Wedding Bells

{Found this pic on someone's blog and I absolutely adore it :) }

As I sit here in Civic Space Park in downtown Phoenix, with my free Fair Trade Cafe Coffee in hand, in what I have coined as my spot (semi-awkardly using a trash can as my back rest), I finally have time to think and reflect on something that has consumed my mind for the past few days. With the wave of tests over, I finally feel like I can do this.


**pause** some random guy just came up to the trash can I am leaning on and spit like 5 times in there...he then proceeded to pace back and forth and hover...such is the essence of dowtown Phoenix I guess...MOVING ON...haha sorry for the tangent

Ironically, something that has been on my heart this week is the desire to be married...which is totally random seeing as I am as single as you can get and have no prospects at the moment. Which is usually how I keep it, no attachments or feelings to tie me down or get in the way. And I know I'm still young and there is so much I want to do with my life before I get tied down, but for some reason I have been thinking about marriage. I love the romance of it all, the man looking at the bride as if he is looking at the most beautiful object in the universe...the beauty of the flowers and the dress...the true essence of love in the air...it's magical! It's beautiful!

Aside from the beauty of the wedding itself, I think what I am currently obsessed with is the life that a husband and wife have together. I see cute pictures of young married couples who just look so happy and so in love, and I just yearn for that...I yearn for the security that comes with having someone to share your life with, someone you love....

That's it! Thats what I want....I want the security that comes with the marriage. It's the knowledge that I won't end up alone, it's the comfort of being taken care of and loved and cherished and able to have a true life companion. I have this fear, one of my biggest fears in fact is ending up alone. It's not being alone, it's ending up alone. I would consider myself an independent person. I like to do stuff on my own, accomplish something on my own, get over things on my own...I distance myself for that reason, for the knowledge that I don't need anybody. It's problematic because I am afraid that if I keep up with this independence, that I will always be alone. I fear the future, I fear the unknown, and I fear the thought of waking up one day as the crazy cat lady...having lived this whole life without truly living it.

Truth is, I know I'm never truly alone, I know that my life is not in my hands, it's in God's...and I know that He has bigger plans for me than I could ever imagine. So I yearn for the security of a marriage...a physical, earthly marriage because it will bring me tangible security, but what I know in my head but have been unable to accept in my heart, is that living a life for Christ brings a spiritual sense of security through the Holy Spirit and God actively working in my life. He is my shelter and strength, He is my refuge, my safe place, my secure place...on my own I can do nothing, but all things are possible through Christ. This is the hardest part for me, as someone who is so independent, to rely on God and have faith...to let go of myself and my own need for control...so so hard.

So as I struggle with myself, with the unknown and truly finding peace in God's plan for my life, I look forward to the day when He comes again. Scripture puts it as the church is God's bride and when He comes again, it will be like a beautiful wedding. I think of Phil Wickham's song "Beautiful" that last verse of the song always puts a smile on my face and in my heart..."When we arrive at eternity's shore, when death is just a memory and tears are no more. We'll enter in as the weddingbells ring. Your bride will come together and we'll sing...you're beautiful." I think of this glorious moment coming together and just basking in the beauty of the Lord and look forward to that moment. And I wait in anticipation when I can experience that beauty here on earth, on my wedding day...if it is God's will.

The possibilities in life are endless, it's about anticipating them and welcoming them with open arms and without fear...today I pray that I can't let go of this fear, after all "Perfect love casts out all fear" right? :)

The past revealed...

Wow, it seems like I am blogging a lot lately, which usually means I am avoiding doing what I should be doing (which is studying for the 2 tests I have in about an hour and a half)...



So this past weekend, I stayed at my parents' house, which is pretty much what I have to do on the weekends to have some sort of social life lol. Anyway, while there I came across this old little black book. No, not the kind that is full of peoples' phone numbers, but a little black book of God, or at least recorded notes/ minutes of old sermons. This belonged to my Grandmother on my mom's side. I don't know why, but I found this book completely intriguing. You see, my grandmother died when my mom was very young, so I have never known her and up until now, I never pictured her alive. I have always seen her as gone, passed away, some relative in a far off place never to be seen by my eyes, never to be heard by my ears, never to be embraced by my arms...I never thought of her life or the fact that she actually lived. To be honest, I even forgot her name as I had to shamefully ask my mother what it was. You could call me heartless, or ignorant for not knowing or wondering about my grandmother, but I just never got the chance to have a connection with her.



For some reason, this little black book opened up a whole new portion of my life, the history of a family I never knew. You see, this book was a record of a small group my Grandma attended back in 1945/1946...when she was about my age. They called themselves Sigma Rho Chi, they wanted to sound proper with a greek letter name...haha it seems like something I would do with my friends. It was their club, their Christian club, their community. They would meet once a week and do outside activities like bowling and going to the theater in NYC. Normal stuff, like what I have at Ember. For some reason, this connection to her has really resonated with me. She was at the point that I am at in my life, single, but surrounded by a strong community of God-loving people, just doing life together.

I wish I could have known her. I wish I could have talked to her about faith, life in general. I hear stories from friends who learn so much from their grandparents. I am down to one and I love him, but I only see him once a year...my heart breaks for my Grandmother and the relationship we never had. As I am writing this, I feel tears welling up inside me, partially cuz of my inabilty to meet her, but also for my neglect to know anything about her til now.

But you know what? Even though I have never met her, I still admire her. From what my mama says, her life could not have been easy, yet she kept faith. If I can learn nothing else from her, this would be enough...to keep my faith in times of struggle. She eventually met my grandfather in a church small group as well. Somehow, this gives me hope as well, that God will provide. He will provide according to His will, and His time. I feel like He is shaping me and my life in ways I can't imagine and can't even begin to understand. Even though my Grandma's life was cut short at a relatively early age, I am convinced that she lived a fulfilled life. And as a result of her struggles and the struggles my mom's side of the family faced in general, I feel so blessed to have the life that I have. They all faced trials so that I wouldn't have to. My grandma wasn't able to afford college, but I am blessed with that opportunity. So here's to my Grandma Doris, whom I have never met but look forward to seeing someday :)

Lisa Land

Just for fun!

So after doing some evaluation of my inner psyche...I have discovered a place that I like to call Lisa Land! Lisa Land is located in the innermost portion of my being through connections between my brain and my soul. So today I will give you a little glimpse of Lisa Land...just a fare-warning, it is a confusing and contradictory place that I guess you would consider an oxy moron....

In Lisa Land:

I want nothing, yet everything

I strive for independence, yet I long for companionship

I want depth, yet out of fear, I stay on the surface

I want love, yet I don't know how to give it

I yearn for greatness, yet I stay complacent

I am a dreamer, yet a failure

I am free, yet I feel so constrained

My head says one thing that my lips seem unable to articulate

I am clumsy, yet controlled

I am everywhere and nowhere

I am unorganized, yet put together

I am weak, yet invincible

I am me...crazy old me...as conflicted as anyone...I am a walking oxymoron and I live in a land all my own...but I am cool with that...Are you? Cuz I know someone who is beyond cool with that, He loves that and accepts me just as I am...He is the King of Lisa Land and reigns over my life...Do you know Him? Maybe you two will be introduced soon :)

Horses, Horses, Horses, Horses

I drove past a farm/house place the other day with a whole bunch of horses. It's over on Elliot east of Power if you know where I'm talking about. I took my eyes off the road (not too long, I am a good driver...occasionally) and I looked at the horses all couped up in their little fenced in area. There were at least ten of them, and they were just sitting there (some were standing there). It made me think of their lives, they have people to feed them and groom them and take care of them, basically do everything for them except the occasional horseback ride. My first thought was what an easy life that must be. This goes for pets in general too, I mean how nice would it be not to have any worries or struggles, how nice would it be to get everything handed to us? But then I thought, where is the life experience in that? What good is being taken care of if you stay couped up all the time, unable to see the world and experience new, and sometimes bad, things?

I know I sometimes feel that life is too hard, that my struggles are too much to handle. Especially when I am feeling down, it's so easy to get stuck, to feel like I can't or don't want try to be happy and see the brighter side to things. It's when this happens that I think of the horses, how easy they have it. But you know what, they don't get to experience the world like I do, they don't get to experience God's creation, or his love. The best thing about struggles is that we have the ability to learn from them, the ability to grow as a person because of those negative experiences. This time last week, I was down in my circumstances and consumed by negativity, but you know what, in the past week I have been fortunate enough to come out of that, to see the bigger picture. Because the truth is, God placed us on this planet to live and love; he placed us here as a part of His plan. And our struggles are a part of that plan, he calls us to persevere and build character and hope in Him. I have so much hope for my life knowing that God will work through it, that He will be there throughout the pain and the joy alike. Yes, we could have an easy life all constricted inside the fence, but where's God in that? His love has no bounds...let's love life and life's opportunities and rejoice and the good and the bad!

King of hearts

It’s been a while since I’ve posted…it’s been a while since I’ve felt like I had anything to say, or that it mattered. I come today literally on the light rail…it’s been a while since I’ve done this too. I come immediately after a test in anatomy, which I am amazed to say, I didn’t stress out over…not once. Anyway, the test was over the physiology of the blood and heart, so that’s what I want to talk about.

Somehow over time, by some power of linguistics that I am completely unable to understand, we as a society and I think as a world have developed two types of meanings of the word “heart”. We could take it in the literal sense, as in the actual organ in your chest that is keeping you alive; or a more common use of the word is a more spiritual sense that corresponds with the word “soul”. And yet another sense of a “heart” is the symbolic representation of love….wow you gotta love the English language for having one word mean so many things. Anyway, I’m going to talk about hearts today, it may be long cuz I have a lot of juices flowing in my brain, so we’ll see how it goes!

So about a week ago in my anatomy lab, I held a human heart in my hands. Obviously it wasn’t alive, it was a cadaver, but still it made me think… I thought of the lyrics to Phil Wickham’s “Safe.” It says “you will be safe in His arms, you will be safe in His arms, cuz the hands that hold the world are holding your heart.” Now, I’m pretty sure he wrote this lyric in the spiritual sense that I mentioned earlier, but right now I want to picture this physically…our hearts, literally our live, beating hearts in God’s hands. Think of what the heart does…it pumps the blood throughout our body to nourish it, to really supply our physical bodies with life. Clinically, you are pronounced dead when your heart stops…biblically, “the life of a creature is in the blood…” (Lev 17:11). Thus, we can conclude that the heart=life...So I picture my heart in God’s hands, with Him squeezing it every time it pumps, every squeeze a gift, an act of love, giving me life. I think of when I would hold my mom’s hand growing up, every time she would squeeze my hand 3 times…it was her way of saying “I love you”. That’s what I think of when God pumps our hearts; He gives us life to show us just how much He loves us.

Now apart from the physical, He still holds our lives in His hands. He holds our hearts and our souls and our lives. So, along with the sqeezing, I see Him sort of cradling our hearts as protection and comfort. The Bible says He is our refuge, our safe place. Psalm 46:1 "God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble." It also says numerous times that we can find peace and comfort in the Lord and that He has a plan for our lives. Psalm 48:14 "For this God is our God for ever and ever; he will be our guide even to the end." In holding our hearts, He also gives us strength Psalm 73:26 "My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever." All of these and so much more are evident as Christ is in our lives, holding our hearts (souls). I find this completely refreshing :)

Moving on, as I stood there with that heart in my hands all preserved with chemicals and dead (sorry to be blunt), I thought, that’s just it…its dead. The whole purpose of a heart is to give you life, but without blood and without a heartbeat, this heart had a limited purpose. All that it could do was teach me the anatomy of the heart; I couldn’t learn how it works without seeing it in action, all I could learn is where each part of the heart was. It’s like that with God. Allow me to explain, before we follow Christ, we are dead in sin; our hearts are simply that of a cadaver. Our purpose in life is limited, our knowledge in life is limited without Christ. Through Christ our heart beats, through Christ we have life and purpose and knowledge and love and peace and the list goes on… Looking at from researcher’s view, at one point in time they had to analyze a beating heart in order to understand how it works. These people are able to be enlightened through observing a living heart, just like we need Christ to truly understand this life and gain knowledge of the truth. We are alive in Christ, His spirit lives in us so that we may truly live, our hearts are beating through Him.

And of course, hearts are symbolic of love...how this has come to be, I don't know, but I'm guess it was catapulted with the invention of Valentine's day... anyway if you didn't know by now, God's love is pretty spectacular, nay stupendous, nay indescribable! To literally sacrifice your son for a bunch of sinners...I mean, thats huge! I find it interesting that sometimes we settle for earthly love, love that is tainted and short-lived. Now obviously I'm not saying that love is a bad thing, I mean I firmly believe that God placed us on this earth to be in relationship with each other and that he has someone planned for me who I will one day fall in love with and spend my life with (I am indeed a romantic)...I just feel like sometimes we let our physical earthly love get in the way of our view of God's love, we put our trust in human beings rather than God. And I think, no I know cuz I've been there, that this leads to a tremendous amount of hurt in the end. This creates heartbreak which again has both physical and emotional ties to the heart. Not only is a broken heart an emotional feeling, but there are indeed physiological effects. Now, I consider these effects to be in the heart but obviously there are many systems at work. Its similar to the feeling you get when you are anxious or stress, the pain in your chest as your heartbeat increases and your breathing gets harder. It's not fun but it definitely shows that the Lord's love far outweighs the heartbreak we find when we put our trust in humans.

His love never fails as He is holding our hearts :)