Legacy of Love

Happy Anniversary today to my parents! 

They're truly my favorite couple and thinking of their love for each other warms my heart. I'm excited more than ever this year to have celebrated this special day in their life together. :)

My dad was from Missouri. My mom was from Florida. The white boy and the Puerto Rican chick. Lol. A mutual friend arranged for a blind double date between them. My mom was still in high school at the time; my dad was graduated. They both agreed to the date. 

Sure, I don't believe in love at first sight, but things went fair on that blind date and little did they both know at the time, that day had changed their lives forever. 

Soon a much younger Daddy was going to Mom's house to meet her parents. *butterflies* So scary! Running incredibly late and riding his bicycle but dependable as always, Dad showed up on their doorstep well past dinner and daylight. Not the best first impression. 

Still, my mom's mother fell in love with him. Those green eyes, head of curls, and deep dimples could charm any woman's heart. My mom's dad was a bit slower in opening his arms to welcome my mom's new love interest. But he must've known the beginning of love when he saw it... and perhaps he knew his daughter well enough to know that once her mind was made up, there was no stopping her. Because after a time of a little drama and complications of a father's skepticism, my parents were dating with her daddy's approval. They were young and in love. 

He was twenty-years-old with green eyes and dimples my mom was crazy about. He sported a highly-prized fire-engine red Camaro (after a falling-apart maroon Le Mans) and a headful of tight black curls. A strapping young carpenter working through college toward an IT degree. He was patient, passive, outgoing, and a high school dreamboat the life of a party. But he looked at my quiet mom with wonderstruck in his eyes. And he still does. 

She was sixteen-years-old (a mature sixteen-year-old). That wavy beach hair, an awesome tan, and those gorgeous big brown eyes. True, she was still in high school, she didn't drive, and she sure couldn't cook yet, but she made a pretty killer figure in those stiletto heels coordinated to match the color of every outfit. Trim and petite, red lipstick, a bit of spunk and strong-will? *knowing nod* Yup. 

"When did you know he was the one?" I asked my mom once. 

She smiled with remembrance. "When I was driving his Camaro and hit a pothole with first the front tire and then the back tire, and he didn't get mad." Two flat tires, a rainy day, and romance. 

November 25, 1985, they were married. My mom was seventeen; my dad was twenty-one. "They're too young," people said. "It'll never last." But it has. Twenty-nine years going strong toward their goal of a golden fifty. 

But it might not have lasted. Like any couple, they had their ups and downs. They had their successes and they had their mistakes. They had their rough waters just as much as their smooth seas. But they were committed. My dad loved my mom and his little family and my mom's strong determination never gave up on him. In a world of broken hearts, broken marriages, and broken homes, they never gave up over the years and never gave in. 

The following summer, my mom gave birth to their first baby daughter, my sister Christina. Nine months later, she was pregnant with Baby #2, my sister Becky. By the next January 1988, my parents were blessed with two little daughters to hold in their arms. 

Five years into their marriage, my mom came to know Jesus Christ and through her example of 1Peter 3:1&2, "Wives, in the same way submit yourselves to your own husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives, when they see the purity and reverence of your lives," God opened the door to my dad's heart and he accepted Jesus as his Lord and Savior as well a few months later.  

Four years following the birth of their second daughter, my parents wanted another baby. And my mom became pregnant again! *squeal* The excitement! So you can imagine their dashed dreams when the doctor confirmed it to be a molar pregnancy and advised them not to risk trying to have another child. 

But they stayed strong together, supporting each other through the disappointment and the tears and the days when life weighed heavily. And after a year of weekly blood work for my mom, my parents decided to take the chance and risk trying to get pregnant once more. My mom got pregnant and in October, after a bit of complications in pregnancy, labor, and delivery, she gave birth to another healthy baby girl. Their third daughter: me. 

Married life wasn't always easy. There was a season when my dad was working two jobs to provide for his family and rarely got to spend much time with my mom and my sisters so my mom could stay at home with their girls. There were the years of financial struggles, when money was tight and finding the money for monthly bills was stressful. There was the year of living with my mom's parents while saving up money. And there was the year when my mom and sisters even had to scavenger for every loose coin in the house to buy a five dollar Christmas tree at a yard sale to celebrate Christmas with that year. 

And then shortly before my second birthday, there was the day when my dad was offered a new position in the company he worked at. A new position in Atlanta, Georgia. Leaving all my mom had ever known her whole life- all of her family, her friends, everything she knew- to go to a new unfamiliar place, my parents decided together to move to Georgia. To do what was best for their family. 

"Was that hard?" I would later ask my mom. Yes, she replied that it was. But her home was where her husband was. 

October 1996, they moved to Georgia and began their new life here. Shorter after, they moved from their temporary residence in an apartment to their own home, and in October 2002, they moved their family again into a big beautiful plantation-style home in the Atlanta suburbs. 

Laughter and love would fill that house in the next twelve years. Smiles would be captured and tears would be shed within its walls. There would be times of excess money to spend on luxuries and times of cutting back on their spending. Times of convenience and travel and financial blessing for the hard times of the past. Times of holding their children close and times of watching them leave the nest. Times of prayer and worship and fellowship with friends close to their heart. Times of celebrating milestones and birthdays, achievements and successes and holidays. Weddings and new birth and new romance. Times of welcoming prospective boyfriends, new son-in-laws, and a new granddaughter. There would be giggles and memories and weekend movie nights. There would be woven into the threads of that house, into the pattern of their lives, a legacy. A legacy of love would be built and carried on through their generations. 

My parents still live in that house and I with them. With their two oldest daughters married and moved out, the big rooms are left emptier and unoccupied until all their daughters and their families come home for the holidays. In our young lives, my sisters and I face our own seasons of uncertainty now. My sister Becky faces the sometimes unpredictable adventure of homemaking and having a new family of her own. My sister Christina faces the challenges of new marriage and a new home. And my own future of a career and a relationship remains yet uncharted. But our parents remain our anchor, our stability. Like a mountain, we know wherever life takes us and whatever comes our way, they'll always still be there with arms wide open and love abounding for us to come home, back to the heart of our family. 

And for me? Their love is an inspiration that's bringing tears to my eyes as I'm writing this. They've taught me how to love deeply, unconditionally. How to hold fast. And not how to love only romantically but how to lavish love everywhere I go. Love is love. They've influenced my perspective of relationships and of marriage and of family. They've influenced the kind of young man I'm attracted to and could envision a future with, and they've influenced the way that I demonstrate love in my life. My mom daily demonstrates for me the reconciliation of godly submission with a strong will (something I'm going to need!). They've taught me what truly has the most value in life and they've taught me the importance of compromise and sacrifices sometimes in life and in love. They've shown me that with enough sacrifice, selflessness, commitment, and the Lord, love can push through anything together. That sometimes you have to step outside of your comfort zone, do the hard things, and pioneer an unbeaten path according to the plans God has specifically for your family. They've shown me that God's always waiting there with a plan and a purpose even when we chose our own paths instead and even in the darkest moments of our lives. Through them, I've learned that God's plans for love is greater than any two individuals and is divinely orchestrated in the hands of God. And maybe more than anything, my parents have taught me never to give up. Never. 

Twenty-nine years and counting. And they're still as much in love as they ever were. This is the couple that still looks at each other with stars in their eyes, that still loves just holding each other's hand anywhere and everywhere, that listens to piano love songs together everywhere they drive, and that still steals away every year for a few days alone together in a cabin in the mountains. That still does all the couple things I used to think sappy when I was younger... like two years ago. Lol. This is the man who still treats my mom like she's the only woman in the world, who still buys her flowers just to remind her how much she's loved and appreciated, who still grabs her for a slow dance in the kitchen, who still writes her love letters, and who still loves to take her on trips and to nice restaurants and to experience the fine arts. This is the woman who still meets my dad at the door with a kiss every evening when he comes home from work, who still makes him a home-cooked dinner and lunch almost every evening, who still comes up behind him with a hug, lavishes physical affection on him, and builds him up with her words, who still supports him through everything and believes in him, who is still his partner in life- from doing yard work together and helping him with his handy-man projects to giving asked-for advice and wisdom and making decisions together. 

My parents are a couple who never left the honeymoon stage, and looking around at so many broken marriages, I think it's awesome. I've never once doubted in my entire life that my parents love each other, and that isn't something that every young adult can say. Twenty-nine years of such a beautiful relentless love deserves celebrating. 

To Daddy and Momma when I let you read this, thank you for loving each other and for loving me. For never giving up. Happy Anniversary! I love you! 

*yes, this story was shared with permission :)

Life Perspective

Life's funny sometimes, isn't it? It's so easy sometimes to forget our real purpose. 

But then you look back over the course of your life. You remember so many months of difficult change last year when all you wanted was to be fully happy again and to have life easy again. And yet, how strange it is when life is finally at calm again and you find yourself praying for more spiritual challenges. Because all your soul longs to do is the hard things for Him. 

You look back over your life and you see Him in every word of your story. You feel Him in every fiber of your being. You remember His works full well: the healing of the growth on your brain in your mother's womb and His hand on your life as you might've been strangled by your umbilical cord before birth. You remember the near dog attack as a child when you might've been mauled and the accidents in which you might've broken your neck or suffered brain injuries. You remember your fights with pneumonia and the succeeding month of slow recovery. You remember your struggle with self-image and His presence with you in that time when so many girls turn to starving themselves or to cutting or even worse, to taking their very life. You see His glory in every tear that has fallen from your eyes, in every passion He's given and every passion He's taken away. In every relationship He's brought together and every relationship He's caused to fall apart. In every friendship He's gifted you with and in the love He put in your heart for someone and the privilege He gave you in calling you to intercede for that someone. You remember the lives He's allowed you to be His vessel to use to touch, the spiritual and prophetic dreams He's given you, and the experience of almost hearing His audible voice for yourself with your own ears. 

My God is real and the sovereignty and glory of my Lord is woven within every thread of my story with every breath that He has allowed me to breathe. How could I possibly desire to do any less than the hard things for Him?

"O LORD, you have searched me and known me! 

You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. 

You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways.

Even before a word is on my tongue,

behold, O LORD, you know it altogether.

You hem me in, behind and before,

and lay your hand upon me.

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it.

Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence?

If I ascend to heaven, you are there!

If I make my bed in the depths, you are there!

If I take the wings of the morning

and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me.

If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night,” even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you.

For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb.

I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.

My frame was not hidden from you,

when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth.

Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.

How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!

How vast is the sum of them!

If I would count them, they are more than the sand. 

I awake, and I am still with you.

Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts!

And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!"

"The LORD will fulfill his purpose for me; your steadfast love, O LORD, endures forever.

Do not forsake the work of your hands." 

-Psalms 139:1-18, 23&24; 138:8

Person of Influence

I have a strong interest in psychology and one of the topics that I've come across in my research is rapport. 

By definition, rapport is "a relation marked by harmony, conformity, accord, or affinity" or more defined, "a close and harmonious relationship in which the people or groups concerned understand each other's feelings or ideas and communicate well."

In romance, some people might call this chemistry. But rapport can exist between any two individuals in romance, in friendship, or in business. In fact, the first and only person I've actually recognized I have strong rapport with is a friend of mine. 

Psychology says that rapport can be intentionally built and while I've never tried it before, it would make sense that it could be, though strong rapport takes time to develop. Supposedly, rapport-building techniques are used in sales, in counseling... anywhere in which it's profitable or beneficial to establish a feeling of connection, understanding, and trust with a customer or client. Rapport exists in its natural form though between close friends, family, or lovers. 

One of the best physical signs of good rapport and shared emotions is this thing called mirroring. Take a look at this couple:

This is mirroring. You literally mirror each other. You mimic the other person's body language, facial expressions, eye contact, even the volume and tone of their voice when they're speaking to you. I know, it sounds a little weird, but we all do it. You can be the one mirroring, you can be the one being mirrored, or you can mirror each other simultaneously. With my friend, I've found myself doing all three. 

I was hanging out at a party with my friend one time and we were both laying on the floor. We weren't laying together: we were quite a bit away from each other actually, each somewhat in our own world. But as I looked across the room at my friend, I realized something. My friend was mirroring me again. 

We were both laying on our sides, our positions opposite. The position of our feet, the way we both had one leg bent and resting crossed on the other leg, the way we both had our heads propped up with one hand, the way our other hand rested on our thigh, even down to the placement of our cellphones beside us and the way we would check them occasionally and tap away at our iPhone 5s touchscreens with our index finger. Everything about our body language was too identical. We looked like bookends. 

But then my friend changed position and sat up. Subconsciously, I almost did the same before becoming aware of my own body language. And I decided to try a little experiment with my friend. No, this was a one-time instance; I don't generally use people as psychology experiments, however I was curious this time to test just how strong the rapport was between us. So I remained in the position in which I was laying, knowing that if the rapport was strong enough, my friend would lay down again. Within a minute or two, my friend subconsciously returned to mirroring my position. 

My friend and I, though we aren't technically close friends in the sense of talking often and hanging out, mirror each other often because there is good rapport between us. Mirroring between two people is a sign of rapport between them. They understand each other, connect in some way, and as a result, they influence each other. Yet, as with my friend and me, the majority of mirroring between people is entirely subconscious and natural. We mirror people and are mirrored by people but rarely in the moment do we recognize the mimicking of our body language, our facial expressions, our eye contact, our vocal tone and volume. We don't usually think about it and pick up on it. It simply comes as a result of the rapport and connection we feel to certain people. We become in-tune to people and in-sync with them. 

And as proven by my little experiment with my friend, rapport can be an incredibly strong, powerful, magnetic, and persuasive force to be able to influence us without our recognition. 

But just as people can influence us so strongly physically, so we can be just as influenced by others in all areas of our lives. In our physical actions, yes, but also in our emotions, in our spiritual life, in our convictions, in our opinions, in our decisions, in our relationships, in our interests, in our attitudes. 

"Do not be deceived: 'Bad company corrupts good morals.'" (1Corinthians 15:33)

As Christians, so often I think we get caught between this verse and our responsibility to reach out to the lost. We like to think that good morals can change bad company, but the truth of such illustrations as "one bad apple spoils the whole bunch" never changes nor does the same truth of this Scripture verse. More often than not, it's the other way around. Bad company corrupts good morals. 

We also so often hear brought up this passage in Mark 2:15-17: "And as he reclined at table in his house, many tax collectors and sinners were reclining with Jesus and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. And the scribes of the Pharisees, when they saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, said to his disciples, 'Why does he the eat with tax collectors and sinners?' And when Jesus heard it, he said to them, 'Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.'" It's true, Jesus spent a lot of time being surrounded by the ungodly, but if you look in the Gospels, who did Jesus most often hang out with? Who were the people in His close inner circle? The disciples. Jesus spent time reaching out to the lost and being in the company of sinners, but He didn't hang out with them as best buddies. Those closest to Him were believers. 

Earlier in the year, I used before an illustration more about these varying circles in our social life and I reshared it in the preceding post "A Look-Back Post."

But the truth remains that we are so influenced by the people we allow ourselves to be close to and the influence those individuals have upon us isn't something we can safeguard against. Just as most physical mirroring occurs subconsciously, so the people within our inner circle have an influence and an impact on our character and our lives without us fully realizing it. The changes happen subconsciously until one day we become aware of that influence when we already see the effect of it in ourselves. 

This can be a positive thing or it can be negative. The decision is ours. Each of us has so many people in our lives and it's our choice who we will allow into our inner circle. Let's choose to surround ourselves with the company of strong positive believers whose faith and encouragement and relationships with the Lord are those that we want influencing our lives for good and drawing us closer to Christ. And better still, let's learn to train ourselves to become so in-tune with the Lord and with His Spirit that we begin to mirror and imitate Him in all that we do. 

A Look-Back Post

I had shared this post earlier in the year on January 5th as a Facebook devotional and its written in a style different than how I usually write now, yet it ties so well to the next post I'm about to share with you all that I thought I would reshare it here. :)

I was emailing a friend of mine yesterday. Like me, she's single, and among many other topics, we share thoughts with each other about godly relationships. 

I had reached the part in my super long reply when I was responding to the part of her email about godly relationships and God just gave me this little illustration. I wanted to share it with you all. While it's geared toward singles, it can really be applied to any of our lives. 

I was typing away at rocket speed on my iPod when this came to me: 

Fellow singles, you do not need a relationship. You do not need a boyfriend or a girlfriend. There is one single relationship that you need in your life and that is all. Your relationship with God.

However, while you don't NEED any other relationship in your life, that doesn't change the fact that you may WANT other relationships in your life. That's healthy and normal. But in application for anyone, you don't NEED any other kind of relationship, romantic or not, other than your relationship with Jesus Christ. 

He illustrated it to me this way: your relationship with Him is like a bowl of mashed potatoes. It's the main food. The important part. The food you NEED. All other relationships are just blessings that are meant to be complements to the main relationship in your life- your relationship with Jesus. They are the salt and pepper that add to your relationship with Christ. That are meant to build us up in Him and contribute to our relationship with Him by encouragement, edification, love, prayer, support, inspiration, motivation for spiritual growth, etc. They are always meant to complement our relationship with God. 

Relationships in our lives that don't complement that main relationship in our lives should have no place on our plate. They might need to be on the tablecloth beside our plate. This doesn't necessarily mean we should cut people out from our lives completely. We need communication to minister and reach out to people. But maybe they need to be moved to the tablecloth instead of being allowed to affect the taste of your mashed potatoes because they may be detracting from its taste rather than complementing it. Not everyone needs to be in the inner circle of our close personal life. 

But for the people that are in our inner circle, it's important that we remember to always keep those relationships in the context of our relationship with the Lord. When our relationship with Him is no longer a part of another relationship, we've taken away the mashed potatoes and are left eating a teaspoon of pure salt and pepper. And that's just yucky. 

Never forget, Facebook friends, that our relationship with Him is the only relationship we need. He's enough, He's everything, He's all we could ever need. Any other relationships He blesses us with are just meant to add to that relationship. They aren't meant to stand independently outside of the context of our relationship with Him. 

Needless to say, don't allow your identity or security, self-respect or satisfaction and fulfillment to be tied to any person in your life. That should all be found in Christ and Christ alone. 

And in speaking specifically to my fellow singles again, this is SO important for us to get. Until we can realize that we don't need any relationship in our lives besides our relationship with Jesus, we will never be ready for Him to bless us with any other relationships. This is the key to contentment right where you are. This is how Paul found happiness and contentment and reason to rejoice in his singleness. 

Until we realize this, we will forever be restless and discontent and unsatisfied without a love relationship besides our romance with our Heavenly Bridegroom. And if we enter into another relationship without having learned this first, we'll be needy and possessive girlfriends and boyfriends. And that is not the kind of seasoning that would complement our significant other's own relationship with the Lord. 

If we have a relationship with Jesus, we already have all that we need. ALL that we need.