My Story: In a Nutshell

On my left arm, from shoulder to elbow, I have a tattoo. My tattoo took three hours to complete and a good chunk of my savings at the time. In script, sandwiched between roses at both top and bottom, my arm reads, "For I know the plans I have for you, [declares the L-rd,] plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." Though the design is beautiful, over the following weeks, I struggled with the decision I'd made to get this large tattoo. I think a piece of that struggle had to do with what prompted the tattoo in the first place.

When I was eighteen, I fell in love. Shoving all my logic and my reason aside, ignoring the code I'd created for qualities my future mate must have, and blind to all but my feelings, I quickly got engaged. Over the next three years, I missed sign after sign that this relationship was not meant to be and I slowly lost sight of who I truly was and what I truly valued. Though I didn't think I was altering myself to please him, who I was changed subconsciously. College is a time of great change for most people and that was very true for me. At the start of freshman year, I was completely in love with the wrong man and only marginally faithful to G-d. As my collegiate career progressed, through the influence of my friends, professors, and classes, as well as the calling of the King Himself, I changed. I started to fall out of love with my fiance and draw closer to G-d. I may have realized the second part but it is only in retrospect that I can understand the first.

Before my King pulled me to Him, I ran away. I got scared I think and I wasn't ready to sacrifice the major life changing decision I'd already made, to give my life to this man, for a far off Creator who I didn't feel very close to. I felt my life could both serve Him and hold to the decision I'd made. Worse than that, I fell down a rabbit hole. I made some very large mistakes and I gave myself to him before I gave myself to Him. In the name of love, I broke the promise I'd made when I was nine years old. I had sex before I was married.

Only four months after I initially made that decision, G-d started to convict me. He laid it on my heart that what I was doing was wrong. But after talking out my confliction with a close friend, I tried to make things right with both G-d and my fiance. The resulting conversation was the worst fight I have ever been in. The heartache I felt that night, the number of tears I cried are something I wouldn't wish on another. Somehow, we put a band aid on our relationship and lasted another nine months. It took six months for him to be all but done and another three for G-d to fully work in me.

As my first relationship fell to pieces, I clung to G-d. I clung to His promise and His truth. I knew that He had plans for me that I knew nothing of. I knew He had a future for me and that He knew who my future husband was. I got my tattoo while I was still healing from my heartbreak. I took His promises and I had them engraved on my body. I struggled to come to terms with my tattoo at first. I wondered if I'd ever look at it and not think about my heartbreak. I wondered if I'd ever get over what went wrong in my life. I wondered how that story would affect my future. Then people started asking about it. I started encountering people outside of my circle, who didn't know my story. They'd see flowers poking out of my shirt and they'd admire the beautiful artwork. Inevitably, they'd be surprised at such a large tattoo on such a little girl. And they'd ask. They'd want to hear the story. Where are those words from? What made me chose that?

The tattoo on my arm started as a way to heal, a reminder of the promises He made and why I'd chosen to end my relationship, to sacrifice that part of myself. These days, it's so much more. On a regular basis, I have customers at work ask me what it says, admire the roses. I'm able to share an abbreviated version of my story with them. I'm able to tell them that all my plans fell apart but that I trust Someone else has better for me. And today I sit here, in Ohio for the first time in my life, my head resting on the arm of the man who now means the world to me. I know G-d has better plans for me. And today, I'm able to start living them. What's past is past and my future sits beside me. No matter what lies ahead of me, I know that G-d has a future in store for me and my tattoo is one small way that He reminds me of that on a daily basis.

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G-d: In the Details

This summer has been so very full. So much has changed. I feel more fully me now than I did at the beginning of the summer. I'm closer to my "true name" now. I feel comfortable in my own skin and I feel closer to being an adult. A real adult.

One of the things that has changed this summer is my relationship status. It's impossible to make anyone else understand this but three months ago I didn't know Wesley and now I'm head over heels in love with him. I truly believe we have a future together. This relationship is something that G-d put together. They say nothing is like first love and I do believe that. Nothing will feel quite the same as falling in love the first time. My relationship with Ron was unique. And I did love him, truly. But it wasn't what G-d wanted for my life. Decisions I made were made outside of His will and somewhere in the back of my head, I knew things were wrong. I knew that my life was going in a path that it wasn't meant to.

This relationship, already, is like nothing I've experienced. Before we were even official, Wes decided he wanted to pray with me. Our relationship started rooted in faith, in G-d. I prayed that if G-d wanted Wes and I to become an "us" that He would open all the doors, and if not that He would slam them shut in our faces. We're like nothing else. I'm confident that he is what G-d wants for me. The way I feel about him is hard to put into words.

I remember asking Auntie Lori about how you knew you were ready for your first kiss years and years ago. (I think I was about 15 at the time.) She told me you just know. And honestly, I do believe that. I also believe that I just know that Wes is the one. It's impossible to put into words how I feel about him. Just like you can't explain what it feels like to be ready for your first kiss, you can't explain how it feels to know that G-d is writing your love story. I feel completely secure in this. Yes, things are going fast according to typical standards. But they don't feel fast. Camp, like college, gives things a jump start. Just as I was super close to my roommate and the girls across the hall within a few weeks of school starting freshman year, just as Emma knows things about me that friends I've had for years don't because we lived together, or as Emy and I got close enough to share a bed within about a month and a half of knowing each other in London, Wes and I got started being trapped in canteen together for seven hours a week into the summer. Things have moved fast because they've been put into a sort of crucible. They've melded together, fused together quickly.

Today seems like a day that G-d is making Himself known in the little details, the little choices of my life. I've had three job interviews in two days. Two for one place and one for another (that one was a second interview; the first was on the 9th). I didn't really want to even apply at the one that I've had two interviews for. I did it to please my dad. After the first interview, I really didn't want to go back for a second interview. I didn't get a good vibe from it. But to please my dad, I went to the second interview. I waited for 20 minutes before they finally saw me and then after a 10 minute interview was basically offered the job. I asked about benefits and pay rate. They're both worse than at the other place. Yay for my gut feeling being backed up by facts.

Afterwards, I met Wes for coffee and bagels and then we walked home. When we got to the pond, I chose to go the long way around. I hadn't been that way in forever and it's prettier. Halfway round, I look across the pond and see someone walking a dog. Ron. I haven't seen him since before I left for Europe. Didn't know where he was living, if he was even still in state. (Frankly, I had suspected that he was still in the area. His motivation and his work ethic were not up to the ideas he had. But I assumed he wasn't living with his parents.) I was surprised to see him. If we'd taken the short way back, we'd have run into him. And I'm glad we didn't because I'm glad he's not part of my life, I'm not sure what I would say to him. To quote Blake Shelton, "Not only [I] don't love [him], but [I] don't hate [him] anymore." It was the way I'd feel running into a friend from high school, the way I felt when I used to run into Lindsay at Jo-Ann's before we patched things up. Awkward and unsure of how to act. I would have had the same reaction if Wes wasn't there. And I was startled to see him. In the same way I was startled to see a comment from Reigna on an old FB photo. I'd forgotten she might show up there and her presence shocked me.

But if we'd gone the short way, we would have run into him. It was right about even with how far we were. And the fact that I chose to go the long way today seems to me like a little detail in which G-d is showing Himself. The reassurance that I am making the right choices with my life now, that I am happy and that my past is truly my past... I see G-d working in my life, orchestrating the details. And I am so glad my G-d is so big, so strong, so mighty. There truly is nothing my G-d cannot do.

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Vulnerability in Pre-Camp Prep

The theme for this summer with the camp I'm working at is Close Encounters. I'm supposed to think about encounters I've had with Christ and get ready to share them. The time that I've felt G-d's love most clearly was during the six months surrounding my break-up. But to share that story, I feel like it's so complicated. And if you've heard me tell stories, you know that I get long and rambling and try to tell all the little details. There are details in that story that I don't want to share right now. There are details in that story that I don't think are necessarily public information. Honestly, I don't even want to share the fact that I was engaged. I feel that it adds to the failure I suppose. If you've gotten that far with someone and you couldn't make it work, isn't that a sign on you? Never mind the fact that he gave up working on us before I did. Never mind the fact that it wasn't G-d's will in the first place. Apparently ending my engagement makes me a failure.

Consciously, I don't think this. But apparently my subconscious does. Because she doesn't want me to share that. I also feel like it will make me less desirable to men. Like my past will scare them off. So my ex-fiance has become simply "my ex" and I am going to choose to leave out the wedding planning and the proposal unless it's absolutely necessary for the point I'm going to make. (If my point includes my sexual past, then my engagement will probably be mentioned as well. But does my sexual past need to be included in every discussion? No. I'm no longer broken. I'm over it. Unless it makes sense to become that open, that particular struggle is going to remain private. My closest friends know. Everyone who reads this blog knows. But do my coworkers need to know? Nope.)

Because of my tendency to try to include every detail, the story of how I encountered G-d so closely and so tangibly would be very very long. But if I bear it down to the essentials? (Or is it bare it down?)

We grew apart. We grew up and as I got closer to G-d and he did not find Christ, we fought. Our priorities were misaligned. I was unwilling to admit that we couldn't make it work, unwilling to give up my first love, and I was unable to see that I was more emotionally invested than he was, that I was more serious about us than he was. He was done fighting for us, wasn't willing to work on us any longer. But I was stubborn. And I wasn't ready. So we made an agreement not to decide until I was home from finals. During that three month period, we would work on us 110%. During that time, G-d worked to show me I had been romanticizing and that my view of where we were was very different from where we really were. Our issues were bigger than I thought they were. G-d showed me that Ron was already out of the relationship emotionally. He showed me also that it was never in His will for me to be with Ron and that my relationship had become more important to me than my G-d. I moved from unwilling to let go to tentatively willing but praying with all my heart that I wouldn't be forced to. Finally, I saw that I had to. And in that three months, in all the chaos that was going on in my soul, I knew that was the right thing to do. I knew it was so difficult because I was so resistant, because I was so stubborn, and because I had fought against it for years, if I'm truly honest. G-d gave me the strength to call it off and He gave me comfort in the aftermath. Both through Himself and His love, through the reassurance that I was doing what pleased Him, and through the support of my family and friends in ways I never imagined.

When I bear it down to that, even if it's still not a short explaination, it's much shorter than the rambling story of why that I could give. And it's much more reasonable and less scary to think about sharing.

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Excuses, excuses...

Hello, folks...

Long time no see, eh? For a bit, I was using my journal a lot more and didn't feel the need to use this. Then for a bit I've been avoiding writing. First because I didn't want to confront leaving Europe, leaving my girls, moving on and then because well I'm avoiding delving into my psyche. I'm sure there's a lot going on in there regarding leaving and coming back and no longer being an ex-pat and trying to figure out where I fit in. It's easier to leave the door closed. There's stuff in there too about how I feel about my Poppy (my almost 95 year old great-grandfather) moving to a nursing home and how I feel about my kitty being 15 years old (which is one year shy of when we lost my oldest cat, my Smokey).

There's irritation at not being able to get around on my own thanks to the lack of public transportation and there's distance between myself and G-d that I don't want to confront.

Honestly, that's the biggest one. When there's distance between G-d and me, I don't blog. I don't journal. Doing that makes me confront the distance and the sin and the issues I've let crop up. I've read my Bible the last two days (after skipping nearly a month) and I'm feeling convicted but I haven't prayed. And that is what's going to get me back in touch with Him. So I need to do that and I know it but I know that will take time and emotional energy and it is just so much easier to watch TV than to drain myself like that. Today though I'm going to the gym (actually I'm leaving in about fifteen minutes) and hopefully I can use some of that time during my run to get in touch with G-d. I guess we'll see though.

I leave Sunday for camp and will have limited internet access so I'm not sure how much you should expect from me until August.

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Romans 12: A Revelation

I have never fit in. It's a simple fact of my life. I was never popular and I've embraced the idea that I am weird. In fact, someone told me a few weeks ago that I was normal and I argued with him. The idea of being normal to me is tied up with the idea of fitting into a box and being a cookie cutter Stepford wife. Or whatever the equivalent is for a single twenty-something. So when I came across Romans 12:2 at Circle C Ranch years ago, I immediately clung to it.

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Right there, in black and white, in the first three words of this verse, it says, "Do not conform". I clung to that command. Do not conform. Do not be like this world. It's okay to not fit in. It's okay to stand out. It's okay to be your own person.

I still believe it's important to be yourself. Later on in the chapter, Paul talks about using your own unique gifts and how each person ought to use his own talents in a way that pleases G-d. My gift is not money management. I am not meant to be the treasurer of my church's board of directors. I am not meant to be an accountant. My gifts lie elsewhere and I need to be true to them. (That's part of what I'm doing in writing this, frankly.)

The problem with the way my thirteen-year-old self interpreted this verse though is that she stopped after the first eleven words. Oh she had every word memorized. But the first three were what she clung to. When she was bullied for not dressing how everyone else did, "Do not conform to the pattern of this world." When she was accused (as if it were a bad thing) of being a lesbian since she'd never had a boyfriend and she had joined the Gay-Straight Alliance, "Do not conform".

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She missed what the other three quarters of it say. To paraphrase, "Do not conform. Rather, be transformed mentally." She was so glad to cling to the idea that she wasn't supposed to look like the rest of the world that she forgot that she might have to change. She wasn't required to be clad in American Eagle from head to toe and listen to Top 40 radio but she also shouldn't remain static in who she was. The changes that should have overtaken her were more mental than physical and had nothing to do with popularity. She needed to learn how to relate to her parents without screaming. She needed to learn how to be a follower of Christ and not a fan of Jesus. She needed to learn how to seek His face daily. And she needed to learn how to start her journey towards being the godly woman He wants her to be.

If she had realized that, if she had moved past the acceptance she found in the first verse and if she had realized the transformation that G-d was trying to work in her, she might have found the promise found in the second half of the verse more readily. If she had learned how to be transformed in light of His desires, she might have realized how to find His will sooner.

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She didn't learn that. But I am. At thirteen, I needed to be accepted and I found that in Christ. I found Someone who didn't think I was weird and didn't want me to change in order to like me. I found someone who never fought with me over stupid things and who only wanted my best. I found someone who loved me. At thirteen, I needed that. But I wish that I'd revisited that verse with fresh eyes a few years later and realized that G-d was not calling me to a life of doing what I wanted. He was not calling me to a life of doing what made me happy. He was calling me to place my life on His altar. He was calling me to offer my body as a sacrifice to Him (Romans 12:1).

My life is supposed to be lived in a way that pleases my King. If I follow in His will, my life goes so much easier and I am happy. It might result in temporary discomfort but in the long run what He wants is best for me. If I let Him change me, I realize what He wants much sooner and I am able to say with conviction that I am living in a manner that is good and pleasing in His sight. I am able to say that my life is being lived in a way that brings glory to my King. I wonder what my life would be like if I'd learned this lesson before. That's a question I can never know.

What I do know is that I am learning now. And G-d has been good to me. He has arranged for me to have this amazing year, to return to the city where I left my heart four years ago, to make a friend there, and has lined up my next job, my next step. I don't know what comes after that. But I know I can trust Him. After all, He's gotten me this far. And if I keep letting Him change me and work in me, I have no doubt that I'll be able to see His will for what comes next.

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