Addressing Skepticism

     My most recent relationship status has caused quite a buzz. Mostly excited and supportive responses thankfully, but I know there are skeptics among you. I do not blame you for this as a reaction. From the outside looking in, I believe it is warranted. Therefore I decided to give a brief window into what it’s like from the inside looking out. Allow me to jump right in.
     Let me make something clear from the outset: we don’t “complete” each other; it’s insulting to the other person to claim that until now, me without him or him without me we were incomplete, unfinished and the only way to be complete is to invite each other into our lives in an intimate way. That’s silly. The idea of “soul mates” is far from a biblical concept – it’s a romantically pressured one perpetuated by society. To all you single guys and gals, I’m sorry – it’s an impossible standard to achieve, and one many believe in.
     While we don’t endorse the soul mate concept, we do have our ways of describing the rapid depth of our connection. So far the best (and still unworthy) explanation I’ve conjured up is that he and I have recognized pieces of our own souls in each other; we have discovered a divine similarity between us. Personally I think Joseph portrayed it best when he said, “We are almost analogous to male and female permutations of the same soul.”
     These claims have provided the vehicle for us to transcend time itself. This experience has been incomparably ethereal. Between meeting Joseph on the 4th of March and my day trip to Baltimore to see him about a week later felt like a lifetime. It has been three weeks since we met, and from then till now has also felt a lifetime long. We have compacted a larger span of time into a smaller temporal container. Time is, like many things, relative. Our three weeks are nowhere near the same as yours. We understand each other on a level that has never existed before due to its impossibility.
     We transcended time, and continue to. I have never thought so clear or felt my mind so broad and challenged by anything, let alone a single individual. It may seem as if we’ve hurried into things, but there has been absolutely no rush. From the outside looking in, the pace is breakneck, but that’s the nature of our organic timeline. It’s like in algebra – when you know all the rules of the equation you solve it quickly, almost automatically, especially compared to when you were first getting acquainted with how every variable fit together. We’ve learned the rules, and this is the product of our combined equations.
     When I was younger and beginning to grasp the gravity of finding God's best for me, I often asked my parents to describe how it felt for them to get to know each other, and when they decided that they wanted to be together forever. This is a common question with an indescribable answer, and the common clichéd and useless-at-the-time response is typically, “you just know. When you find the right person, you just know it,” or “you feel as if on top of the world!” Being the way that I am, this always frustrated me; I wanted a checklist, or a litmus test or something. Rules to rely on. This feeling of “just knowing” seemed improbable and impossible. What if I didn't realize it? What if I somehow missed it? It all became complicated and worrisome. I was incredibly skeptical of it.
     Until now.
     Now I understand completely what they meant. Because I feel it. The indescribable feeling is in me. I “just know.”
     And I am so achingly certain of it that I would stake my life on it.
     It’s insane, I know. But having previous romantic pursuits to compare to throws this in stark contrast when placed next to all the others. It has far surpassed even the wildest expectations I could imagine.
     Neither of us went to EPA intending to meet anyone in this way, and yet here we are. We were not searching, and yet we found. We are swaddled in God’s divinity, cradled in His palms, and I have never been so certain of something in my life. (Yes, it even rivals my certainty concerning my passions for creative writing.)
     I wrote in my post from 2013 “Infernal Love Triangle Devices” that I was confident when God brought my future husband into the picture, the man He had hand-selected for me, I would know it. To quote the post exactly, “…I’m very particular about the qualities and lifestyle choices of the man I will marry in the future. … I, someone who always tries to have the lowest of expectations, am expecting a lot of the man for me. This makes it very easy for me to believe that once I find him, it won’t be long before I know he’s the one. God knows what I’m looking for and what I need, so once I’ve recognized all that, it will be obvious.” Such confidence!
     I know my expectations, standards, and requirements were tricky for any one mortal to score high on altogether. But I had finally seriously entrusted the worry about my future husband to God, surrendering the last thread I was white-knuckling. It did not need to be my responsibility to hunt for this man. If I truly believed all things were possible, God would have me covered. Obedience and trust were the only things expected of me. So I relinquished my human need to control, folded my hands in my lap, and made peace about waiting patiently for God to move. I had done my part, and He would certainly do His.
     The fruits were almost instant. God is faithful, y’all. His promises are far from empty.
     Earlier in the week leading up to EPA I did a lot of praying and ultimately let go of this obsession with stepping in front of God and arranging my future as if I knew better than him. (I don’t deserve his unflinching forgiveness.) Then, mere days later, enter Lightning Boy (aka Joseph). Unbelievable.
     I’ve always been skeptical of “just knowing.” Now I truly understand. It’s the closest thing to enlightenment, to Heaven, on this side of death.

Dear Future Husband

(à la Robert Morgan, Dark Energy) 

Love me like Jesus loves the church.

Affirm your commitment with words;

songs or poems or handwritten

letters. Buy me office supplies:

pens and notebooks and notes that stick.

Curl my belly with your witty

morbidity, and don’t forget

to let the dog in at night. Live

with passionate ambition, tell

me every tiny detail while

I whip up two mugs of fresh brewed

tea. Be a reader, sponsor my

love of language. Activate your

soul’s depth with exercise; please join

my yoga sessions later in

the morning. Don’t make a habit

of spitting, and pay attention

to the sidewalk under your boots,

the drumming patterns of raindrops.

Remember to treasure me all

of our lives, for someday, darling,

when dim stars edge the ebbing blush,

I will return to ash and dust.

There's a Crack in My Crystal Ball

The entirety of last week, I was deeply unhappy; my soul possessed a supreme discontentment – even the bits of soul down in my pinky toes felt it! And the worst part? I couldn’t even put to words why. Thoughts could not embody this disturbance in my being. It drove me crazy.

For days, I woke up with a frown that barely shifted with each passing hour. A reason to pin this crappiness on would have been marvelous, but it took a while for me to properly interpret it.

As most of you know, I am in college finishing up my junior year with a double major in Psychology and Creative Writing. The double major had been something I was 100% certain of even before I set foot on campus in the fall of 2012, as well as plans to go on and get a Master’s in Psych. Freshly 18 years old, I had the next 6 to 8 years of my life planned out as far as academics, and at least 4 years of that I was undoubtedly sure of.

Now that I am on the cusp of finishing my 3^rd year out of 4 in undergraduate studies, the post-graduation future is looming and the pressure of that unfortunately has pushed me to be the most stressed out I have ever been in my life, and I do not say that lightly. I do not get stressed because I don’t allow myself to, but over that week I had to admit that I was discontent with something and stressed out about it. But what the heck was it? I needed more variables to fill in this equation – thus far it was all question marks.

I had been doing what every decent Christian does – pray. Most of my prayers that week consisted of me asking for clarity about my future, about where I was supposed to go and what to do. A couple weeks before that ultimate-stress-week, I had been telling God to make it obvious when He lets me in on my future plans, because I know I’m not the best at interpreting between my feelings and God’s intentions. I distinctly recall saying during family prayer time for God to sledgehammer the obviousness into my head if need be.

Careful what you pray for, kids.

Stress-week was emotionally and spiritually painful (sledgehammer to the soul?). Wednesday night I finally found a faint glimmer of clarity: I didn’t want to go to grad school in Psychology anymore.

It was a feeling before it was a verbalized concept, one that presented itself in tears before words.

There was an acute internal trigger, and through the sniffles I verbalized to myself why I was so discontent. I had realized I didn’t want to go to grad school in Psychology and I had to tell myself it was okay. It’s okay when plans change – now is much better than later, too; for instance, in the middle of a Master’s program for Psych I sure as heck would not have wanted this realization. And anyway, it didn’t currently change much, although initially I thought it changed everything (more stress).

I wanted to write. As soon as I admitted that to myself, I was rushed with alleviation. I wanted to get an MFA, go to a graduate school program that would better my skills. Writing is my passion and has been solidly since 2010, but the seed was planted years before that. Writing is something I cannot live without, while psychology can remain dormant without much fuss – there are so many indicators of this that I feel a fool for not seeing them. Last semester I didn’t have any creative writing classes whatsoever and didn’t have any time to write creatively, so academic papers took over. By the end of the semester, I was crazy with the need to write something, anything creative.

Over spring break (February 28^th to March 8^th) I was home with my parents, and the very first day I was there, my dad and I had a lengthy conversation about the future. At that point I had still been sure about my Master’s-in-Psych decision, and I told this to him. He squinted his eyes a little and gave a small smile, saying he thought years ago that my idea was that creative writing is the capstone and psychology was going to be a helper in that realm. Writing was the Pacific Ocean and psychology was just one of the many rivers that eventually leads into it. Instead, psychology had taken over, in retrospect I think because I had career-minded thinking and had already written off using a creative writing major as a potential future career.

Funny how people on the outside have more insight into my own mind.

Later in the realization week I got Chinese take out for dinner. I happened to walk out with two fortune cookies and for some reason only cracked open one. The fortunes was unsurprisingly inconsequential and irrelevant.

On Sunday I got the urge to crack open the other one, just because. I hadn’t even planned to eat it. The message inside made me roll my eyes and smile.

God finds himself hilarious.

And I blessedly find myself in the arms of pure contentment. 

Finding God by the Bathroom Sinks

January 9, 2011

I never expect much when I walk into a public restroom. Maybe all the stalls are out of toilet paper or the only working toilet is clogged. Perhaps even the bathroom is completely void of paper towels. My expectations never exceed much of anything.

But even then, things still catch me by surprise.

It was a regular Sunday at church; I sang and worshipped, shed a few tears at the lyrics and was dismissed to The Zone where the youth services were held. Upon exiting the main auditorium, I realized I had to use the bathroom. I had never used the church bathroom before and I also thought it weird because I hadn't drank much of anything before we left. Even so, I still walked down the short hallway and made a left through the door labeled Women. I went into a stall and did my business, but as I went to stand and do my belt, someone else walked in. Normally, it wouldn't give me pause, as it was a public restroom.

Until I heard her speak.

“All right God, you've got my attention. What do you want me to do? What…what do I need to do?” she said, and I could hear the tears plainly in her voice.

Quietly, I tried not to pull her out of her God moment and simply unlatched the door and walked to the sinks. She looked over at me and gave a faint, apologetic smile as she wiped her running eyes with tissues.

“Sorry,” she told me after a sniffle. “I thought I was alone.”

A strange, nervous heat tingled in my stomach as I saw the helpless expression clearly on her face and went in for a hug. I had never met this girl a day in my life, but in that moment, it did not matter. She didn't shy away but actually leaned into the embrace.

“God wants you to do something magnificent, I'm sure,” I tried at a smile. She continued to wipe her eyes.

And in that moment, it didn't matter that the service was about to begin or that I'd be late for it. All that mattered was this girl, this torn, powerless girl who happened to stumble into the bathroom after me.

The heat in my limbs pressed me to reach out to her, and I knew immediately that it was the Holy Spirit. I decided to ask what was wrong.

And then it was like I had broken open a dam of thoughts; things just started pouring out of her. Not just things, but very personal life things. Again, I didn't know this girl and she didn't know me.

She said many, many things that just made my heart go out to her. She told me that she felt like she was at a point where she was unloved and alone and lost. Her boyfriend's mom absolutely hates her and has spread nasty rumors about her. She's been called every bad name in the book. All of her friends have pretty much ditched her to the point that she was praying for someone to come along and be a good friend, the friend who would actually listen to her.

She allowed me that precious position for an hour as she sobbed through her hurts and troubles.

Time was nonexistent. I knew I probably wasn’t going to make it into the youth service, and that was all right. I had found God by the bathroom sinks instead.

After this girl felt she had let a heavy weight ascend from her shoulders, we hugged again and she thanked me for asking if she was all right and listening even though I could have chosen to quietly wash my hands and leave to get to The Zone on time, and missed this opportunity completely. I told her that listening is what I do, and I was glad she found my face friendly enough to spill her thoughts to.

Her smile was full of humble gratitude as she called me an angel, one sent specially from God for her. There was no doubt in her mind that there was a good reason I felt the need to use the restroom even though in the several times I have been to the church, I have never ever walked through that one particular door.

We walked out, said our farewells, and she was lost in the crowd pouring from the sanctuary doors. The services were over.

I stood there, trembling. The excited, supernatural energy had not yet dissipated from my body.

I couldn’t help the grin on my face. I probably looked stupid, standing there in the hallway smiling to myself. It didn’t bother me in the slightest; people could think what they wanted.

In the name of God, I had been seen as an angel to someone. I’m not perfect by any definition of the word, and I constantly wish to be so much closer to God than I am, but I knew in my heart that this is exactly how I was meant to be portrayed to the girl crying in the bathroom. An angel, sent to answer a plea for help – not to do anything spectacular or showy, but something so simple. To just listen.

To those of you that know me, you know that this is one of the main reasons I want to go into the field of Psychology. God apparently nurtured this talent of listening in me for more reasons than one.

Praise Him for using a broken, sinful human being like me as His megaphone to reach out to a broken heart.

God…you are so, so amazing.

Pageviews by Countries

So apparently now I’ve got people reading my blog (or perhaps accidentally stumbling upon it long enough for the “pageviews” count to pick it up) from not only the United States, but Canada, Belguim, and India. (Oh, and 53% of them use Firefox. Little fun nugget fact for you.)

Somehow I feel like this is just perhaps some screw up of the IP addresses, but who really knows. Maybe there are some curious looney-seeking people out there.

Well anyway, I just thought that was an interesting little morsel.

EDIT/UPDATE:
I was just looking at pageviews for the week! The screenshot now is of all time!  Russia takes second place under the United States? Bizarre. I love it though. (: My day had officially been made.

Ta~

-V