By man came death... by man came also the resurrection of the dead

I just returned from singing Messiah at Carnegie Hall and have had Messiah songs playing in my head for months, reminding me of truths in Scripture - of Christ's birth, life, death, and resurrection. Last Friday afternoon while I was in New York City preparing to sing, I received word that my around-the-corner neighbor and friend who I have come to know and deeply care about over the past couple years had died and gone on to be with Jesus. It has taken until today, as I return to Duncanville and to work, to begin processing and grieving the death of Bill Jackson. When I first started working at First Presbyterian Church in 2016, Bill and his wife Vangie were so excited to have me, a Biola graduate, working at their church. Vangie told me about how Bill became a Christian when he was a teenager - he went to a Christian camp and was led to the Lord by Biola students. He thought all of Los Angeles must be Christian if the Bible Institute of Los Angeles was turning out such on-fire for Jesus students. Since knowing them, Vangie has told me that story on numerous occasions always full of such joy and exuberance. I also have been regaled with stories of how they met, and stories of their family and life as overseas missionaries. They both have so many stories to tell. When I first started here, Bill & Vangie were still living in their own house, bringing themselves to church, but in the past couple years, health and mobility declined, and they moved in with their daughter and son-in-law around the corner from my house. The Jacksons and I began to affectionately refer to each other as "neighbor" and I often gave them rides home from church, or Vangie rides to choir practice. In August I gave them a ride to the Naturally Supernatural Conference on the power of the Holy Spirit in Arlington. In the past few years, Bill & Vangie have become very dear to me, and hearing of Bill's death weighs heavily on my heart. As Messiah songs play in my head, I am comforted to be reminded that "by man came death" but "by man came also the resurrection of the dead." We all die, but through Christ we may all live again.

Something new

I'm trying something new because I've been extra emotional lately and have realized my life is pretty out of balance. Mainly I think it's because I'm not taking needed time to process life, so I end up processing out loud with other people which doesn't work well for me, or not processing at all which also doesn't work. The new thing I started yesterday that already really helped was writing about my day in a notebook and processing it alone and with God. That eliminates the need to emotionally vomit on my friends which is what I feel like I've been doing lately, which makes me uncomfortable mainly because I see that it's more than I really should be sharing. I am also hoping this will help me take more time alone which I need to be a stable person. I'm not good at caring for myself, and this is a way I hope to grow in that area.

feeling emotional

I continue to do a lot of self analysis and wrestle with things I don't like about my personality and reasons why, and I have discovered so much. It is humbling as I come to grips with my humanity, come to accept my imperfections, and realize that despite these, the Creator of the Universe loves me. Following Myers-Briggs I test as an ISFJ, and although I know it is pretty accurate in describing me, I have a hard time accepting things about who I am that I test this way. I have a deep need to love and be loved, moreso than being unique, independent, successful, or intellectual. However, I feel like those other things should be what I strive for. I feel like as an "S" I am inadequate because I need to have all the facts rather than just somehow "knowing" things. It makes me feel somehow stupid or incompetent, though I know I am not. I am mostly OK with being an "F" and am coming to terms with being a fairly strong one, but I so value the level headed logic that my "T" friends use to make decisions. Sometimes I feel like an emotional mess and need to learn that feeling is OK, even if it's sometimes messy. I am a "J", but I wish I was a "P" sometimes and could be more spontaneous. I am learning that I don't really want to change who I am, I just want to know that I am loved the way that I am and even if I know in my head that it's true, my heart sometimes doubts it.

Lord, you made me as me for a reason. Show me my value and what you have for me. Help me to find purpose. Help me to care most how you see me and worry less about the judgments of others.

An aesthetic of imperfection

Sometimes I wish I liked perfect art - art about idyllic places and art devoid of emotion, but just precise and beautiful. But I don't. I don't like canvasses that are made and mass produced because they are pretty, decoration. To me, art has always been an outpouring of an emotional soul. I connect with pieces that are individual, unique, and usually imperfect. Those pieces have character and speak of the difficulties and joys of life, life which is imperfect. I like volumes, and thick and rich oil paints slathered across canvasses - not always pretty, but that have meaning beyond the shallow beauty. I have a difficult time owning my aesthetic, because it's not popular, especially among those who aren't artists and don't connect with art on a deep level, who are just looking for decoration or see art as a reprieve from real life rather than its representation.

Imperfection is honest and raw and says, "here I am, a broken human." It leads me to reflect on the perfection that is only found in Christ who promised to heal up our broken places and put us together again.

The art of grieving is difficult to master

I was sitting and writing through some things in a journal and was reminded of the poem "One Art" by Elizabeth Bishop. Ever since choosing it as one of the poems to analyze for my poetry anthology in AP Literature, it has been something I remembered and connected with.

One Art:

The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant 
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.

—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied.  It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

In response to this I was musing about how the art of losing may be easy to master, but the art of grieving well is not.

For the art of losing may be easy to master - 
Lost keys, lost papers, lost lands, lost people lost dreams
What you have may be lost all in a moment
But the art of grieving is difficult to master - 
Lost keys, but new ones can be made
Lost papers, yes a lot of red tape
Lost lands - people - dreams
Now tears swell
For people and places and the dreams attached cannot easily be replaced.

May I walk towards Jesus with no distractions

My heart beats for other places
For other people other lands
Jesus, how can I be your feet and hands?

From time to time I have looked up how to use art in missions. I took an arts and trauma healing class at GIAL and a seminar on Arts for a Better Future, both using art as a tool to serve people, but I was not ready to commit to entering their arts program. I have looked into doing art therapy, which would require another degree in another state, but I haven't felt the push to actually pursue that.

I felt the urge to look again this evening and pulled up opportunities with Pioneer Bible Translators, OM Artslink, and the Greater Europe Mission, but I am so scared to walk forward.

Part of me is happy to stay here -- it's comfortable to have a job that doesn't rely on support raising, where I do have a place serving in a church and I can feel like I have an impact in my community, but I have been back in this country for nearly 10 years and my heart doesn't beat red, white, and blue. I have found pockets of belonging, but it's not home. I know that nowhere on this earth is ultimately home - that is heaven, but I still wish I felt more belonging. Even little things show me that this isn't really my home. Maybe this means I need to engage more, or maybe this means there is somewhere else I'm supposed to be. Both options scare me. As it is I am an introvert who feels so out of place in this place designed for extroverts to succeed. I hate crowds and twisting peoples arms into doing things they don't want to do. I want genuine relationships that develop over time and coffee, not relationships that are made quickly and out of necessity. I long for a slower paced life, and maybe that can't be found anywhere. I also long for a life doing things that truly matter that will genuinely make an impact on someone.

If you read this, please pray that the Lord will show me clearly which way to go and whether this is just homesickness or discontent, and/or if there is genuinely a call attached to that.

May I walk towards Jesus with no distractions, may I leave the world behind.

...

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.

...

I found out today as I was looking up an old classmate I used to be friends with on Facebook that they had unfriended me. I wish I didn't take these things so personally, but I really sort of do. We aren't at all close anymore, but I really liked hanging out with her in middle school and we used to send emails back and forth. We were still friends in high school - even if we rarely hung out. I even tried to visit her in college once, but it didn't quite work out. Now she's married and has a kid and I guess I'm really far off her radar. I know she's far off mine, so it shouldn't bother me, but it still does a little. Moving on - it's why saying goodbye hurts so much because you both move on, then one day you wake up and are strangers to each other. It doesn't help with my feelings of inadequacy and being left in the dust. I want so much to follow God's plans for me and to trust him and be open to what he has for me, but I see peers my age who are married and having families and wonder what is wrong with me? And I know that's the wrong way to look at it. I really do. I know that relationships shouldn't be rushed and that God's timing is perfect. I also know that marriage and family is not promised. And most days I'm ok with that logic. Other days my face gets red and splotchy and tears pool in my eyes and I feel insecure and inadequate and like I've failed at life somehow. It reminds me of some relationship books I've read that are written by 24 year olds (or some other such young age) who talk about their struggle with singleness when they were 20 and decided to wait on God and he brought their special person to them by 22 and how great a blessing it was to wait on God... and then other ones written by people who didn't get marriage right the first time, but their second marriage is working out great because they learned how to structure it God's way, and if you just do it that way to begin with you'll save yourself a lot of heartache! I understand the important things books like these are trying to get across, but I am 27, single, as far as I know not on anyone's radar and may just have to learn to be ok with being single my whole life at this point. (At this age the kid who got married at 22 would have been married for 5 years... and the person whose first marriage failed would have gotten married by now... and maybe even failed by now... and here I am, not even given a chance to fail!) Not that I want failure. When my emotions have subsided and my logic kicks in again I will be grateful that I am still single, because singleness is far better than an abusive marriage, or a loveless marriage, a controlling marriage (which also would be classified as a form of abuse, I suppose)... and there is a lot of freedom in singleness! but it still sucks. Secular culture would play me Michael Buble's "Just Haven't Met You Yet" to try to make me feel better... and maybe it's true that I just haven't met you yet... and listening to it makes me feel better, even if I doubt the truth in it.

(and that is how a post about the sadness of losing friends turns into a "woe is me for being single" post. wow. I guess it is possible.)

God's way or the highway

I was hoping I wouldn't have to write a post like this, that it would never come to this, but I need to process. I am no longer in a relationship, and that is really tough. God's been doing some really important things in my heart, though, and I am not completely crushed, because God is holding me, just immensely sad. And it will take some time to work through this. I believe God is in control and that his ways are perfect, but man, that is a place I have had to get to. Ironically, he has been leading me here through this entire relationship. I realized about 6 months in that I idolized marriage and family and I needed to give those to God - which is weird that while dating someone I had to come to a place of being ok with being single for the rest of my life. It was so counter-cultural, but so important. I am very glad that God brought me to that place, because in relationships we can't be completed by the other person, we can't look for them to be our "other half." That puts them in God's place and not only is it impossible and unhealthy for the other person to even try to fill that role, but it is way too much pressure. He taught me so much about how to love another person, not just emotionally but as a daily choice - and how to do that with him as well! He deepened my trust in him and showed me the ultimate importance of putting my relationship with him first! One of Satan's lies that has been so easy for me to buy into is, "well, you've been a Christian for so long that clearly your relationship with Jesus is in a good place... you don't need to work on it" Lies. It doesn't work in relationships with people and it certainly doesn't work in a relationship with Jesus. I'm done with romantic relationships for awhile. Maybe forever, I am open to that possibility, though the thought is really painful. The truth is, I want to work on my relationship with Jesus, and if he brings me someone I will see it as the hugest blessing from God and if he doesn't, then I will work on being fully satisfied in my singleness and work on seeing that as the hugest blessing from God. I thank Jesus for the wonderful friend he helped me to find through my last relationship, and I pray that he would help me to reach out of my comfort zone more and work on building up friendships with other people in my life. I'm not planning to try online dating again. I found a great guy that way, but I very much felt like I was trying to take my future into my own hands rather than wait on God's perfect timing. I do feel like God can use online dating - I know people who have met their spouse that way. But with the things I have learned in the last eight months, I don't want to try it again. I found it was difficult to maintain my focus on God when put in a position of focusing on myself and the needs I wanted to have filled, advertising myself as single, putting up the best pictures I could find of myself, and figuring out how to best make myself sound like a good catch. There was quote I used to hear all the time when I was in high school "A woman's heart must be so lost in God that a man needs to seek him in order to find her." I sort of bought it, but also felt it was a little bit cliche. However, I'm realizing that a lot of things that I labeled as "cliche" in the past have become that way not because they are false, but because they are true. Reading "Love, Sex, and Lasting Relationships" by Chip Ingram has confirmed that as well... as has talking to my dad who said that the summer after meeting my mom he went to a conference and was introduced to a book called "Choosing to Love" which is what helped him decide to marry my mom and helped show him the right way to go about it. God first. Friendship second. If any man is to find me, God will have to lead him to me, because I am not looking for a relationship. I am looking to lose myself more deeply in God. This doesn't mean I don't want to marry someday and have a family someday, but I know that those things are actually not promised.

Rant.

I'm becoming increasingly annoyed with advertising and also Facebook... yes, they're linked. It's primarily Facebook advertising that is really getting to me, but also how intrusive the website feels. I like it because I feel like I can write things and be "heard" or rather I guess "seen" by other people, but it becomes mindless click-bait... and you can barely scroll down the main page before you're bombarded with "buy this" or "buy that" or even "look at all these great things going on in your friends lives!" (while mine is lacking in that way so it must suck -- coveting my neighbor's good fortune perhaps?) or "look at how sucky this other friend's life is!" and meanwhile, I'm sitting at a screen wasting my life living and dying vicariously through other people. I'm also increasingly annoyed with the concept of consumerism, with stuff being made for us to just "consume" like a greedy and gluttonous person who is never satisfied. Food has chemicals added so that companies can make more money with longer shelf lives... and ooh! great side effect for their wallets, the addictions to these chemicals that ensue! And in the meantime a public who is complacent and completely unaware of how these are affecting them are walking around like zombies on technology eating poison and slowly (sometimes quickly!) dying without knowing what it was like to truly live. I'm fed up with society the way it is... from advertising to chemicals in everything to the upside-down way that society teaches us to do relationships... and probably some other things.

I know that skipped around quite a bit, but my mind is a bit of a jumble. I'm frustrated with several things at the same time... and in my mind they are all sort of connected.

Ugh.

This morning I woke up really weepy and with a slight headache. Just processing life I guess and I can't keep the tears from spilling out my eyes and down my face. I am usually such an optimist, but that doesn't mean life doesn't suck beneath the decision to choose joy. I thought how great it would be to just take a year sabbatical from normal and visit people and explore the world. I don't generally like travel that much and I'm not much of an adventurer, but the idea felt so freeing. I think it's a flight response trying to kick in. Some days everything is going great - my job, my relationship, my friendships - other times it's hard to see the beauty. The pastor is on vacation, so it has just been me in the church office holding down the fort and finally getting to projects she asked me to do awhile ago. One of them stirred up so much dissension in one of the church members that I got an angry phone call after I was supposed to already be off on Wednesday. I maybe shouldn't have answered. I have been given permission to not answer if it's later than normal church hours, but part of me would rather have the wrath then than later. Because it's just me, I get to (have to?) to a lot more coordinating of people. That's tiring. I'm ready for a loooooonnnnnggg vacation of actually going somewhere, not my normal "stay"cation because I don't want to go somewhere alone. My relationship, I have felt, is in a good place, but it can be such a roller coaster. This summer has been such a roller coaster, because we're working hard to make sure we're structuring our relationship correctly - God first, not just in word but in deed. This is new to both of us. Also, we're both very emotional people. When I think it's going great, I find out on the other end that it isn't, and then come emotionally challenging conversations. In those moments I pray that God gives me the grace to extend grace and that he shows me the most loving responses.

Year Six. A New Adventure

This month marks five years that I have lived in Texas. Six years ago, I had no idea this would be a thing. It has been a whirlwind and the time in my life that I have been molded and shaped the most. Five years ago I graduated with a BFA in Studio Arts and minor in Biblical Studies and I felt like the world was at my fingertips. With an art degree I felt like I could do anything -- I mean, it was basically a degree in creative problem solving and that's useful for any job, right?! I moved to the metroplex not because I wanted to relocate here, but because my family was moving here and I wanted to be home for a bit so I could figure out this adulting thing before truly going out on my own. In the past five years I have had three jobs - Jo-Anns, the Rec Center, and now FPCD. I have taken an Arts and Trauma Healing class and a class called Arts for a Better Future. I helped lead a trauma healing Bible study with friends. I went from knowing one person besides my family here to knowing many. I had my first relationship, my first break-up, and now am in a second relationship that I hope doesn't end. I gained a brother-in-law and a nephew. I lived with my parents and I lived with friends, though I'm back to living with my parents again. I have the same car that I did, it's just five years older now. I have been a bridesmaid in two weddings and a maid-of-honor in one. I have gained friends and let others slip away. This month is the beginning of my sixth year in Texas, and yet another adventure. Until now, the longest I lived anywhere was four years at a time, and even if I went back, it was to a different house. My life is disjointed and fractured. People and places I care about are scattered all over. Here's to actually sticking around for awhile. Staying: a new adventure.

Grieving requires more strength than building barriers

Grieving requires more strength than building barriers. As I have been processing my week in the last couple minutes, I found tears streaming down my face - not tears of frustration or sadness about the week, I actually feel rather freed - but grief. Relationships force us to look in the mirror and really see all our flaws. Loving someone else, really loving them, makes us so aware of our shortcomings. I have a lot of thoughts in my mind and understand sort of what I realized this week, but I'm not sure how easily I'll be able to unpack it all. Since my boyfriend and I hit the six-month mark in our relationship a couple weeks ago, I have found us becoming a lot closer -- like a lot of my barriers that I so carefully put up over the years, and a lot of his, have been coming down. This has been so good for our relationship as we have really gotten to know each other for our real selves. I thought that from the beginning I was sharing my real self, but that real self has been so covered in layers of armor just to function as a "normal" person. Letting it come down has been a little bit scary, but mostly just freeing. In the last few years I have come to think of myself as a "strong" person, someone who, although emotional, is able to remain un-phased by most things. I "don't let things get to me" and I usually won't cry in front of other people. I pretty much always, in the last few years have smiled. I thought it was because through the toughness of having to move a lot growing up I had developed a "tough skin" and although that might be true to some extent, it's more like strong, impenetrable armor.

I am reminded of Hilary Duff as "Holly" in the movie "The Perfect Man" - one of my favorite guilty pleasures being her friendship/relationship with the cute comic illustrator "Adam"- and how he drew her a picture of her as "Princess Holly" who "doesn't need an army to protect her." She was really hurt by that and it made her want to move away because that's how her mom had unintentionally taught her to deal with guy problems. He is finally able to get the picture to her via her mom who tells her what Adam said, which was that every picture has two sides. On the back is a drawing of her and him and his caption reads, "I'll always be there for you."
Maybe I have some things in common with Holly. She grew up constantly moving -- not because her family was called to the mission field, but because her mom was bad with relationships and whenever she would be dumped or would dump someone she wouldn't just find another guy, she would move to another city in another state. It's hard to constantly move - I am now at my record for the longest I have lived in one city at a time - 5 years - and even within that time, I have lived in two houses. I'd like to think that after living in the United States again for 9 years, even though that's pretty evenly split between two states, that I'm pretty well adjusted. And on some level I am. On the surface I appear to have a good number of friends. I have a job I love. I have my family nearby. I have this pretty great coping mechanism that I call my "silver linings philosophy" which is where I try and always focus on the good in a situation. On the surface, those things are great. Below the surface is this pretty thick steel layer and under that are things that have hurt me but have gone mostly un-processed and un-grieved. There was a time I remember believing that "love was a weakness." What I meant by that was the kind of love that is purely emotional - really more of a crush, where the sight of someone makes you weak to your knees, and where your brain goes fuzzy when you're around them. Now, I know that love that is purely emotional isn't true love. It's a feeling, and feelings fade. True love is a choice. That choice is not weakness. I also saw crying to some extent as a weakness, because for some reason it felt weak to need someone else to comfort me, to not just be able to pull myself up on my own. I know that we're supposed to lean on God for strength, and I did that sometimes, and to be fair, I have leaned on other people at times as well, though often I would just tuck away my hurt, pushing through it, not always acknowledging it. One of the problems with moving a lot is that - and I really have just begun realizing the extent of this - I am hesitant to let anyone close. On the surface, I love and care about people, but I'm scared to really let people in. I'm scared to really let people get to know me, the real Jen, the Jen that hides below the thick metal armor, and I'm scared to really get to know others as well. The fear I think was/is (I mean, I've realized this but it doesn't mean it's solved yet) that if I let someone close they would see my pain and my emotions which I had classified as weakness, and I wanted to be seen as strong I think, to prove that I had grown up an MK and somehow turned out ok. I think I was scared of people seeing my imperfections and rejecting me for them, but it's more than that. The more I learn about someone and truly get to know them, the harder leaving is. The problem isn't that I want to leave, but that based on my life patterns, moving away is inevitable, and truly loving another person and letting them love me is scary. It's not only vulnerable, but if the friendship or relationship is ever severed for whatever reason, or people move, it sucks. I grieve because I feel like there are a lot of friendships I've let go by the wayside or just never really invested in because of fear. I'm afraid to invest in other people because I'm simultaneously afraid of losing them and of them getting to know the real me and not liking what they find. And so I realize that 9 years after graduating high school and moving across the world I am still dealing with MK stuff. It has been so freeing to let someone in, especially someone who genuinely cares about me and loves the real Jen that he is finding beneath the surface, someone who doesn't expect me to be perfect and who isn't perfect - what a relief. And so I find that God has been teaching me some much needed lessons, and it hurts, but it's so necessary, and it is so good.

And so I am back to where I started - grieving requires more strength than building barriers. What I mean by that is that it is out of weak fear, not strength that I put on armor and build walls. Strength is grieving the things that need to be grieved. It's allowing people into my life and letting them really know me, and really getting to know them as well, even though it might be hard sometimes. It's being willing to care about things, to have opinions, and to get my feelings hurt sometimes, because having emotions is not a weakness.

Boys masquerading as men part 2

Boys masquerading as men.

I was going to title this post, "Why are Men idiots?!" but then I realized that the ones I'm speaking of don't deserve to be called men, but boys, and some men are not idiots. Also, some boys are not idiots, just young and naive. I remember when I was in eighth grade and attending Bethel church in Richland, WA, that among some tracts that the church had as available resources there was this book (meant to be a joke) that was called, "Everything that man has learned about woman"... I'm pretty sure it was pretty small, short, and blank. I've never understood why guys have such a hard time grasping how women think and what they should or should not do in order to be respected and liked by women. First off, we're all people. Women are not some separate race and we're not from different planets as the book, "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus" suggests. To be fair, it has taken me a long time and I'm only just beginning to understand how men think. I'm only just beginning to realize just how visual they are vs. how un-visual I am - despite being an artist. I care a lot about aesthetics, but it's different. About a month ago I told a boy I liked (yes, definitely a boy masquerading as a man) that I liked him, because I wanted to force the ball into his court, because I was so tired of dribbling it and not getting any sort of response - well, I thought I did for awhile, in fact part of why I developed a crush on him is because it seemed like he might like me back. He didn't even let the ball stay in his court. To go with the analogy, he either hit it like a hot potato way past my court so I wouldn't ever hit it back into his court again, or he took a dagger and stabbed it so it lost all its air -- yes, we're going from tennis references to... some kind of a handball or basketball type thing. It was fine. Yes, it sucked, but finding out he wasn't interested, I was able to move on surprisingly quickly. I think it's because my eyes were suddenly opened to all his flaws that I had previously been aware of but let slide - because after all, no one is perfect. There are two things that annoy me about the scenario. First off, he said he could "NEVER see himself being romantically interested in me." (Way to know the future, man, I realize you're working hard to not string me along, but really did not need to be that harsh, and honestly when people say "NEVER" it does feel like they're trying to play God, just a little bit.) Secondly, I haven't known him for very long. This really is a secondary annoyance, because it's related to the first. If you don't even know me that well and haven't taken the chance to get to know me how can you be SURE that you'd NEVER be romantically interested?! Again, I've already moved on, and if he's wrong and changes his mind, I will not be here for him to come crying to, mainly because how he responded intensely annoyed me, and I have since then become aware of all the reasons why I'm really happy I'm not dating him. I would rather be single for a very long time than be his girlfriend, because he's also not a very considerate person and his life priorities are in really weird orders. Basically, he's a boy masquerading as a man. He needs to grow up a bit before he'll be good boyfriend/future husband material, and not for me, for someone else.

So, as a reaction to my frustration with boys masquerading as men, I decided to sign up for online dating. I know. Best move to find men who are not boys. (not.) But I do think there are some good guys out there. I keep thinking I've found one or two of them, but the online dating scene really is not satisfying. I've been talking with this guy for about a month now, and he seems scared to meet in person or talk on the phone or Skype. He doesn't live the closest, but not really too far away either. He seems like a great guy! But I don't do well just typing all the time, especially because I always write way more than he does -- talk about someone not being reciprocal! And it's so frustrating not seeing body language or hearing voice intonation. That's so important for proper communication!

Someone else I was talking to, the reaction was opposite. He asked me out after messaging for like two days, then I was the one who panicked and canceled on him at the last second. I felt really bad about that... and have since apologized. It was too fast for me, not because he was moving too fast, but because it had only been a few days since I had been rejected, which is what prompted the online dating in the first place.

There are a couple other guys I have talked to that have been positive conversations, but again, it's been a couple weeks at least for both, and I'm not really satisfied long term with just sending message after message. That can be the start of getting to know someone, but then you have to actually meet, and talk in person, and hang out and stuff.

There was also a guy who I was talking to - I decided he looked a little young for me, though he wasn't too young, and since he messaged me, I replied. Then after a few days of talking he admitted that he didn't have an account (this was on eharmony) and gave me ways to find him in the real internet world. So I did and the next thing I heard from him was, "sorry, I'm not interested." That was probably the worst, because what he didn't see on the eharmony profile was my pictures. He finally got to see pictures and he said, "no." I know I'm not the thinnest crayon in the crayon box... I'm like a crayon for four year olds, not the super skinny big kid ones, but I'm not ugly, and in my opinion curves are freaking attractive, and I am well blessed with them. It makes me want to throw up my hands in despair.

I know I shouldn't let conversations with people I've never met affect me so much, but I don't get much better from the people I do know. I guess I know a lot of idiots, or boys masquerading as men. I am so done. But in reality, I know I'm not. I love guys. No matter how much they infuriate me, I love them. So I sit here typing, with tears streaming down my face because I haven't found one yet who treats me well and from the deepest parts of my heart, I am pleading with God to change that.