The List

Donald Miller posted a blog about a week ago in which he shares a list his fiance (sad day for me) told him a list of things that she had always wanted in a husband, and he both fits this list and is in the process of becoming the list.  So I'm curious, if your married, did you have a list and did your spouse meet the qualifications of that list?  If your single, do you have a list?

There were many comments on Miller's blog about the variations of the types of lists that people make from shallow to ultra-specific to needy to unreachable.  Again I question how does a broken person (as we are all broken people striving to be made holy) create a list that isn't flawed in some form or fashion?

I long to be loved.  More so now than ever before.  I am in a dark season.  My body does not like me, my brain chemicals and hormones do not want to play fair, and I am depressed like never before.  Should I go to the hospital and check myself into the rubber room-depressed.  I have loved people deeply and selfishly and sinfully.  Scripture says "love your neighbor as you love yourself,"  that's hard to do when most days are filled with self loathing instead of self loving (the holy kind, not the kinky kind).  And frankly I feel like most days I kinda hate people too.  There is a great book called "The Mystery of Marriage" by Mike Mason.  There is a paragraph that rocked my world and exposed my heart like I have never seen before.  In this paragraph he talks about how other people are basically like a litmus test that reveals the amount of love or hate that we have in our heart, and most days we realize that we just resent other people being alive.  It's true.  It's poorly paraphrased, but true in my heart.  It's a paradox for me.  I would jump in front of a bus for complete strangers and friends alike, but just as quickly I will resent you for taking up oxygen and my personal space.  Lord help me, but I've become a hermit.  Mike Mason also wrote a book called "Practicing the Presence of People: How to Learn to Love."  I bought it and quickly hid it in a dark pile so I wouldn't have to read it.  It makes me growl just thinking about it.  So it's no surprise that I am not married.  I can just see the exchange of vows.  He says, "I promise to love you and cherish you and stick with you through sickness and health till death do us part."  I growl, kiss him, and go have sex.  The foundation of a beautiful marriage.  Till death do us part might only be 3 months.

Back to the idea of lists.  I had one a long time ago, made when I was 17, naive, pre-cancer, pre-hysterectomy, pre-heartache.  I have no idea what my list would be now.  I know a few things:  an extravagant worshipper of God, a person who loves cultures, and that's about all I can say for now.  So join with me in praying for someone who fits those two items to come into my life, and for me to lose my growl.  They are equally miraculous feats.

30 Day Song Challenge: Day One

I haven't been blogging despite my many friends complaining.  I feel like words are absent from me.  So in lieu of that, I am going to do the 30 day song challenge and see if that sparks some words.

Day One:  Your favorite Song

I feel like this one is easy.  It's a song that I have listened to for years, sometimes nightly, sometimes hourly so that I can know the truth in my heart that He is taking care of me.  This song, was most brilliantly performed in the movie Sister Act 2.  I have gone through season of such darkness that it seems the words to this song are the only thing that reminds me of his nearness.  It's much more than the words to the song, but also the deeply soulful way in which these ladies sing it.  It's like they know the pain and despair I am feeling, and really believe the words that they sing.

My favorite song is "His Eye is on the Sparrow" performed by Lauryn Hill & Tanya Blount.

So with this song, I wish each of you a deeper knowing of the nearness of God throughout the trials and tribulations that you will face in your life.

Hosea

Do you think God calls people to be modern day prophets like Hosea?

For some reason this one in particular seems to be a struggle for me.  The other day I was doing one of my favorite things:  personality profiles and came up with this as a description for who I am.  I feel like it's pretty accurate.  The problem with being "empathetic, sincere, and warm-hearted. They are friendly, generous, and self-sacrificing, but can also be sentimental, flattering, and people-pleasing. They are well-meaning and driven to be close to others, but can slip into doing things for others in order to be needed." is that when it comes to co-ed relationships my need to be self-sacrificing for others can get me into a whole heaping mess.  I see the potential in other people.  The profile goes on to say that, "Healthy Twos warm others in the glow of their hearts. They enliven others with their appreciation and attention, helping people to see positive qualities in themselves that they had not previously recognized.".  So I see someone who is on their journey towards maturity and wholeness just like the rest of the population, someone who has broken places in their heart and I see the beauty of God within them and want to cheer them onto to wholeness, thereby fully agreeing with God's love for them....I fall in love too.  Which is great, until they don't love you back.  The downside of my personality profile is that, "their inner work is having to face their underlying Center fear of worthlessness. Beneath the surface, all three types fear that they are without value in themselves, and so they must be or do something extraordinary in order to win love and acceptance from others."  So I'm already in love, and feel like I'll never be loved back unless I do some heroic act which I'm not really built to do, and then rejection is compounded. 

All this is not theory.  It's a day in and day out reality for me.  Just yesterday I again confessed my undying love for a guy, told him 15 things that I love about him, and how much I long to be his partner in life.  What did I get in return.  Bumpkus. 

Literally his response was, "I value my friendship with you so much that I'm not willing to risk it by getting involved in a romance."   (The underlying reality though was that he is willing to give up my friendship by not getting involved in a romance because I just can't be around him without being in love with him.)  He also stated that he feared that he would fear rejection from me if we were in a romantic relationship, while he doesn't fear rejection from me now.  Lord help me....help him!

So today I sit, heartbroken for me and for him.  And I wonder if I should love him like Hosea loved the prostitute.  When do you choose to love yourself first and others second?  When is God ok with that?  Doesn't he call us all to love self sacrificially?

That being said, I don't regret what happened yesterday.  I don't regret telling him I love him.  I don't regret saying that we can't be friends anymore if he can't be something more.  I am in a season of learning to choose myself over others.  Learning to take care of myself.

I have started a raw food diet, because I want to be healthy.  I am cutting off relationships that are not life giving, or are draining for a variety of reasons.  I started planting a garden today to grow my own vegetables to eat.  I am working with a lady to clean up my credit.  It's small things but it's a bunch of "baby steps" that have me headed in a healthier direction for me.

If God showed up and told me to love this boy like Hosea loved the prostitute I would.  I'm not sure that it would change the heart of a nation though.  But you never know what God can do.   

Words

I've been asked to put words to the webpage, words I'm not sure I have.  So this may be a hodge podge sort of blog, but here goes:

1.  Things I'm grateful for:

1. lower gas prices
2. good conversations about prayer
3. dreams of God being shared with me
4. my comprehension that it's primarily His work and my partnership instead of vice versa
5. friends who stick by me
6. the healing of my life that cancer brought
7. time with a precious newborn named Autumn, that is much easier than i anticipated
8. grace to choose a raw foods diet for almost a week
9. my brother passing all his tests to become a fireman
10. tentatively more hours that I'll be scheduled to work=more $

Post Cancer Update:  I should be going to the dr sometime soon to for my first 3 month check up.  I don't want to go.  I dread it.  i don't know why.  I don't know if it's cuz I'm afraid that it'll be bad news or just the normal dread a woman has about "girlie exams".  I am taking a hormone patch and a pill.  It's a lot of estrogen, and I would like for my body to not need so much.  We've found out that my thyroid was running extremely low, so I've started taking a new thyroid med as well.  This has changed things quite dramatically.  For those that have known me for a long time, I used to get so cold that I would have to take a bath to warm up.  Now I'm sweating like a hooker in Sunday school.  These pills along with my new diet will hopefully begin to help slough off the extra weight I'm carrying and help me feel better.  I quit my surgeon after several frustrating events and will be working with the Southwest Cancer Center again.  Hopefully they will be nice to me. I still struggle emotionally and probably need to talk to a counselor.  I find that I'm in a season of self pruning.  It's time to cut off a lot of dead weight, or cut out the cancers of my life.  God's promises at the beginning have remained true in my life:  He is jealous for me and Health is on the other side of this mountain. How very little I know about both of those issues.  I've been thinking a lot about the work/worship connection in the Hebrew language.  It's more than a connection, there the same thing.  I find that in my need for more hours both because of the finances it provides but also for the sanity it provides, I understand a side of worship that I never saw before.  Worship brings sanity.  It brings things into a right perspective.  Worship brings order, therefore work brings order in our lives too. 

Things I'm praying for:

1. My credit score to improve and the finances to provide for me to buy my own house so that I might become a foster/adoptive/host parent in this next year.
2. A permanent location for 24-7 prayer amongst university students in Lubbock that is not attached to a denomination in anyway. 
3. God's continued guidance and connections for 247 in Lubbock. 
4. Healing Grace for my body and mind.  I've spent many years exercising my spirit, now it's time to exercise my body & soul so that I can be a unified healthy piece of the body.
5. Jobs for my brothers that they both enjoy and in which they are well paid.  

Things I've learned about prayer recently:

1. It really has less to do with my wish list or agenda, and much more to do with what is God's heart and will for my life, the unification of prayer amongst university students and his will for my brothers.  Lord, not my will but your will be done.

Unafraid of Shadows

So I decided to have a blog just for my cancer journey.  This one is called "Journey through the Shadow".  You can find it here:  http://unafraidofshadows.blogspot.com/.  For me the idea comes from a song by Misty Edwards called "It's only a shadow".  The concept is that we may journey through the valley of the shadow of death, but it's not death.  It's just a shadow.  So I'm journeying through a shadow, but even if physical death comes, a spiritual death is not possible.  And my attitude is set on being "Unafraid of the shadow".  So, if you want to follow the journey there, then you are welcome to, but I want to try to keep it separate from normal life issues. 

italy pt 2

		What a day!  It started with several hours of blah-blah-blah corporate encouraging blah.  It was somewhat decent, in that it talked about having an emotional IQ and how to deal with people.  Hmph.  Whatever.  The fun part came around 2 pm when me and Forrest and his wife Jennifer went on an adventure into the city.  Walking, walking, walking.  Still amazed by the textures and layers of this city.  Ancient, graffiti, modern, all in the same place.  Imagine if you will, one of the homes from the Ranching Heritage Center (you know a "real old one" from 1780) and put it in Texas Tech, then put the bus station with all it's graffiti and low income peoples surrounding it in the mix.  But then you also have to have the ultra modern, so you throw in a McDonalds and the Louise Hopkins Underwood Center for Arts and Design.  (These images will only be relevant to you if you live in Lubbock, obviously.) Ok, so.......then we walked.  And we saw the Trevi Fountain, and we saw the Pantheon and we saw Dianna's Temple, and a war memorial and a ton of stuff.  And I walked for 5 hours.  And I'm tired. All I can say is this is incredible.  Ginormous buildings. I feel like I'm having an out of body experience.  Like I'm dreaming.  So incredibly surreal. When I went to Mount Rushmore years ago I felt like my education had been worthwhile.  That's not how I feel now.  It's more like my education has failed me to a certain extent.  When was the Pantheon built?  I don't know.  What's it's exact purpose?  Hmmm...to worship many gods? At the same time though, it is not lackluster.  It's tremendous.  I've never seen things this big and this ornate.  It's kind of the antithesis of Time Square.  While TS is big it's modern and it overwhelms your senses.  This is just dumbfounding and awe inspiring.  And.....and....and....idk. Tomorrow, the Vatican Museum, St. Peter's basilica and the Coliseum.

My Italian Love Affair pt. 1

I arrived in Rome at 7:15 am Wednesday morning, which is approximately 2 am in Texas, I think.

It was mostly a good flight with just a bit of turbulence from Dallas to Boston.  Boston to Rome was fairly uneventful.  Shortly after takeoff, we ate dinner and watched a movie.  I only had 6 hours after eating until we landed so I didn't take a full dramamine to help me sleep.  I just took half and it worked well.  I slept about four hours and then watched another movie and landed in Rome.

Upon arrival, I found my car service to take me to the hotel.  We had about an hour drive into downtown Rome.  The first thing I noticed was the layers of texture and architecture.  Driving into Rome, you see lush gardens that reminded me of Florida, old buildings with graffiti that reminded me of any inner city, huge churches, and very modern architecture.

Once we got into downtown, I was amazed at the quintessential non-American feel to the street vendors.  As we were winding through the roads, the driver was pointing out things and all of the sudden on my left was the Coliseum.  It felt kind of like going to the Alamo.  You expect something so historic to not be sitting in the middle of downtown.  But there it was.  Beautiful. 

When I got to the hotel my room was not ready, so I basically had to store my luggage and go explore.  Perfect.  I walked down the street and bought postcards, found a store to sell me a new battery for my camera (I left the other one in the charger at home), and bought stamps at the post office.  I'm not real sure how all that happened since I don't speak Italian and they barely spoke English.  So either God was on my side ....nope I'm sure that was what it was.

I think it's about noon here and 6 am there.  I am really tired.  My room won't be ready for another couple of hours probably.  I'm anxious for a shower and a nap.  Once those things are accomplished, then it will be time for our welcome meeting and dinner.  Tomorrow we have meetings from 9a-5p.  Friday we go to the Vatican Museum, Sistine Chapel and Coliseum. 

Sorry for rambling. I'm tired. It was much more eloquent in my head I'm sure.  :)