...

I think the new stage of grief I have reached is most akin to depression. Overwhelming, uncontrollable waves of sadness wash over me and I don't know who to talk to who would have the patience to walk through it with me and actually listen rather than just instruct. Last night I felt a friend gave me permission to not be ok after just 6 weeks, which was helpful after the "You're not over it yet?" Comment I was given last week. I wish this process was shorter but I trust that God has a purpose of refining me through it. Doesn't make it suck less, but it's a good perspective to cling to.

So tired of this ocean of chaotic emotion

I'm tired of this ocean of chaotic emotion raging behind my eyes.
I thought you'd be the one
We had a lot of fun
Until you packed up to run.
Part of me says I'm over you
It says I can't do this, we're through.
But my heart is having trouble catching up with my head.

My love/hate relationship with personality typing...

I have always thought I was an ISFJ. I think my parents typed me as that when I was younger and I pretty much always test that way, but some things don't add up for me. I am not tied to traditions the way ISFJs I have met are. I always thought having Si as my primary function made sense because I derive so much pleasure from my memories and enjoy reliving them in my mind. But I am more free flowing in how I process life than ISFJs I have met. I feel like if I'm an ISFJ, I'm a very a-typical one. The difficulty is that I can relate to the type descriptions for ISFJ, ISFP, INFJ and INFP and have tested as each at various times. I know I'm neither an ISFP nor an INFP. Most of my closest friends are intuitives. This seems odd for an ISFJ. One of my biggest issues in figuring out my true type is that I don't really understand intuition vs. sensing. I don't know if my level of intuition is intuitive enough to count. And yes, that probably seems silly. I just know that I feel a lot more like INFJs get me than ISFJs do.

Childhood Ramblings, Part 1

One of the most difficult things to figure out when writing a story is where to begin. Normally one would say the "beginning," which I suppose would be when I was born, but I will go a few years before that, based on what my parents have shared with me is their story of why I was born in the Philippines in the first place. It was the Summer of 1985 and Betty Beckwith and Allan Johnson were both enrolled in classes at the Summer Institute of Linguistics, that summer held in Seattle, Washington. Allan had gone to the Navy right out of high school and was in the Nuclear Reactor Program for six years. Following that, he enrolled at the University of Washington and studied electrical engineering. UW had a satellite program in his hometown of Richland, so he could live at home and work on his degree. The summer he went to SIL he was still finishing his engineering program but wanting to check out linguistics and Bible translation to see if that was a direction the Lord might be leading him to go. Betty, on the other hand, had been out of school for awhile. After high school she went straight to college, enrolling at Biola University in La Mirada, CA, where she got a degree in Music Education and a minor in Bible. Her first teaching job took her to a little town in the middle of nowhere in Oregon, because there were no music teaching jobs in California. After teaching there she was in time able to get a teaching job in Southern California and moved back home - she grew up in the city of Highland Park, CA, in Los Angeles. She felt that God was calling her to be a Bible translator, so she went to the SIL summer training school so she could follow that call. The first day, in the cafeteria, they met. Betty had already been through the line when she saw this young kid, Allan, come in, and showed him how the cafeteria system worked. They sat together and talked. Betty remembers thinking, "man, they're letting kids into this program younger and younger!" She said that she thought Allan looked about 18. (she was... a little bit older than that.) Just trying to be nice to this kid she had met, she recalls telling him, "Well, you never know, maybe you'll meet your wife here." When re-telling the story now, my dad sometimes adds with a twinkle in his eye, "yeah, you!" They became friends that summer and would get together to study for classes. Allan was really detail oriented and was really great with the linguistics stuff. He and Betty went to the park one day on their bikes and he brought his autoharp with him, which he played for her. He always enjoyed writing songs and accompanying them with his instrument.

At the end of the Summer as they were saying goodbye, Allan asked Betty if they could write letters to keep in touch. Betty said, "sure," thinking that long distance was a bad idea, but if Allan wrote letters she would certainly write back, and she did. In the course of a few months, they became really close through their lengthy letters. Betty received a telegram one day that said, "marry me?" and she replied by telegram "yes." Allan visited Betty and her family at Thanksgiving and gave her the ring by opening the prize package from a cracker jack box carefully and resealing it with the ring inside. Betty almost let the kids open the prize, but Allan insisted that she should be the one.

The following summer, 1986, both Allan and Betty returned to the Summer Institute of Linguistics, this time held in Oregon, this time engaged. They got married at the end of summer on August 30, 1986. Ten months later, my older sister Becky was born, at the beginning of a third SIL school. After that they went to field training in Mexico, then left for the Philippines on June 11, 1989. In December 1989 there was a coup attempt on Malacanang Palace and they could hear planes overhead dropping bombs. It wasn't safe for them to go outside, so our house helper, Ate Nini would go to the palengke for them and bring back food. A few months later, March 11, 1990, nine months after my family arrived in the Philippines, I was born breech. I have always said it was because I wanted to hit the ground running, but funny enough, I did not walk early.

Grief and New Beginnings

I have been learning a lot about grief in the last month and a half. I can't remember a time I was affected this deeply besides perhaps when my grandmother died in 2012. There are several stages of grief, but it's not linear, it's cyclical. I often think of it as the waves of the ocean coming in and retreating, and when they retreat extra far, the waves are extra strong.

According to grief.com (yes, there is in fact a website by that name) "The five stages, denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance are a part of the framework that makes up our learning to live with the one we lost. They are tools to help us frame and identify what we may be feeling. But they are not stops on some linear timeline in grief."

I can recognize in my own journey what I could classify as denial, anger, depression, and possibly a bit of acceptance. I don't know what it would mean to "bargain" with my situation, that doesn't make sense. For the first few weeks I came up with all the reasons I was glad that my relationship had ended. I told myself I was better off. In a sense I was in denial that it had been a good thing to begin with or denial that the process had hurt me at all. Then after about three weeks to a month came the anger, and it has come in waves as I process various parts of my relationship. I finally feel like I've given myself permission to be angry. I would say that whenever I am overcome with grief and tears flood my eyes and travel down my face and I am totally overcome I am dealing with some depression, however I work really hard to shift my focus and try not to let those periods of intense sadness last too long, because the truth is, life continues and there is hope. I have to trust that God is in control and has my best interests in mind. On my best days I believe that wholeheartedly. On my worst days I pray that God would give me that perspective again. There are days when I don't focus on this past hurt at all, and on those days I think there is some acceptance, but I know that the cycle is not over and I don't know how long it will last. It's been important for me to admit how deeply I was hurt, but admitting that even just to myself has been a process in itself. I hate admitting my weaknesses, especially anger and vulnerability. The truth is, I am a deeply emotional person who is easily hurt but doesn't always realize what's wrong, so constant self analysis is necessary.

Well, where are the promised new beginnings?

In the last month and a half I have also gone through change that I had a say in, which is empowering when the other change was not my decision. I moved out of my parent's house again into a small place with friends and that has been an absolute God thing. His timing for this was perfect. He has been so good at providing exactly what we have needed for this place when we have needed it. His fingerprints are all over this. I'm beginning to believe his fingerprints were all over my heartbreak, too, but not because he desired that I have a broken heart, rather because he wanted to protect me from greater heartbreak later and knew that it would be more than my heart could handle. I thank Jesus for holding me each day in the depth of my pain and sorrow and in the overwhelming joy of being in His presence and seeing His hand move in such positive ways. God is good.

El Senor es mi pastor, nada me faltara.
En lugares de verdes pastos, me hace descansar
Junto a aguas de reposo, me conduce.
El restaura mi alma.
Me guia por senderos de justicia por amor de su Nombre.
Aunque, pase por el valle de sombra de muerte,
No temere mal alguno, porque tu estas conmigo. 
Tu vara y tu cayado me infunden aliento.
Tu preparas mesa delante de me en presencia de mis enemigos.
Has ungido mi cabesa con aceite, mi copa esta rebosando.
Ciertamente el bien y la misericordia me seguiran todos los dias de mi vida
y en la casa del Senor morare por largos dias.

Salmo 23

Listening for that still small voice

Reading a devotional this evening, I was presented with this lovely and thought provoking poem, perfect for this moment.

The Still Small Voice

I longed to walk along an easy road,
And leave behind the dull routine of home,
Thinking in other fields to serve my God;
But Jesus said, "My time has not yet come."

I longed to sow the seed in other soil,
To be unshackled in the work, and free,
To join with other laborers in their toil;
But Jesus said, "It's not my choice for thee."

I longed to leave the desert, and be led
To work where souls were sunk in sin and shame,
That I might win them; but the Master said,
"I have not called you, publish here My name."

I longed to fight the battles of my King,
Lift high His standards in the thickest strife;
But my great Captain had me wait and sing
Songs of His conquests in my quiet life.

I longed to leave the hard and difficult sphere,
Where all alone I seemed to stand and wait,
To feel I had some human helper near,
But Jesus had me guard one lonely gate.

I longed to leave the common daily toil,
Where no one seemed to understand or care;
But Jesus said, "I choose for you this soil,
That you might raise for Me some blossoms rare."

And now I have no longing but to do
At home, or far away, His blessed will,
To work amid the many or the few;
Thus, "choosing not to choose," my heart is still.