Friday, January 14, 2011

Pushing

It’s strange when you discover a part of yourself, a longing, a hurt, a love, that you never knew existed. It’s like hearing the sound of a baseball game far off in the distance and suddenly discovering that you want nothing in the world more than a good hotdog. We push things down, we push them aside, we push them far away, but soon we realize that we only pushed them deeper into ourselves. We push them because we don’t have the time or the energy. We push them because we get distracted. We push them because they hurt too much.
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I have been pushed before. You know you’ve been pushed when you wake up one day and find that you don’t exist anymore. You reach out and where there once stood flesh and bone and love, there is only an empty void. The only choice once you’ve been pushed like this is to close the gap, to keep moving. To sit at the opening of that void and mourn will only drive you crazy, because it’s the choice of the other person to turn their face toward you once again. And sometimes they never do.
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Sometimes things get pushed out of necessity or chance, like they just drift into the margins of our psyche as other things take their place. People drift apart or move away, and at some point or another, they don’t occupy our thoughts anymore. Our focuses shift and our priorities rearrange, but nothing ever really leaves.
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Our pushing, I believe, whether by chance or choice, is never permanent. Someday the things that drift, or those that we try with all our might to distance ourselves from, will reappear in our line of sight, suddenly and without notice. It happens without our permission, when we run into a face or a smell or a sound that we thought we had forgotten. It’s seeing a picture of an old love whom you thought you had left behind, and finding yourself wishing that you were in the picture too. It’s hearing distance in someone’s voice and feeling a rush of pain at every rejection you thought you had overcome. This is our minds screaming at us, fighting against the movement that takes us further from ourselves, that distances us from feelings we were supposed to look full in the face. We cannot run from our own minds, and soon enough they will force us to be honest with ourselves.
Get ready.
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This happened to me last week when I helped my parents move the rest of our belongings out of our house in Elko, NV. My family moved to Arizona a few months ago, and this was the final step in making the transition complete. I thought before coming that I was ready to leave Elko. I used an interesting mixture of denial and bitterness to distance myself from the goodbye that was imminent, and it would have worked had I not come to help with the move. Walking through my home with no furniture inside of it, I started seeing everything with new eyes. Home, I thought. This is my home. It started to sink in, started to become real. Denial was no longer useful, as I could not ignore the permanence of the move any longer. And bitterness was slowly slipping away as I came across fragments of old memories. One afternoon, cleaning out my parents’ closet, I found a lamp that a very old friend gave to me on my 16th birthday. Nostalgia and longing washed over me at the thought of Julian, this friend who had left Elko a few years prior. I hadn’t talked to him in so long, hadn’t thought of him in ages. But my thoughts became consumed with him for the rest of the day, wishing I had his number so I could tell him that I found this lamp. But it was too late, and I would never see him again.
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That night, God rearranged the universe in order to give me a gift. Circumstances that should not have been, were, and I found myself all of the sudden face to face with a flood of memories that had only been slowing creeping back into my line of sight as Julian walked around the corner into my yard and caught me as I leapt into his arms. And I suddenly discovered that I need him. I suddenly discovered how much I have always missed him. My heart remembered a time when he was utterly important to me, and suddenly I was 16 again and Julian was one of my dearest friends.
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My house in Elko.
It wasn’t a new feeling, or even a renewed one. It was more like a reminder. I found my love for Elko all wrapped up in my love for Julian, just waiting for me to remember it and accept it, despite the most certainly painful goodbye it would cause. And it was a painful goodbye. Goodbye to Julian after so many years and so little time to make up for it. Goodbye to my home. Goodbye to my memories.
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But it was a goodbye that needed to happen. If Julian’s presence hadn’t pulled my love for Elko out from the corners that I had pushed it into, there would have been no goodbye, and such a huge step in my life would have been left incomplete. As humans, we are meant to experience things, good and bad. We are supposed to make transitions, leave things behind, love so deeply it hurts, and hurt deeply for what we love. To avoid any necessary action of human emotion or growth denies what our hearts and minds are at their very core, what they were made to do. Our challenge is to avoid taking the easy way out, when we have a choice. Sometimes things get pushed out of chance or necessity; they need to be pushed. But we must not push those things that our hearts and minds yearn for us to pay attention to.
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What we must understand is that pain, while unattractive, is not necessarily a bad thing. Our culture places a stigma on pain that is unhealthy, most especially on men. Strength, interpreted as the ability to hide emotion, is preferred-- but it is dangerous and destructive to our hearts. Our lives are essentially a journey in which God is drawing us to Himself, growing and changing us until we reach Him, our ultimate goal. We can resist this drawing. We can resist it by knowingly resisting Him, or by refusing to live the life we have been given by Him. We do it all the time when we lie to ourselves and to others about we we want and what we need. 
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I don’t need to say goodbye. I don’t love you anymore. You’re not important to me. I’m over it. It’s not a big deal. It was a long time ago. It doesn’t affect me.
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Our challenge is to be honest with ourselves in saying Yes, I am hurt. It does affect me. I miss you. It certainly hurts more to acknowledge these parts of us, but if we don’t, there is something lingering inside of us that is incomplete, and it will surely rear it’s head someday. It’s in the man who hated his father so much that he turned into him, or in the woman who ran all her life from intimacy and one day woke up to realize she had no one. Saying yes to whatever life brings our way is a step. Saying yes to our past, no matter how painful or confusing, is a step. And then the Lord will help us in dealing with it, face to face. This is how healing comes.
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There is something beautiful about recognizing our humanity, even in small ways. There are profound moments when we discover a part of ourselves we had forgotten or pushed away, and we remember that we are made of flesh and bone. We are mortal. And it is ok. May we run this race to the finish, you and I, and reach the end complete.
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Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. James 1:1-4
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It is better to go to a house of mourning 
   than to go to a house of feasting, 
for death is the destiny of everyone; 
   the living should take this to heart. 
   Frustration is better than laughter, 
   because a sad face is good for the heart. 
   The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, 
   but the heart of fools is in the house of pleasure. 
   It is better to heed the rebuke of a wise person 
   than to listen to the song of fools. 
   Like the crackling of thorns under the pot, 
   so is the laughter of fools. 
   This too is meaningless.
Ecclesiastes 7:2-6
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There is a time for everything, 
   and a season for every activity under the heavens:
   a time to be born and a time to die,
   a time to plant and a time to uproot,
 
  a time to kill and a time to heal,
   a time to tear down and a time to build,
 
  a time to weep and a time to laugh,
   a time to mourn and a time to dance,
 
  a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
   a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
 
  a time to search and a time to give up,
   a time to keep and a time to throw away,
 
  a time to tear and a time to mend,
   a time to be silent and a time to speak,
 
  a time to love and a time to hate,
   a time for war and a time for peace.
Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

Sunday, January 2, 2011

20 Highlights from my 20th Year


  1. The birth of my precious niece, Jade Lynn Blaesing, on January 5th, 2010.
  2. Switching from a global studies major to sociology.
  3. Switching from a global studies minor to a business minor.
  4. Living with three incredible roommates, again, Spring semester!
  5. Weekly meetings with Team Himalayas: love, friendship, and revelations from the Lord!
  6. Triple Holly Thursdays! and Smoak’s Hebrew class.
  7. Being the omelet girl in the dining hall three days a week: getting up at the crack of dawn to work with my favorite chefs, Maged and Hani.
  8. Human diversity with Carrie Peirce.
  9. Life and teachings with Baloian.
  10. Getting on a plane that took me to the other side of the world-- 1st out of country experience!
  11. A 19 hour layover in Singapore airport. :) 
  12. 2.5 weeks in India: precious children, adopted grandmas, answered prayers, and miracle after miracle among and through my beautiful team! Praise the Lord.
  13. 8 days praying over God’s beautiful creation in a closed country.
  14. Revelations in Starbucks in Singapore with 3 beautiful girls :)
  15. Spending ten days in Hawaii with my roomie Kim and her awesome family!
  16. A summer trip to Colorado to see good friends.
  17. Spending a semester in LA with a most valuable and wonderful friend: Kimberley Winther. Tears, joy, anger, and adventures in the City of Angels together for 3.5 months!
  18. The second birthday of the most handsome little man in the world, my nephew Haiden Eric Blaesing.
  19. Getting to know my host sister, Stephy Gonzales, the craziest and funniest little beauty ever!
  20. Spending Christmas with my family in our new home in Kingman, Arizona and finishing off the year with them.
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This year, EVERYTHING changed.
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My hopes for next year:
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That the Lord would solidify in my heart all that He has taught me.
That I would embrace the woman He has made me to be.
That I would run with more conviction toward the dreams He’s given me.
That the old and new friendships in my life would blossom.
That my time would be well spent, and that I’d always be willing to put aside obligation for the sake of love.
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May the change be EVIDENT in my life!
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Praise the Lord.
Praise the Lord!!