*Update: I wrote this portion of my next post back in the early fall. Shortly after my last installments. Work and school quickly took over my life before I could adequately edit and publish it in that moment. Here I am, five months later, with more words to write than I can keep track of. I thought this was still pretty relevant stuff so I thought I would quickly edit and post it before beginning my next posts. Hopefully they will come quickly. I'm not sure how many people I expect, or even want, to read these posts. That's a humbling thing to think about, but I do know that I still have a lot I want to share with you. If you've read up to this point, please continue reading. And I hope you feel loved and encouraged in a fresh sort of way.
"God loves each of us as if there were only one of us."
How many of you have found your perfect love story? There's a blessed group of us (myself included) who will quickly raise their hands in response to this question. I've most certainly found the one whom my soul desires and whom I believe God desires for me. Many of you can say the same thing, while others of you are still waiting for that one person to cross your path and declare his/her love for you. Waiting is so hard. Despite not having to wait long to find David, I do know what it feels like to wait for something you desire wholeheartedly, while having little to no control over the timing of it coming to be. And to those of you who, like me, have found your happily ever after, what if I asked you to think about your very worst day together as a couple? What if I asked you to recall the first day you realized your happily ever after wasn't always going to be happy? Remember that time you did or said something you never imagined yourself doing or saying? You know, that really hurtful thing you did that you are so ashamed of? (My intentions are not to illicit feelings of guilt or shame in you- quite the opposite actually. Stay with me.) We've all been there. Would you call it perfect then?
I started thinking about love stories today when I heard a Taylor Swift song come on Pandora. It's actually the Taylor Swift station on Pandora with some variety thrown in. I've tossed together T. Swizzle with the likes of The Black Keys, Kid Cudi, and Macklemore. Unashamed. (Oh hush, I have a wonderful praise and worship station too and I find Macklemore's lyrics very spiritually encouraging.) Anyhoozers, I happen to highly respect Ms. Swift as a songwriter. I listen to her station almost every single day and today, I heard an older song of hers, one I've heard a thousand times and isn't even one of my favorites. Today, I heard this particular song with a completely new set of ears. The song is called "You Belong With Me," the theme of which is clearly teenage romance. The line that caught my attention and turned my new ears on was "Dreaming about the day when you wake up and find that what you're looking for has been here the whole time." God? Is that You? Then the chorus: "If you can see that I'm the one who understands you. Been here all along so why can't you see? You belong with me. You belong with me." That's when it hit me. David is my amazing and special husband and I am so thankful for our incredible love story. However, as wonderful as it may be, it is by no means perfect. Listening to this Taylor Swift song, which, ironically, is about high school love, really tuned my heart into something beautiful. I AM a part of the perfect love story. And so are you!
Taytay Swift loves writing songs about love stories, as do countless other singer/songwriters. Being a part of a storybook, fairytale romance is something we all crave for ourselves. If it wasn't there wouldn't be such an incredible demand for songs like these, or movies, or books. Whether we have real-life experiences to connect them to or not, we love placing ourselves in these stories as a character, and from incredibly young ages, we dream about being swept off our feet or about being the one doing all the sweeping. It's like it's a part of our genetic code. That's no coincidence. I believe God designed us to love and be loved.
Growing up going to church and spending time around other Christians, I heard the phrase "God loves you" more times than I can count. It got off with a bang in my childhood inside the four walls of the church we attended. We'd hold vacation bible schools and invite neighborhood children. We'd sing hymns to the church's neighbors at Halloween instead of trick-or-treating, all the while including so many utterances of "God loves you" and "Jesus loves you." It was so fun, and we loved to hold our heads high as we shared with our "worldly" friends why we didn't buy Halloween costumes. (Actually, I think my siblings and I were the only children in that church with any worldly friends. We were the only family in the entire church who didn't homeschool. Not only did we not homeschool, we attended public schools (gasp!). That whole dynamic left a pretty lasting impression on me as a kid, but I digress...) During my high school years, my parents began experiencing some marital difficulties and during the stress of that season, my mom found it difficult to get us to church every Sunday. (I find it difficult to get myself to church every Sunday, so I can't blame her.) Most of the families that attended our tiny, missions-centered church were amazing examples of loving and serving others. However, during the time our attendance was less than perfect, I began noticing a shift in how my siblings and I were treated by the youth leaders, a married couple who were kind of new to the church. I can't recall many exact details at this point, but I just remember this very awful and shameful feeling of being seen as "less than" because of my spotty attendance. Like my worth as a Christian was dependent on my church attendance record. Being of European decent, I admit I don't experience discrimination based on something outside my control very often. Although as a woman, I can say that I've felt the sting of oppression a bit more often than a white man, for instance, but nevertheless, it happens to me some but far less often than it does to so many others. I did get a good taste of it during that church experience and it hurt me to the point that I no longer wanted to attend. Feeling "less than" hurts in a lasting sort of way. The longer I'm alive on this earth, the more I witness different forms of hate, bigotry, and oppression, and it breaks my heart. What breaks my heart even more though is realizing that I am just as guilty of making others feel this way as anyone else. During the last few months of my story, I've learned some very important lessons about faith and what it means to be a Christian. Now that I know what I know, I've felt a deep sense of obligation to share my knowledge with others. I'm no expert and surely have so much more to learn, but before I share what I have learned, I want to talk for a minute about how God loves us.
"God loves you" is just one of the many grossly overused clichés of the Christian community, and by "overused," I mean used without the critical follow up of actions. I can almost hear a chorus of non-believers shouting in unison, "but how do we know that God loves us?" Without actions, words are just words. If you don't see words in action, they'll begin to lose their meaning, or worse, their meaning will never be constructed. (Anyone else hearing a certain other cliché right about now, or is that just me?) So how do we know that God loves us with a perfect love? The apostle John, an eyewitness to and trusted disciple of Jesus while He walked this Earth, spent the rest of his life teaching other Christians about God's love and, not how we ought to live, but how we are "commanded" to live as a testament of the perfect love we have received through Christ. In his gospel, John describes the final moments he spends with Jesus before the crucifixion when they all sit down together for the Last Supper. During these precious final moments here on Earth, Jesus tells His disciples, "So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other." (John 13:34, NLT)
Are we, as Christians, really following this command? I, personally, am doing a terrible job. It's okay to admit that you might be too. I know a lot of amazing and strong people who are actually doing a fabulous job, and maybe you are one of them and let me be the first to congratulate you and say WELL DONE. Keep doing your good work of showing other Christians how to live life singing God's love, grace, and mercy. Singing it for EVERY NEIGHBOR. Not just those who mirror our same neighborhood, life goals, or skin color. I'm going to spend the next few posts trying to adequately describe for you how God used the precious gift of infertility to retune my heart to sing His love, grace, and mercy. It has been a wild ride and has left me permanently scarred and forever grateful. Grateful for a love everlasting. The perfect love story that will endure for all of eternity.
"God loves each of us as if there were only one of us."
-Saint Augustine of Hippo
How many of you have found your perfect love story? There's a blessed group of us (myself included) who will quickly raise their hands in response to this question. I've most certainly found the one whom my soul desires and whom I believe God desires for me. Many of you can say the same thing, while others of you are still waiting for that one person to cross your path and declare his/her love for you. Waiting is so hard. Despite not having to wait long to find David, I do know what it feels like to wait for something you desire wholeheartedly, while having little to no control over the timing of it coming to be. And to those of you who, like me, have found your happily ever after, what if I asked you to think about your very worst day together as a couple? What if I asked you to recall the first day you realized your happily ever after wasn't always going to be happy? Remember that time you did or said something you never imagined yourself doing or saying? You know, that really hurtful thing you did that you are so ashamed of? (My intentions are not to illicit feelings of guilt or shame in you- quite the opposite actually. Stay with me.) We've all been there. Would you call it perfect then?
I started thinking about love stories today when I heard a Taylor Swift song come on Pandora. It's actually the Taylor Swift station on Pandora with some variety thrown in. I've tossed together T. Swizzle with the likes of The Black Keys, Kid Cudi, and Macklemore. Unashamed. (Oh hush, I have a wonderful praise and worship station too and I find Macklemore's lyrics very spiritually encouraging.) Anyhoozers, I happen to highly respect Ms. Swift as a songwriter. I listen to her station almost every single day and today, I heard an older song of hers, one I've heard a thousand times and isn't even one of my favorites. Today, I heard this particular song with a completely new set of ears. The song is called "You Belong With Me," the theme of which is clearly teenage romance. The line that caught my attention and turned my new ears on was "Dreaming about the day when you wake up and find that what you're looking for has been here the whole time." God? Is that You? Then the chorus: "If you can see that I'm the one who understands you. Been here all along so why can't you see? You belong with me. You belong with me." That's when it hit me. David is my amazing and special husband and I am so thankful for our incredible love story. However, as wonderful as it may be, it is by no means perfect. Listening to this Taylor Swift song, which, ironically, is about high school love, really tuned my heart into something beautiful. I AM a part of the perfect love story. And so are you!
Taytay Swift loves writing songs about love stories, as do countless other singer/songwriters. Being a part of a storybook, fairytale romance is something we all crave for ourselves. If it wasn't there wouldn't be such an incredible demand for songs like these, or movies, or books. Whether we have real-life experiences to connect them to or not, we love placing ourselves in these stories as a character, and from incredibly young ages, we dream about being swept off our feet or about being the one doing all the sweeping. It's like it's a part of our genetic code. That's no coincidence. I believe God designed us to love and be loved.
Growing up going to church and spending time around other Christians, I heard the phrase "God loves you" more times than I can count. It got off with a bang in my childhood inside the four walls of the church we attended. We'd hold vacation bible schools and invite neighborhood children. We'd sing hymns to the church's neighbors at Halloween instead of trick-or-treating, all the while including so many utterances of "God loves you" and "Jesus loves you." It was so fun, and we loved to hold our heads high as we shared with our "worldly" friends why we didn't buy Halloween costumes. (Actually, I think my siblings and I were the only children in that church with any worldly friends. We were the only family in the entire church who didn't homeschool. Not only did we not homeschool, we attended public schools (gasp!). That whole dynamic left a pretty lasting impression on me as a kid, but I digress...) During my high school years, my parents began experiencing some marital difficulties and during the stress of that season, my mom found it difficult to get us to church every Sunday. (I find it difficult to get myself to church every Sunday, so I can't blame her.) Most of the families that attended our tiny, missions-centered church were amazing examples of loving and serving others. However, during the time our attendance was less than perfect, I began noticing a shift in how my siblings and I were treated by the youth leaders, a married couple who were kind of new to the church. I can't recall many exact details at this point, but I just remember this very awful and shameful feeling of being seen as "less than" because of my spotty attendance. Like my worth as a Christian was dependent on my church attendance record. Being of European decent, I admit I don't experience discrimination based on something outside my control very often. Although as a woman, I can say that I've felt the sting of oppression a bit more often than a white man, for instance, but nevertheless, it happens to me some but far less often than it does to so many others. I did get a good taste of it during that church experience and it hurt me to the point that I no longer wanted to attend. Feeling "less than" hurts in a lasting sort of way. The longer I'm alive on this earth, the more I witness different forms of hate, bigotry, and oppression, and it breaks my heart. What breaks my heart even more though is realizing that I am just as guilty of making others feel this way as anyone else. During the last few months of my story, I've learned some very important lessons about faith and what it means to be a Christian. Now that I know what I know, I've felt a deep sense of obligation to share my knowledge with others. I'm no expert and surely have so much more to learn, but before I share what I have learned, I want to talk for a minute about how God loves us.
"God loves you" is just one of the many grossly overused clichés of the Christian community, and by "overused," I mean used without the critical follow up of actions. I can almost hear a chorus of non-believers shouting in unison, "but how do we know that God loves us?" Without actions, words are just words. If you don't see words in action, they'll begin to lose their meaning, or worse, their meaning will never be constructed. (Anyone else hearing a certain other cliché right about now, or is that just me?) So how do we know that God loves us with a perfect love? The apostle John, an eyewitness to and trusted disciple of Jesus while He walked this Earth, spent the rest of his life teaching other Christians about God's love and, not how we ought to live, but how we are "commanded" to live as a testament of the perfect love we have received through Christ. In his gospel, John describes the final moments he spends with Jesus before the crucifixion when they all sit down together for the Last Supper. During these precious final moments here on Earth, Jesus tells His disciples, "So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other." (John 13:34, NLT)
Now let's pause for a moment and talk about the depth of that commandment. These disciples experienced firsthand and in the flesh the perfect love that all human beings crave. They experienced firsthand the love of Jesus. Jesus knew this when He said the words. He knew His disciples would fully understand what this commandment meant, and still means to us today. We all have our own definitions of what a perfect love would look and feel like for us (and we often mistakenly place a heavy burden of expectations for receiving this love on our spouses and loved ones), but the Bible describes perfect love like this:
"Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. Love does not demand its own way. Love is not irritable, and it keeps no record of when it has been wronged. It is never glad about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance." (1 Corinthians 13:4-7, NLT)
Every single one of us have people in our lives that we love, and love dearly. But do you love like this? Are you never rude? Never irritable? Always kind? I know I'm not. I am so very far from perfect and was reminded of this fact daily over the last two years of my story. The truth is, despite being commanded to, as sinners we are incapable of this kind of love all the time. We need God's love and mercy every moment we are breathing oxygen into our lungs. We are to love Him first and feel the steadfastness of His love for us. When we make the choice to claim His law for our life, we are made more capable of this kind of love and are instructed to share it with others. Before I finish the last part of my story, I want to take a moment to address other believers for a minute. (If you are a nonbeliever, I am so glad you are reading and don't want you to stop now, so I'll try to make this quick.)
Fellow Christians, as a blessed people who claims to love God, we are failing miserably in loving one another as Christ loves us. I am bewildered and heartbroken over the current divisiveness that exists in our country, a country founded on the moral guidelines of scripture. One nation under God. Indivisible. With liberty and JUSTICE FOR ALL. Being a teacher, I stand with my students every single day and we pledge our allegiance to The United States of America. One nation, under God. God over country. Does anyone else see any inconsistencies with our nation's pledge of allegiance and the actual state of our country? We were founded as a country ALL people could claim to escape persecution and oppression, but over the last 240 years, we have become a nation of people who judge and criticize each other before making any efforts to create opportunities for connection. We hide behind our computer screens and almost flippantly announce on our Facebook status that "our prayers are with" those who are suffering, never stopping to get off our tails and show our faces to ask how we can actually help those who suffer. Ironically, I see more oppression going on inside the Christian community than outside and as a result, Christians are leaving the church at an alarming rate and our country, our world, is suffering because of it. We need to get ourselves back on track. Ask yourself this question: why did I become a Christian? If you are like me, you're answer has something to do with wanting to spend eternity in Heaven with Jesus. Doesn't everybody want to live for all of eternity in paradise? Sure! But how do we get there? I'm reminded of a bible story when I think of this question. The story I'm thinking of is The Parable of the Good Samaritan and you can find it in Luke, chapter 10, verses 25-37. If you've never read it, stop reading this and go read that. It's eternally more important than what I have to say here. If you have read it, pause for a second and go read it again. You can even click here to read it. (Love that internet!) At the beginning of this story, scripture says "an expert in religious law" asks this exact question to Jesus to "test Him." He says, "Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" Jesus refers him back to the original law of Moses which is first to "love the Lord your God with all your heart" and then, equally as important, "love your neighbor as yourself." (Matthew 22:37-39) The way the religious expert replies to this is so representative of the way most Christians, and all people really, live their life. He says, "And who is my neighbor?" He immediately wanted to know who wasn't included. Who could he get away with not loving? Jesus replied with the story of the Good Samaritan and concluded with a question followed by the best mic-drop moment. He asked the religious expert who he would say was a neighbor to the man attacked by bandits. The man replied, "the one who showed him mercy." Jesus replied, "yes, now go and do the same." [drops mic]
Are we, as Christians, really following this command? I, personally, am doing a terrible job. It's okay to admit that you might be too. I know a lot of amazing and strong people who are actually doing a fabulous job, and maybe you are one of them and let me be the first to congratulate you and say WELL DONE. Keep doing your good work of showing other Christians how to live life singing God's love, grace, and mercy. Singing it for EVERY NEIGHBOR. Not just those who mirror our same neighborhood, life goals, or skin color. I'm going to spend the next few posts trying to adequately describe for you how God used the precious gift of infertility to retune my heart to sing His love, grace, and mercy. It has been a wild ride and has left me permanently scarred and forever grateful. Grateful for a love everlasting. The perfect love story that will endure for all of eternity.
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