Date Your Friends

I don't mean "date your friends" as in choose only significant others that started as a friends (not that that is a bad thing). I mean make your friends a priority in your life and spend time with them.

This post is inspired by my fairly new friend Sarah who had dinner at my house for the first time tonight. While we talked about this subject, "dating" friends, I think the event itself it fits the topic. We sat around my dining room table for not quite, but almost, four hours, chatting about a variety of things and getting to know each other better. Having a few deep, intimate moments and some moments of laughter, some anecdotes, some dreams about the future. Like dating... but friends.

How many marriage advice columns have you read that could be applied to virtually any meaningful relationship?
"Forgiveness is key"
"Laugh together"
"Communicate well"
"Say you're sorry"
"Make time together a priority"

We have glorified romantic relationships and diminished friendships. We have made true love life's greatest goal and we have emotionally assaulted the single people of this world, shunning their utter failure to conform. But romantic relationships are not the greatest good. Neither are friendships, I suppose, but they're worth a lot more than I think we give them credit for.

It's time we dated our friends.

Next time you read a list of "50 creative/fun/cheap things to do with your S.O.," read it instead as "50 creative/fun/cheap things to do with one or many of your friends."

Get to know your bros and gal pals intimately. Care for them. Invest in them. Be intentional.

I invite you to do pursue such a habit (lifestyle, even) alongside me. Chasing after what I think I want has gotten me nowhere, and it's time for a change.

Me being passionate with Kiley

God bless.

Addendum to: Impossible Dreams

Since I posted "Impossible Dreams" mere hours ago, I have been unsettled. I think I know exactly why.

I imagine many of you reading it and wondering why God has not made your dreams come true. I imagine many of you re-facing terrible wounds and scars from unanswered prayers. I imagine you becoming infuriated with me because I have told you that God will grant you something that he hasn't and won't. I imagine you doubting his goodness and love.

I'm sorry if this is the case. I want to clarify.

Believe me when I say that I know what unanswered dreams are. I am not old; I have not gained much wisdom or life experience. But already I have suffered intolerable pain. Here is one example.

I dated a fellow a few years ago. He was the only boyfriend I had that my parents really didn't like, but I loved him so fiercely. I was much, much more in love with him than any other man I have encountered before or since then. Now, I am of the belief that Jesus saves those who accept the salvation he offers. As for the rest, those who reject him and his salvation... well, I believe in Hell, too. And this particular man completely rejected even the existence of God let alone his love and salvation. Maybe you can imagine my heartbreak, maybe not.

I cried out to God on his behalf. I wept for hours (not hours total, but hours at a time), begging God to bring life to this man's dead soul.

And as far as I know, God has not answered my prayer.

I have spent over two years picking up the pieces of my heart.


I prayed that God would give me a meaningful job after graduation, and that he certainly answered. But my job also consists of walking through intense darkness with my clients suffering from severe mental illnesses. It's a heavy weight, and whether I'm clocked in or out, I can feel the cloud hanging over my head. After my pastor preached on depression this morning, mascara streamed down my face for the remainder of the service.

So despite my post earlier today, my life is not entirely peachy.

I don't know why God does this. I don't know how he picks and chooses dreams to grant and dreams to deny. His goodness is prevailing; I can trust him with that. I can believe it in my head even if I cannot understand the reason why.

I don't know why some people suffer with mental illness their whole lives. I don't know why there is such a thing as the "cycle of poverty." I don't know why crimes are committed against the innocent. I don't know why you're still not married or why you still haven't been able to have children. I don't know why you're in a job you hate. I don't know why your closest loved one is dead or dying.

But God is still good. Please hear me! Jesus himself despaired; he felt the pain you feel. He is the only balm for your soul. If you cannot have faith in impossible dreams, remember that this life is temporary; the days of your pain are numbered. Hope in Christ, hope in Christ, hope in Christ. Through him, joy is coming. That is a promise.


God bless.

Disclaimer: Some of the ideas I just wrote about are from straight out of my pastor's sermon which will be available to listen to later this week on veritascolumbus.com.

Impossible Dreams

When I was a little girl, I told my mom that something I wanted to do before I died was to see a firework from above. I don't know if I understood that fireworks are spherical rather than circular, but for some reason I thought it would be a cool perspective. Mom told me it probably wouldn't be that great of a view considering the background would be all the stuff on the ground rather than the plain black of the sky. I saw her point, and knew that my dream to ever see a firework from above would probably never happen, but for some reason I always remembered that conversation.

Some dreams are just not meant to come true.

I still continue to have impossible dreams. These are more than just items tossed on a bucket list, or simple prayer requests; these are things that I can only dream about, but doubt they could ever be a reality. They're too good to be true. Perhaps God can and does make "dreams come true," but is that something I can expect from him? Aren't those only for the blessed few?

God has made some of my dreams come true. I remember a few years ago desperately longing, out of the blue, to go to Jamaica. Soon, an opportunity to go there for a spring break mission trip was practically placed in my lap, as well as the funding from generous donors. God gave me such joy from this brief but poignant answer to a dream. A few months later, I got to go to Juneau, Alaska. A year later, I got to go back to Juneau. My point is not that I am well-travelled, because I'm not, but that God fulfilled the longing in my heart to be elsewhere. You can literally go back a couple years on this very blog and watch the story unfold.

A few months ago, there came a deep and troubling longing in my heart to be back in Juneau again. A third time. It seemed like such an impossible dream! I would be so far away from home and family and familiarity... But if only I could live there! If I could walk out my front door and see those stellar views again. I ached and I craved.

God has blessed me with all I dared ask for right here, where I am in the lower 48. He gave me a lovely place to live, a very meaningful job (which for a while was my fervent request, but not an impossible dream), an amazing church, and my family within arms' reach. How could I be discontent? How could I ask for more?

Many of you probably haven't heard yet, but it's happening. I'm moving there and I don't know how long I'll stay. Perhaps only a year. Perhaps forever.

I have faith in impossible dreams now. They may still seem just as impossible, but at least I can know in my head that God loves to give them to me. I have more impossible dreams that are too personal to mention here now and that I know are far from being granted, but I believe in God's pleasure in making impossible things come to life. So I don't give up as easily on the impossible anymore.

Let me close with this:

I was flying home from Juneau on July 5 this year. The sun and our plane parted ways over opposite horizons when traveling from Seattle to Chicago. I took pictures of the dazzling clouds despite knowing that those pictures could not compare to what was seen with the naked eye. Night fell. When we got near Chicago, I saw something that caused tears to roll down my cheeks and my heart to sing praises to God. I saw fireworks... lots and lots of fireworks, from above. The background was a beautiful, glittering city. It was positively stunning. God took care to grant me my silly childhood dream. Now, whenever I think of impossible dreams, I think: fireworks from above.

I sat in the Chicago airport that night and wrote a letter to Aunt Amy about what I had seen and the boost of faith that God had given me; that I doubted less now that God could and would do miraculous things in and through my life.

May God also put fireworks from above in your life. His sweet tenderness toward me is yours as well. His love for you is just as great as it is for me or anyone else.


God bless.

Laziness

I want everyone reading this to know that I wrote it about a week ago and was too lazy to ever finish or edit it:


Today's prompt from 365 Days of Writing Prompts is called Breakdown: "Tell us about a habit you'd like to break. Is there any way it can play a positive role in your life?"

Yes! I do. My roommate would probably say it is Candy Crush, but I would say it's a bigger habit than that: it's laziness.

The only possible positive role my habit of laziness may have in my life is it keeps me from over-working myself. On the spectrum, I definitely lean more toward not doing enough than doing too much. And maybe that's a good thing. Maybe.

I knew getting an iPhone would doom me, yet here I am. Thank goodness I was smart enough not to download the facebook app. But I was foolish enough to download Candy Crush and other time-sucking games.

I play them under the guise of relaxing my brain, especially after a long day of work. I just need to wind down, I tell myself. Texting is suddenly faster (and funner) now, too, so I've been doing a lot more of that as well.

But I can't blame my sin on my phone, now can I? No, I had the same problem years before I ever got my first cell phone. My whole life has been spent in front of the computer screen. My whole life I have whined, "I'm bored!" and when my mom would suggest something useful I could do, I'd resolve to just stay bored rather than exert myself in anything less than super fun.

Little has changed.

In school I've been a procrastinator. At work, I love payday and I love clocking out. I avoid doing my chores. I would rather buy junk food than cook. I rarely practice bassoon even though I'm still actively playing.

When does the cycle end? How do I force myself off the couch? How do I muster energy from nothing? How do I muster motivation?