Birthday Wish

You know how people tell you to "make a wish" before blowing out your candle(s)? I was thinking: well, who am I "making a wish" to? I guess that would be God. But then, I can ask God for anything any time. So then why is a birthday wish meaningful? 

Throwing out my bad fake logic from above, I still think it can be meaningful and that God cares about my "birthday wish". I guess it's like a tradition, or a check-in point for people, to evaluate what they really want, on their birthday. 

What do I really want for my birthday, from God? My immediate thoughts went to either other people's healing (please heal XYZ people emotionally), or to mend relational tensions, because often it's easy to just want God to hurry up and "fix it" -- whatever "it" is. But sometimes God wants to grow us by making us do the work, or having us partner with Him to "fix" it. And sometimes God doesn't just magically fix things instantly, but He has a plan.

So I scrapped those ideas and searched deeper in my heart. My deepest desire is to be able to love God more. To be able to really love God with all my heart, all my mind, all my soul, and all my strength. And also to really genuinely love others. 

I know it sounds so cliche, like I'm just reciting some sunday school answer, but it's so real to me that I can tear up and cry just thinking about how much I long to be able to love God more. Not that crying is the standard for genuine feeling, but this is truly my strongest desire in life. To love God with all my heart, all my mind, all my soul and all my strength. I don't even need to mention loving people, because you can't love God without loving those whom God loves. And my only desire there would be that I can love people the way God loves me. I am so loved. 

I Know I'll Never Love This Way Again

I'll Never Love This Way Again - super old song by Dionne Warwick

I don't know many songs but for some reason I know this random old song. It's on my melancholic playlist

I was listening to the song with the lyrics again today, and I didn't realize how "mature" the lyrics actually are. Especially the second verse: 

A fool will lose tomorrow, reaching back for yesterday

I won't turn my head in sorrow, if you should go away

I'll stand here and remember, just how good it's been

And I know I'll never love this way again

Except, I'd like to change the conclusion from "I know I'll never love this way again" to: "I hope I'll always love this way, again and again" -- that each person I meet and love, only increases my capacity to love, in a deeper and better way. 

I understand the sentiment that "I'll never love this way again" is because you want to reserve special affection towards someone, and there couldn't possibly be anyone the same; there couldn't possibly be anyone who could replace that person, the memories and the affection. But I see love as bigger than that. Love permanently changes you. If that love was so significant and made such a positive impact on you, then it should have made you better, given you strength to carry that forward and view life in a positive hopeful way. 

But yea, of course, there is a time for grieving. 

Many people have experienced grieving over the loss of their college days. One of the memorable times for me was in 2016, when I was in Indiana, a college friend texted me a photo of one of my close college friends being very her. Someone was hugging her and she was like rolling her eyes. Seeing the picture brought me to tears while I was in the Walmart parking lot. I knew that even if I found a job in CA, that it would never be the same again. That was when I felt like I fully grieved for the loss of college days.

In 2013, in upstate NY, a bunch of my co-workers (who were also friends) were hanging out at someone's apartment, having a really great time. There was a snow storm outside; we were all sitting on the carpet joking around. Afterwards, I saw one of my coworker's blog posts--this was my college friend also, and the person I was closest to at work, who was about to leave the company soon. She titled the post "Half Pain Half Joy". She writes: "I will remember this day. The beginning is defined to be indefinite, but I only want this all to end. Is it years of nostalgia that will follow?" It was so well-worded and memorable that I still remember her post 8 years later. 

A few weeks ago, Church people asked if they could schedule a meeting on my birthday, and I was like "yea, it's fine. Every day is my birthday". I really meant that. I do feel like every day is my birthday. The past 8 months, I have been able to hang out quite often with my 'social bubble' aka closest friends. There were a few months that I hung out so much that it felt like college again. or a retreat. It was beyond amazing.

But I know COVID is almost over. Traffic / rush hour is returning. People are going to go back to Church in-person, and work in-person; I can't sleep late anymore; I can't take naps in-between meetings. I can't play with my friends as much anymore. Life will resume. It'll be hard to adjust. But it'll be a healthy adjustment. This year was like a giant retreat -- really healing, a lot of friendships, a lot of love. But it's time to adjust to new changes ahead. A new season as the charismatics like to call it. I did write about some of my COVID takeaways in the Ignite women's blog

Validation for your pain

I was asked to write a blog post for our women's ministry's blog. Usually people write about something God helped them through. 

After reading my draft, I felt like it was just focused on my past pain; it felt like I was showing off my pain, like: "hey everyone, look at my pain; look at the hard stuff I've been through". But of course it's really subtle. And I know there is a valid reason to describing the details of your pain, because maybe someone else will relate and gain something from it. But, I realized that perhaps my desire and intention was to show off all that I've been through. 

I think it is natural to want your pain to be validated. There is something in us that feels that the pain was unjust. Why did we have to go through that? Another part in wanting validation is wanting respect and understanding.  I really like a quote by Katie Luse :

"Emotional pain doesn't like to be pushed. It needs to be validated, then healed. People are the way that they are for a reason. And it's not generally because I want to be an angry person with rage.. but I somehow got there,.. and so validating that you are the way that you are for a reason..."

"Sometimes honor is all that people need to heal. Sometimes all that people need to hear from you is that your pain matters to God"

I get that there are different steps to healing. The thing is that I'm actually over needing validation. That stage has long past, but I'm still used to presenting my past pain in a way that seeks validation, and perhaps it's like: well, it couldn't hurt to get even more validation even though I'm past that. Who doesn't want more respect and understanding from man? (when we should really be seeking that from God)

There definitely is a balance. Some people are constantly seeking sympathy and validation from people. It seems like it's never-ending. Someone should come up with the 5 stages of getting over emotional pain, similar to the 5 stages of grief. One of the stages should be validation. Now, I'm in the "joy" stage, perhaps the last stage or the step after the last stage. 

 Also, I really like this song by Greg coles, author of "Single, Gay, Christian" (which, btw, is a very good book). Speaking of pain and respect, I respect this guy for walking through the pain he went through, and still choosing Jesus. His book is very well-written; I highly recommend it.