Trust Fall

Do you remember the game of trust-fall we used to play as kids? One person would stand straight as a board, arms folded across their chest, eyes closed, and would fall back, the other player behind them to catch them? If they stayed straight, and let the other person catch them, there was trust; if they bent their legs and slowly let themselves to the floor, they didn't trust their partner. 

I've been thinking more about trust lately and how hard it is to trust someone.
How it's hard to even trust God sometimes.
I was sitting in church yesterday, and I felt God asking me, "Do you trust me? Do you REALLY trust me?"
It kind of echoed through my mind in a way that I began to think more about the question, what does it mean for me to trust someone, to trust God, entirely?
If I were to be honest about it, I would probably say that I haven't been trusting God fully these last couple months.
In this time when I know that I should be falling back on Him and giving Him everything that is weighing me down, I seem to be trying to struggle through, and hike it out on my own.
I think subconsciousness, I feel as though God has let me down, that for some reason His actions have proven Him to be untrustworthy.
And maybe that is how a human mind will process it, but there is so much more at work that I cannot even see, that no one effected by a loss or a tragedy can see.
Just because someone has died, it does not make God's actions unjust, or make Him untrustworthy.
It just means that I cannot currently understand His ways.
I guess I need to get back to the place where I can know and feel that He is always supporting me, always walking me through, always doing what is best for me.
Know that He knows better than me.
In some ways, I feel as though I am relearning the whole God thing.
The patterns of faith that I must walk by have changed, but God has not.
I guess it's simply time to let go, and fall back, knowing full well that He will catch me.

To Write, or Not to Write....

I feel as though a great deal of my blogging has been cut off since David's death in April.
I think that a good portion of that has to do with my desire not to make this a shrine or a memorial to him.
I don't want to constantly drone on about my loss and how I am walking through that with the help of my God, my family, my boyfriend, and my friends.
Something inside of me says that you would not be interested in reading about that. (Though why you would truly be interested in reading my musings in the first place is beyond me.)
So, with that desire in mind, it is hard for me to find things to write about once again.
Part of me thinks that the writing process would maybe help me, make me find my voice once again, and maybe that would be worth it.
And yet, part of me does not want to have to look back over these posts and read what I was walking through this summer when I look at them again years from now.
Do you blame me?
Who really wants to relive by rereading their mourning process?
Reread the things that you felt and mulled over in the months after a searing loss?

I know someday I will come back and be able to write lighthearted joyful posts about the experiences I am having, the laughter Jon and I share, the funny things I get myself into.
Someday I will come back to writing posts on what God is speaking to my heart, things that I feel need to be shared with my generations.
But for now, I think I still need a break.
Take comfort though, because who knows what tomorrow may bring.
I may be surprised by an experience or by something that God reveals to me and will feel the unexplained urge to share it.
Who knows.
Really, only God knows.

Fathers Day

Father's day is an interesting conundrum for me.
I have very rarely spent father's day with my own biological father, and it has only been for the past few years that I spent father's day with a father figure.
And now, I'm back to spending father's day on my own in a sense.
This morning I was thinking about the past few father's days that I spent with David.
A couple years back on father's day, my mom was out of town, and my brother was busy somewhere else, so it was just David and I.
We didn't really have anywhere to go, so he wanted to do something fun with me.
He decided that it would be fun for him to teach me one of his old hobbies.
Golf.
So, after church, we went home, grabbed his old, dusty set of golf clubs and headed out to the driving range in Lima.
I remember being so disgusted by the golfing world.
I wasn't prissy, didn't look like I belonged on the golf course, wasn't good at hitting the ball, etc.
I think I even tossed out that golf was just an excuse for men to drive around in mini cars and hit things with sticks.
But, I remember that he enjoyed that so much.
He enjoyed taking me out and teaching me something new.
It meant a lot to me that he wanted to do that.
And, even though I complained and bucked about golfing, it is now a fond memory of David that I will forever treasure.

Been a While

It's been a little over two months since I wrote my last blog.
I got caught up in the winds of change, and have not made time to update the world on my life.
I was dealing with losing my wonderful stepfather, and I still deal with this loss on a daily basis. Some days are better than others.
I have stepped into an amazing relationship with my best friend. I fall more and more in love with him every day that I spend with him.
I miraculously made it through the gauntlet of finals and came out, not a failure, but someone on the Dean's Higher list.
I started up a summer job, working on the same team of painters at my college as I was on last summer. It's a steady job, and that's all I can really ask for at this point in life.
With all these changes, I have had to reshuffle how life goes on.
Time seems more sparse than it ever has before, and yet in some ways, I feel like I have all the time in the world.
I guess it is simply an adaptation process, and soon enough it will seem no different from anything else.

A Tale of Two Men

Six and a half years ago a man stepped into my life who changed everything.
He fell in love with my wonderful mother, my amazing brother, and I.
He married my mother only five and a half years ago, and quickly became another father to my brother and I, loving us like we were his own children.
He showed us what a relationship was supposed to look like.
He raised the bar for any friendship, any relationship, any man who would come in my life.
He taught us how to love and be loved.
This past Saturday, April 9th, 2011, my amazing stepfather, David, slipped into eternity to forever be with his savior.

Two months ago, I met a man who stepped into my life almost the same way David did. 

I met him quite by accident, but we quickly became friends. 

Best friends. 

He made it clear that he was interested in pursuing me beyond a friendship, interested in dating me. 

He wanted my mother and stepfather's approval first, and I felt the same. 

When David fell ill almost four weeks ago now, we were hoping to meet with my parents once he returned to health in order to get their approval of our relationship. 

When David went into the hospital, this wonderful man offered to drive me to the hospital any time I wanted to see David and my mother there. 

We went twice.

The first time, David was not entirely there, slipping in and out of consciousness, rambling nonsense with a couple moments of clarity, enough to tell me he loved me, that he wanted a hug, and how beautiful the thinks I am. 

But the second time, he pulled a fast one on all of us. 

He had my friend sit down and interviewed him.

I had never asked him to do such a thing. 

At the end of his "interview", David reached out his hand to my friend and gave not only his approval for him to date me, but his blessing. 

Three days later, he passed away. 

Two days after that, on April 11th, 2011, I started dating my best friend Jonathan. 

I don't think it is possible for me to express what an interesting conundrum it is to lose one incredible man in my life and gain another in the span of a few days. 

But, I am incredibly blessed none the less. 

Of the Story

When they came to the place of which God had told him, Abraham built the altar there and laid the wood in order and bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son. But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, "Abraham, Abraham!" And he said, "Here am I." He said, "Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me."

Genesis 22:9-12

I have been reading The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins lately. 

Today I am reading a chapter called "The 'Good' Book and The Changing Moral Zeitgeist". 

In this chapter, Dawkins is basically attempting to tear apart the bible, saying that all the stories in it are irrelevant to our lives, that they are a bunch of irrelevant, irrational stories that should have no place in our lives.

One of the stories that he attempted to tear apart is the one above. 

He tries to make this sequence in Abraham's life seem stupid.

He tries to convince us that we shouldn't follow after a God who would command a man to sacrifice his only son and then turn out to be "only joking after all".

I think Dawkins is missing the point.

I feel as though most of the bible is a beautiful narrative of God romancing the human race. 

I read sections of the bible, such as this, and see the wonderful foreshadowing that God set up hundreds, even thousands of years before the miraculous event of my Saviour's death and resurrection. 

I see a constant thread running through the bible always pointing towards the life of Christ and the redemption that comes through loving Him. 

It's beautiful.

So, Dawkins, I hope one day you can see what I see. 

Beauty and love. 

Abraham's Sacrifice

Rembrant

Stupid Question

About three weeks I got my hairs cut.
And by that, I mean there was about 8 inches more of my hair on my head three weeks ago than there is now.
So, what amazes me is one simple question that I have been asked so many times since that day.
Did you get your hair cut?
So often I just want to turn the question around and ask them, "I don't know, did I get my hair cut???"
But I respond with a cordial, "Yes I did!" and a smile.
It's all I can do from pointing out the stupidity of the previous question...