Quote of the Day 2/3/14

 “True friendship is a sacred, important thing, and it happens when we drop down into that deeper level of who we are, when we cross over into the broken, fragile parts of ourselves. We have to give something up in order to get friendship like that. We have to give up our need to be perceived as perfect. We have to give up our ability to control what people think of us. We have to overcome the fear that when they see the depths of who we are, they’ll leave. But what we give up is nothing in comparison to what this kind of friendship gives us. Friendship is about risk. Love is about risk. If we can control it and manage it and manufacture it, then it’s something else, but if it’s really love, really friendship, it’s a little scary around the edges.”  [Shauna Niequist]

Quote of the Day 12/18/13

"And then I will look a little more carefully with a little more love at my surroundings, to listen to what can be heard in the depths of the wreckage. The footsteps of friends on the deck. The calls on my phone from family. The texts of kindness. The emails of opportunity. The likes and the comments and the hearts and the replies from every other broken heart. When the army doesn’t come for you, when no one chooses to fight for you, when no one dives in after you with fairy tales and promises, you write a different story. You write a tale of adventure and chaos, of survival and fortitude, and instead of wishing to be saved, you save yourself. "        [Kelton Wright]

Something borrowed.

I am currently in the decision making process of what to write/how to make time to work so while I am away, I thought I would share this post that I stumbled across a few days ago. 

These are two beautifully written letters between Miss Right and Mr. Right. I love how honest and true and vulnerable both writers are and they encompass how many are feeling, especially as a twenty-something. I think that it is fair to say that a lot of us have reached a point that we are ready to open up our lives to share with someone else. In all honestly, despite many unknowns and variables, I am at a place where I am at peace and filled with joy. I know who I am and no matter where I go, I know the purpose and path to follow. That being said, "two are better than one" and I know I am not the only one in consensus in that statement. 

If you are at a point where you are praying and seeking to enter into a new stage of life, I think you will really be touched by these letters. I hope they touch you as much as they touched me!

getting it together

Every time I wrote I can't believe how much time has passed since I last blogged and I always get upset with myself. I love to write; I love to receive y'all's messages and emails and I even love the hate mail. I heard once that if you are offending someone, you must be doing something right, so I hope that perhaps I am doing something right..

Year 3 finished the first week of May and I enjoyed a few days at my parent's home before heading out into the big ole 8-5, Monday to Friday, business attire clad world. My 6:45 alarm calls are a consistent reminder  (or annoyance) that this is the real world. I've had jobs consistently since I was 15, but something about working a solid 8-5 block has really put things in perspective.

That being said before I dive in what's really been on my heart and mind, Id like to say that despite everything, I am beyond blessed and incredibly lucky to live the life I live. San Diego is beautiful, my home is welcoming and inviting and every day I am learning new things about my city, my friends, myself and life as a whole. I can't forget to mention that for a foodie as myself, San Diego is a food Mecca. It has every type of food and cuisine you could think of, whether you spend 5 dollars or 155 dollars, there is something delicious to be tried. I am working on a huge blog post of everything I have the chance to eat and the things my stomach is jumping for joy to try! Check back soon for that. Warming: don't read on en empty stomach or you might find yourself in your car en route to San Diego :)

Now that I've got that off my mind (or my plate), I can share a little bit of what I've been thinking, learning and maybe even messing up. Come summer vacation, I felt great, I looked great and I believed that anything was unachievable. I was high on life, and it was such an indescribable feeling. Yet, happiness came to a halt a little over two weeks ago. My health is as stable as the stock market which meant that as things seemed to get better, things evidently  crashed. It felt like all the progress and effort put in was worthless. It's as if I was stuck on a stationary bike. All that energy  put in and no matter how hard how hard you push, you are exactly where you started. Naturally, the first reaction was "Seriously? Again? Can you just cut me some slack God?" My cloud 9 had withered away and I was back on the ground.

Ironically, as physically and emotionally hard the past days have been, I feel like I have been awakened. While my body seems to still be confused that its only 22 years young and not 92 years old, I feel like my mind and eyes have never been clearer.

All my singles ladies (and gentlemen)

My adorable grandparents, Joseph & Maria 
(photo courtesy of Vitaly M Photography)

“Marriage has the power to set the course of your life as a whole. If your marriage is strong, even if all the circumstances in your life around you are filled with trouble and weakness, it won't matter. You will be able to move   out into the world in strength.”

                                                              -Timothy Keller, The Meaning of Marriage
  There are two things in life that scare me: liberals and never getting married. The latter is worse, of course. I am NOT the type of girl with binders of wedding ideas and florists on speed dial. But, I do have a wedding Pinterest board, sue me, so does every girl capable of accessing the world wide web. In my life I have been blessed to be surrounded by living examples of what exactly a marriage is supposed to look like. My grandparents, parents, aunts and uncle have marriages that people should be documenting. They are imperfectly perfect. I know that they are not perfect because every individual is inherently flawed, but other then that, they rarely fall short of perfection. These people have demonstrated what grace, forgiveness, compromise and ultimately love look like. After years of observations, only one explanation stands: these were matches made in heaven. Literally.
     I am not naive to believe that there is absolutely only one perfect person out there for you. Rather, I have learned that the most critical component of marriage is for the union to be perfect in God's eyes. The man and woman preparing for holy matrimony must indefinitely know most and foremost their relationship with God. They must feel complete and whole through only Christ. Marriage is not about finding someone who completes you. This is arguably the biggest intangible threat to the institution of marriage today. People search for someone who completes them because they themselves feel incomplete. They enter marriage thinking that this person can fill all the voids and gaps they themselves have not been able to complete. When the other person fails to do so, marriages dissolve, precisely what we are seeing happen in society today. Your husband or wife will help you change, evolve and grow as a person, as they absolutely should, but you cannot expect them to complete you wholly. Some of those voids are too big for any human being, only God is big enough to fill those. 

Life Lessons With Lydia (and a Nov/Dec update)

The past few weeks have been exhausting, exhilarating, and educational:exhausting because you run on minimal sleep, exhilarating because life always throws a curveball or three and educational because well, you never stop learning. I have not written in a few weeks but in the meantime, I have been thinking and reflection about what I want to write. There is so much I have experienced and wrestled with the past few months but along the way I have discovered life lessons to abide by and things that naturally, I also struggle with. Ignore my cheesy title, I promise you will find these life lessons very applicable.

stumbled across this article this week...

The Friends with Benefits Epidemi

c

Lauren Lankford

Thursday, 21 July 2011

It's not just in the movies. How have we convinced ourselves to bend the rules of intimacy?

Friendships and sex have been around since the beginning of time, but it’s our generation that puts them into the same phrase—and the same bedroom. From high school hallways to movie theater screens, “friends with benefits” is sold to us as a new combination as simple, acceptable and wonderful as mac-and-cheese.

No one wakes up and decides sex is just sex, or making out is just making out. No one wakes up and announces over coffee, "Today, I'm going to fall head over heels in love with someone I'd never marry." I didn't.

I remember being a freshman in high school, believing heart and soul that I would wait for marriage to have sex. I'd never kissed a boy, and I didn't plan on it until I was engaged. Fast-forward four or five years, and I've made out for fun, for comfort, for love and for revenge. Fast-forward another two or three years, and I'm sleeping with someone I'm not even dating.

Why does it happen? Because we are broken people. And because God created sex and physical affection as a phenomenal part of what is meant to heal us: intimate, committed love with another human being. But when we don't know how our body and heart work, we tend to do long-term damage to ourselves instead of long-term good.

Bending the Rules

Your desire for sex is proof that God loves you. Your physical draw to another human being is proof that God created you to want to experience unparalleled intimacy in a way that reflects His desire for intimacy with us. God designed sex and the acts and attitudes preceding it to access aspects of your heart, soul, body and mind that could not be accessed any other way.

The problem is that we forget (or ignore) the passion-filled, healing, love-reflecting, life-giving purpose for intimacy. All we know are the rules. Maybe there are some rules you won’t violate; maybe you’ve committed to abstaining from sex outside of marriage. But there are still a number of other “benefits” you may convince yourself it’s OK to relinquish. When we don't recognize the purpose for something, the rules sometimes aren't enough.

"Your first perfect boyfriend broke your heart. You weren't supposed to take your physical relationship that far, but you did; now you might as well take it that far again. You deserve to have some innocent fun. Cuddling as 'friends' isn't wrong; it won't go anywhere. You didn’t go all the way. Everyone has sex before marriage, and everyone ends up married and happy in the end. You need to experience everything before you settle down."

This is what I took myself through. This is how I convinced myself it was fine to "just have fun," and how I got addicted to men I could neither commit to nor leave. There are a number of other reasons that people will justify casual intimacy, physical or otherwise; none of them are an excuse.

Our bodies are created to start bonding within 20 seconds. Your body can’t tell the difference between cuddling with your boyfriend and cuddling with a friend while watching a movie. Your heart can’t tell the difference between sharing intimate secrets with the sexy new friend or your spouse. Trust, attachment and intimacy build with or without our permission. This is why it’s so incredibly important to set physical and emotional boundaries before we get into something it hurts to get out of.

Create your own specific rules to help yourself keep the big rules: Do you get lonely at night? Safeguard your heart by having a plan that keeps you from opening up emotionally or physically when you’re “at risk.” Give people permission to ask you the personal questions and keep you accountable to yourself. Sit down with yourself and write out what’s OK for you (not what's OK or acceptable to your peers). Don’t dwell on your mistakes, but use what you learn from them in the future. And don’t be afraid to communicate what’s permissible and what’s not with any potential love interest—real friends protect you, not compromise your standards.

The Ties that Bind

Your entire life is the story of God's plan to show you His definition of crazy, unconditional love. Those who marry will find marriage is one of God's primary tools for this. God knew it was not good for man to be alone. God knew we needed a physical way to experience the heartbeat of Himself. So He gave us each other—another human being to commit to and love no matter what. An image of God's passion for His children, an expression of Jesus' love for His bride.

Sex is some of the greatest glue for marriage—and the enemy has every intention of attacking your marriage before it even starts. If he can twist, harm or destroy your marriage, he knows he does the same for your picture of God's unconditional love and commitment to you. Furthermore, friends with benefits also deteriorates the value of your other relationships. Single or married, God intends for you to have trustworthy, iron-sharpens-iron friendships untainted by cheap affection or half-hearted romance.

Not only is sex the perfect image of intimacy, passion and desire, it triggers the release of chemicals that train your body to remember what feels good, and how to get it again. Dopamine is a natural drug that gets you high. This is what keeps you going back again. Drugs like methamphetamine access dopamine to achieve the same effect. Your body begins such a bond just with cuddling, kissing, and everything between there and “real” sex. Oxytocin is dopamine’s partner, the emotional binding agent that teaches you to trust and reduces fear.

However, dopamine and oxytocin don’t play fair. They don’t care if it’s just for fun, if it’s "just this one night" or if the person you’re going home with is going to be around next week. They don’t care if it’s make-up sex, breakup sex or all-the-way sex. They don’t care if you just “mess around,” or if you go all the way. They’re going to feed your addiction, commitment or not.

Love Is Sacrificial, not Selfish

Consider the repercussions of programming your body to trust someone you shouldn’t—to be vulnerable with someone you know will cause pain in the withdrawal phase.

You were created for hot, passionate sex. You were created to be connected to one person, without ever going through withdrawal. You were created for whole, healthy friendships—unscarred by broken or inappropriate intimacy.

But more than that, you were created to experience unconditional, committed love. When we compromise emotional and physical intimacy before commitment (whether or not we intend to), we sabotage ourselves. And it hurts. Badly. Either now, later or both.

The myth of friends with benefits programs us to believe intimacy doesn’t last, love is selfish, desire exists for you and only matters in the right now. But God’s definition of love is always sacrificial—and will always be around.

---

Lauren Lankford is founder and editor of Good Women Project. She also writes on sex, relationships, dealing with pain and following Jesus on her personal blog. You can follow her on Twitter here.

the quality of life is improved by people of quality.

gen·u·ine:

possessing the claimed or attributed character, quality, or origin; not counterfeit; authentic;      real. free from pretense, affectation, or hypocrisy.

     Considering that I never have free days, I try to make the most out of the free time I do get. Today I got to catch up with a friend on the past few months of her life. As we spilled our hearts and laughed over Starbucks, we realized that we have one common desire lately: to meet genuine people. 

     It got me thinking about the people we meet and the people we befriend. It is not hard to meet people, but it is hard to meet people who you can connect with. Its easy to poke fun, see a movie or eat a dinner, but where do you go to find those people with who you can talk about something deeper. Personally, I have a really hard time opening up to people. Its not that I don't trust them, its just something I cant even explain. The idea of someone knowing something very personal about me just makes me feel uneasy. It takes a lot to get me to open out. But at the same time we weren't made to hold everything in and deal with it on our own, that is why friendship is such an important part of life. 

     I have realized lately how much value people who are genuine and thoughtful. People who freely give and never demand anything in return. People who are willing to listen and accept criticism and at the same time provide constructive criticism when necessary. Over the past few weeks, I have been feeling a little burnt out and going through a rough patch health wise and at times unmotivated and on days like that a simple, thoughtful gesture has been all that I needed to turn my day around. I value those little things so much. Its the people who can simply sit with me and drink a cup of coffee while I vent; or those people who show up at my work with some chocolate and a hug, letting me know they are thinking about me; or coming home to flowers at my doorstep; or taking a nice evening walk on the beach together. Its nothing extravagant, just a little tlc.

     At the end of our conversation earlier today, we realized that we couldn't answer our own question, and I still don't know where it is a person goes to find genuine people. Its hard to find these people but I know they are out there. By sheer grace, last year 4 amazing ladies were placed on my residence hall and they have become a significant part of my life. That being said, I would like to meet more people like that. People who are selfless and open, people who can listen but also share, people who are willing to try new things and see new places. People with an open heart and open mind. People who can admit their faults and failures but strive for improvement. People of good character and good morals. And lastly, people who simply care. These people are one in a million, but I would rather know one genuine person, then a million fake ones. 

time flies

I can hardly believe that I am half way done with summer break. I just got home but already the thoughts of returning to San Diego have been crossing my mind on a daily basis. I am working full time so the days have flown by so quickly. In between the realities of work and life, I have had time to clear my head. As much as I love my school and what I am learning, sometimes all the deadlines and homework and exams cloud my mind and I don't really get the ability to think about other things.

I guess one thing that has been on my mind more then ever is that I am a place in my life where I feel like I am being called to let a significant other become part of my life. In a way, it makes me laugh and at the same time scares me. Letting someone in has never been easy for me or for most people to say the least. We have all had our share of heartbreaks and heartaches and sometimes after it all we lose our hope for humanity. The other part of this is that it is kinda out of my hands. I may want it sooner, but it may come later. Whoever said patience is a virtue was definitely right. Waiting is hard, especially when you are tired of waiting or simply do not want to wait but maybe the person who said patience is a virtue, also said that good things come to those who wait :)

What is love?

For the past few weeks I have been reading "The Road Less Traveled" for my psychology class. The author, Scott Peck, challenges the reader on the topics of love, life, relationships, etc. I had to write a paper on the section of Love and thought I would share it with y'all! Enjoy!

           Peck does a great job explaining love in this section of his book. He makes many good observations about what love is and is not. Unfortunately our society has come to think of love as just a feeling. Teens in high school claim to “be in love.”  Marriages begin in “love” but end in divorce. I cannot say that I have ever been in love, but I can say one thing for sure: true love never ends. I disagree with Peck when he says that no one has ever arrived at a truly satisfactory definition of love. Our heavenly father has given us the best definition of what love is: "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails,” (1 Corinthians 13:4).

            Our society these days throws around the word love without realizing how truly deep and complex that 4-letter word is. Love is eternal, unfailing and selfless. It is not a temporary feeling of warmth, giggles and butterflies in your stomach. When high school students mention that they “love” their boyfriend or girlfriend, it honestly makes me cringe. It is not because I want to be a pessimist (I have always been an optimist), but because love does not just come that easy. As Peck says, love is discipline and hard work. It requires suffering and pain.  Love is not just having a great time with someone and sharing good communication, it is more then that. Frankly, true love only comes when two people have been brought together by God. If everyone was in “love” like they claimed to be, then the divorce rate would not be sky high as it is today. It is clear that society has some serious misconceptions on what love it.

            I would agree with Peck that one of the biggest misconceptions of love is that love is dependency. Too many times, couples feel like they constantly need to be with or around each other. If they are not with each other every day or in contact every minute then they are weak, disheartened and almost depressed. Many times couples break up because they claim that they did not have enough time together. It is true that in order to further a relationship, time is crucial. However, love is not dependency. Loves is when you are okay on your own, but choose to be with someone else. You must be complete on your own before you can enter a relationship. People enter relationships thinking that another individual can complete them. One of the best talks I had with my mom was earlier this year when we talked about relationships and marriage. My mother, being the wise woman she is, said to me: “Lydia, no matter how perfect a man may be, you will always want more. There are certain gaps or aspects of your life and heart that only God can fill.”

            Peck argues that love is an extension of self rather then self-sacrifice. Love may not require sacrificing yourself, but it will require sacrificing some of your wants, desires and even aspirations. When you decide to love someone, you accept that you will have to give up parts of your life. The biggest example of this would be the relationship between parents and children. I have seen first hand the sacrifices my parents have made for me because they love me. My parents may want, and beyond a shadow of a doubt deserve, a vacation, however they unconditionally live paycheck to paycheck to help me to go the school of my dreams. They knew that sending me to private school would stretch them, thin yet because they love me, they put me first before themselves. There is a fine line between sacrificing yourself and sacrificing your desires. You cannot let your loved ones walk all over you, but you must be willing to put others’ desires ahead of your own.

            I have heard the quote: “It is better to have loved and lost then to never have loved at all,” many times. The risk of loss may just be the hardest aspect of love. Some will avoid love all together, fearing the hurt that inevitably comes along with love. They will flee the scene instead of attempting to fix what is broken. They will accept isolation instead of risking hurt. Often times you will see “perfect” couples in which one of the people will abruptly leave the relationship with no explanation. They will eventually come to say, “I was not good enough or other absurd reasons to justify their actions.” I would argue that these are the people that are not willing to hurt. They will rather not love at all, then love and possibly one day hurt.            

            Despite the hurt and pain love may bring, at the end of the day God intended for us to love and be loved. Unfortunately our society often times gives love too freely to all the wrong people and for all the wrong reasons. Love is not about feeling complete or about having fairy tale dates or about receiving constant attention. It is about extending yourself for the spiritual growth of another. You give up your personal time and personal desires to meet the desires of your loved one. The ultimate example of love is when God came down to Earth from heaven to die for us so that we may live. We may not be called to die on a cross but we can love sacrificially so that others may see the love of Christ in us.  

No You Can't Hurry Love

     The Supremes left me with a little piece of wisdom:

You can't hurry love/No, you just have to wait

You got to trust, give it time/No matter how long it takes

     Our society most definitely does not like the word "wait." We do not like to wait for anyone or anything. We constantly need faster phones, faster service and faster cars (although fast cars are simply a necessity in my opinion). But what about love? Do we hurry that too? Just look at all the magazine covers around you and all thats seen is "Make him fall in love with you by tomorrow" or "5 easy steps to get a man by summer." 

     I like to get things fast. I like fast shipping, instant coffee and I like instant play on Netflix but somehow I don't think that love should just be rushed. Do I want to fall in love? Of course I do, most people want to fall in love. We were created to want relationships and to want love but finding love isn't easy and meeting the right person to fall in love with is even harder.

     What is the most precious thing you own? Your MacBook? Your car? Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue? Have you ever considered... your heart? I challenge you with this idea; your heart is the most precious thing you have. So how many times have you given out your heart? or even just a piece of your heart to someone else? Well be honest and now count how many of those people deserved it? Countless emotions and feelings poured out, which if we're still being honest here most likely result in heartbreak and heartache. 

     The problem is that once we do it once or twice, we continue to do it more and more. We keep opening up and the more we do, the more we hurt and the more we need someone else to attempt to fill in that void. Its a vicious cycle that repeats over and over and over again and thus we begin to settle, lower our standards and just hope for some temporary satisfaction.

     I present a second challenge: guard your heart. Only one person out there deserves it, just one. Frankly it will take lots of waiting for most of us, but you cant hurry love, and you just have to wait. That one person wants your whole heart, so why let unworthy others recklessly chip away at it. The more you break something, the more fragile it is so therefore theres only so much a heart can take before it breaks. Can a heart be put back together? Yes, but a broken heart with millions of pieces will take a long time to heal and it will never be the same again.  

     Each of us has been granted by the Creator "somebody to love" and that person will love us equally back. That person wants us, all of us, the good and the bad, through sickness and in health so forget about rushing and hurrying and trying to catch a man (or a woman for any men reading this) in "5 easy steps" because he or she is out there and they deserve your heart, all of it and it probably won't be easy, but it will be well worth the wait.

"The feeling is mutual"

Yesterday I posted the following quote on my facebook:


"Never allow someone to become your priority while allowing yourself to be their option."


     Throughout the course of the day, I had numerous people tell me that the following quote reflected their lives. Teens and adults alike shared their feelings and poured out their hearts to me. Someone had become the center of their focus, while to the other, they were simply lingering in the shadows. As the day continued, I went back and forth with this idea that at some point or another, each of us has let an individual become way too important. How we would feel during a given day had became a direct correlation of how much (or how little) that other person had responded and/or reacted to us.
   Each of us can agree that usually we end up brokenhearted, discouraged and unhappy. So why is it that we build these emotional bonds to people? Even those people who only break us down?  Eleanor Roosevelt once said "Nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent." Whether or not we want to admit it, we allow people to pain us. We let them sink into our brain and heart and suddenly everything is blurry.
     I'm not saying that we should not allow people into our lives, because we most definitely should. We as humans were made for friendship and relationship and feelings. But I am saying that if we were all completely honest with ourselves we would step back and see that at various points in our lives, we had put too much effort into someone that did not deserve it. Anne Frank, in her diary, made the bold statement of "Despite everything, I still believe people are good at heart." I would have to dispute that statement. I consider myself optimistic but also realistic. The truth of the matter is that people were, are and will be corrupt and unfortunately we will all spend the rest of our lives, weeding through the good and the bad. We will all get hurt at one time or another but we will also heal, learn and move on.
     Sometimes an attachment to someone is inevitable, it happens and you have no idea why. I challenge those in this situation to not let someone else get the best of you. I am a firm believer in that 10% is what happens to you and 90% is what you do about it. It all starts in the mind and it can end if we set our minds on other things. Its hard to forget about people and its harder to let go. Yet, no one deserves to live in a foggy, disconnected world. We need to live in this world with a clear mind, making our own independent choices knowing that the people who deserve our focus will never demand it.