  For some reason it’s incredibly relaxing to me.  I pick a seat or get a seat assigned, I sit in it, and that is where I will stay for the rest of my life.  I will crumble into a corpse in this spot and so I will make the best of the spot that it is.  I will curl up or stretch out, I will kink my neck inevitably from reading hunched over, I will designate spots for my drinks and keep my phone on vibrate under one thigh.  And I will never, ever nap.  Because I can’t nap.  But that’s another story.
  4. I talk to strangers like it’s my job EXCEPT when I’m travelling.  And I like it like that.  I might have a 20 minute conversation with one person while travelling all day.  This is Me Time, honestly.  It’s when I get to read because I finally have no excuse not to.  It’s when I get to think about what I want to write, people in my life, God, things that are sad, things that are happy, things that I will experience and things I have experienced, prices of things in different states, and the like.  I also get to pray, and sometimes write, and of course I usually write poetry when travelling because anything else would be pretentious.
  5. I like to wear and pack my favorite clothes for trips.  I will choose the style I want to be perceived as having, make sure all those clothes are clean days in advance, and then become that person for however long the trip is.  I don’t expect people to think I’m cooler, for people to look at me and think “What a cool little bohemian-gypsy-girl with hips that won’t quit!”  I literally only do it for me, because when I feel like I’m a cool little bohemian-gypsy- girl with hips that won’t quit I feel confident and secure.  Even if I look like a lunatic with my henley-layered, sweater-topped, dirty hair and smokey-eyed ensemble at 9:30 am I still FEEL like a weathered, jaded traveler who is so used to this that she just wants to enjoy a novel during the ride.
  6. I also like the food situations that I find myself in.  When I’m able to prepare a snack or lunch before hand, I find that it’s a great way to save money and be bored to death while looking like a genius for not paying $7 for a fast food sandwich.  But usually I end up forgetting and getting really thirsty and a little hungry, so I stop and get a snack.  This usually makes me feel like a 5-year-old because I want things I like, and also like an adult because I make myself get something healthy and pay for it myself.  For instance, I will make sure I get a protein bar because it’s “good for me” and a bottle of water, but I will make sure to grab junior mints or m&m’s too because I want to snack on something while I read.  I even go through the emotions of both ages, simultaneously wanting a treat so bad but not being able to decide which one and forcing myself to grab something with sustenance while being disgusted at the pricing of everything I just purchased.
  7. I think the only unfortunate part is that I do end up feeling exhausted by the time I get to the place I’m going, but I’m consistently amazed at finding out how long a day can go when I spend “sooooo much time” getting from point A to point B and still having the entire rest of the afternoon/evening to do things like fight with my parents, call the doctor, and make dinner.  And don’t get me started on going into different time zones, which I like to refer to as Travelling Through Time.  Not time travelling, that’s just a science fiction concept.  I’m definitely the asshole who tries to call other people when I’m two hours ahead of them and tell them the future.  Because in the future, I’m having dinner in a few hours but you’re going to have to wait like all day.