Walked Among Us

"But he was pierced for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;

the punishment that brought us peace was on him,

    and by his wounds we are healed."

-Isaiah 53:5 (NIV)

How powerful are these words?

As I read these words earlier today, I was overcome with a feeling of understanding of this passage that I have read so many times that I have never felt before. During this season of Lent, I have spent a lot of time reflecting on Jesus and His death and resurrection.

As someone who has both sinned and been sinned against in awful ways, it is so powerful to think that a man, God in flesh, died so that I could be forgiven. That all of us could be forgiven.  I often struggled with this idea when I was in college learning about science and engineering.

I often thought to myself, How could one man die for all of our sins, every single person on earth, in the past, in the present and in the future? How is that physically possible? How can I mentally wrap my head around that?

Through my doubts and questions about this most important concept in Christianity, I have come to believe that we are not actually meant to fully understand it. God is not to be fully understood in this lifetime.

As it says in 2 Corinthians 5:7, "We walk by faith, not by sight."

Faith is something intangible and so is forgiveness. We surely can see forgiveness played out in our lives and the lives of those around us, but forgiveness in itself is intangible.

And what I do know is that forgiveness for our sins as well as those of the people around us is a very powerful thing.

After eating lunch with my mom earlier today, she and I sat and we started discussing a book that I had finished reading last week that she had just started reading. The conversation became very serious but it was one of the most healing conversations we have ever had. I asked some really difficult questions that I have held in my heart, mind and soul for so long. She knows that I still carry some anger towards her and in my own way, I am slowly coming to terms with the obstacles I have faced. I also am finding that God is using every opportunity to help me forgive those who have hurt me as well as forgive myself. As we spoke and then prayed, I felt like a huge weight came off my shoulders. My mom and I cried with each other. But this was different. The tears were not of pain as much as they were tears of relief. I will never fully understand my childhood and all the challenges I faced as I grew up and still struggle with today.

There are so many questions that flow through our minds all the time that most likely will not get answered during our lifetime. However, we have the opportunity to believe that we are forgiven and that God can help us to forgive those who have hurt us deeply. He can also help us forgive ourselves.

I often find that it is more challenging to forgive myself than to forgive others. It's easier for me to make excuses for others than myself. The truth is that we all are forgiven by God and He yearns to show His grace and mercy in our lives.

No matter what sins you have committed or what sins were committed against you, I hope that you realize the power in the words above. Jesus came to live among us, to fully understand our temptations to sin, and to be crushed, mocked, beaten, abused, laughed at, and ultimately killed so that we would know that he understands our struggles.

It is so powerful to have a God who is so close to us, not just some man in the sky. God is so much more than that. He is both distant and near. It is so powerful to have a God who relates to us on so many levels. He could have come down to earth and lived a perfect life and died a natural death.

But He didn't.

He walked among us and He walks with us each day. He is within us through the Holy Spirit. He is all around us. He is in the people around us.

We all have pain. We all have struggles. It does not matter who or what you believe in. We all have obstacles that we have to deal with and overcome during our lifetime.

I forget where I saw this but I recently read that there is absolutely nothing that we are faced with in this world that Jesus did not go through or that He cannot relate to. That, to me, is so powerful. So wonderful. So amazing. We serve a real, authentic and genuine God. 

Personally, it feels so good to know that God truly and deeply knows what I am going through. He is all-powerful and all-knowing, yet He cares about us so much that He hurts deeply for us when we are in pain. God did not just create human beings. He knows what it is like to be a human being.

Through the struggles and obstacles you face, I hope that you never forget that no matter how alone you feel, we are never alone in the fight.

I want to end this post with a song that I listened to hundreds of times as a teenager when I felt alone when I was being neglected. The words of this song are so powerful and I pray and hope you are as blessed as I have been by this song.

Drawing Strength from Others

I have been reading and learning so much about God lately that often I find it incredibly difficult to choose one thing that I want to blog about. I could write about everything but nobody would read my posts if they were longer than they already are. I came across this quote earlier today and it spoke very clearly to me ...

"Even Jesus needed to draw strength that comes from those who knew Him the best and accepted Him without great expectations.”
-Dr. Erwin Lutzer and Rebecca Lutzer, Jesus Lover of a Woman’s Soul, pg. 120

Lately, it has been very difficult to ask for help and create a support network since I moved here in August. I am not sure if it is the fact that I moved very far from the majority of people I have ever known. It could be, but I think it is something that runs deeper.

Sometimes it is so often difficult to ask for help, because we do not want to be a burden. I find that sometimes I share some of the issues I deal with and I feel as if I am a huge problem. It’s not even my problems that are the problem anymore. I am the problem.

As humans, however, we are not meant to be alone. We cannot survive alone. Maybe for a few days or even months, but not an entire lifetime. God created all of us so that we can support and walk through this life together.

Isn’t it awesome to think that our Creator, our God, the One who created this universe, even needed support and help in His ministry and during his time here on earth?

Sometimes when you ask for help, you are not the only one who is blessed. More often than not, everyone in the situation is blessed.

I have been without a car for over six years. At first, it was incredibly frustrating having to rely on other people to get to different things all the time and to figure out the bus and train routes to various destinations. It took a ton of humility and strength to call and ask people to drive me. It was awkward to be so dependent on others. However, I was able to form incredibly strong relationships with those who drove me to church or my medical appointments. They are still very close to me to this day.

In our society, we are so often taught that we are individuals and it is weak to ask for help. Even more true for men. We are taught to be 100% self-sufficient and that if you ask for help, it automatically means you are weak. No wonder men do not like to ask for directions.

But asking for help, support and prayers does not make us weak. I think it shows a huge amount of strength and courage.

Even Jesus asked for help. His ministry would not have been what it is without the help of the men and the women who followed Him and ultimately carried His story throughout the world. All of the people who still reach out and carry His message throughout the world play a huge role in His ministry today.

We cannot get through the struggles and our obstacles alone. We are not meant to. When I have isolated myself, my depression and anxiety almost always has gotten worse. The only healthy isolation I believe that we can have as humans is time in the full presence of God, alone. To me, that means spending several hours outside at the lake reading Scripture and books about the Christian faith. No music. Nothing but me and God.

It is often in the times that we reach out for help from others that we realize that we are not alone in our obstacles. That realization in itself can feel like a large part of the weight we carry on our shoulders is being lifted.

One of my favorite poems of all time is Our Deepest Fear by Marianne Williamson. I quoted it last week when I was in the hospital. The entire poem is extremely powerful, but these lines particularly have been going through my head a lot lately.

“As we let our own light shine,

we unconsciously give other people

permission to do the same.

As we are liberated from our own fear,

Our presence automatically liberates others.”

-Marianne Williamson

As we share the deep, dark things that hurt us and give us pain and stress, we undoubtedly help others in the process. In our darkest times, we see the light of God. I have seen that light all throughout my life and that is why I have been so adamant about sharing what God has done in my life. We are called to share the light of God to every part of this earth, just as we are called to be there for each other, in the good, the bad and the incredibly ugly moments in life.

I will leave you with a song that has been on replay for the past month or so…

The Twenty Dollar Bill

“First, [Mary Magdalene] was clean: the inner emotional turbulence had ended, and her tormented soul was at peace. Second she was given the gift of dignity and value. After years of hopelessness, she found someone who could free her. Someone who saw in her something worth saving, redeeming and loving…the weight of the world had been lifted from her fragile shoulders. It no longer mattered what others thought of her.” 

–Dr. Erwin Lutzer and Rebecca Lutzer, Jesus Lover of a Woman’s Soul

I read this quote earlier today as I sat at the lake. As I read these words, it really became apparent that God is doing this very same thing in my life. I often struggle with feeling not worth enough, not good enough, not this enough, and not that enough. In the process of trying to “fit in” with the people around me, sometimes my insecurity gets the best of me and I may boast about something that I did or do well.

But God loves humility. Think about it. Think about how different our world would be if Jesus had been all prideful and went around boasting about how many people he had healed or how many miracles he had performed.

As I have said in previous blogs, this Lent has been a journey in ridding myself of pride and the insecurities that lead me to be prideful. I know I have hurt many people in the process of trying to make myself feel less insecure. Each day, God is teaching me more and more about Himself . How powerful HE is. How gracious HE is. How loving HE is. How wonderful HE is.

This life is not all about us. It is about making some difference in the world we live in. This world we have been blessed to live on. And yeah… it is difficult.

I spent the past 9 days or so in a hospital and I cannot describe how blessed I feel to be alive… not only alive but that I can walk, talk, eat, run, read, write, draw, take photographs. I even have a smartphone! I am blessed beyond belief by God. People say I have a very difficult life, but there are people who have it much worse. This life is not easy and all of us deal with our own obstacles, but we have a God who is so much bigger than any of the obstacles we deal with here on earth.

A reason I really liked the quote above was that it broke what Jesus did for Mary Magdalene into two parts: cleansing/refreshing and the gift of dignity and value.

I personally struggle sometimes to feel worth it. Deep inside, I do not feel clean. I do not feel worthy of God’s love, especially because of all the mistakes I have made. It’s in those times that I remind myself that God forgives me. He already did. And He does. I believe that sometimes the most difficult forgiveness is actually forgiving myself.

The second part- the gift of dignity and value- is also something that I struggle with. So often I try to find my value in how other people view me. Do they like me? What do they think of me after that? Did I say the wrong thing? What do they think of me now?

Put simply, our greatest worth is found in God. I am God’s child. You are God’s child. We all have worth more powerful than any material possession we can find here on earth. The closer I feel to God, the less I care about what other people think of me, because God’s love is so much bigger, so beyond anything else on this earth that it fulfills me to the core. No matter what I’ve done, no matter what others have done to me, He loves me and always will. And that goes for you as well.

I’d like to end this post with something I heard many years ago at CreationFest, a festival with Christian music and speakers.

The speaker, who I cannot remember right now, held up a twenty dollar bill. He spat on it, crumpled it up, threw it on the ground, and moved his foot all over it, stomping on it and kicking it around. He then held it up and asked how much the bill was worth. The answer was that it was still worth twenty dollars.

That powerful illustration still encourages me to this day, because I (as well as so many) have felt spat on, crumpled up, thrown out and kicked around. I have had moments of being used, abused and taken advantage of.

But do those moments change how much you or I are worth to God and worth to this world?

Not at all.

When you find your worth in God, it truly does not matter how much money is in your bank account, if you have the perfect shirt or pants, or the perfect face. Because when you find your worth in God, you realize how precious and how fearfully and wonderfully created you really are.

Listen to God, because He always says, “You are worth it. You are my precious child. Nothing in this world, absolutely nothing can ever or will ever take away your worth. Find your dignity and value in me, not the things of this world.”

Trust is a Five Letter Word

I wrote this "essay" on trust a few days ago during my ninth hospitalization. I was frustrated with quite a few people and I find that writing helps me to process things. I shared this with others in the hospital and they each got something very important out of it so I really felt called to share this with those who read this blog.

Trust is a five-letter world. Yet it is also one of the most difficult concepts in humanity. It is something so difficult, so convoluted but only five letters. To trust someone- or any aspect in our society- is to trust ourselves to make the right decisions. Although it is only a word, the concept of trusting someone is so difficult to comprehend and almost beyond impossible to follow through or act upon. As a child, you trust those around you to take care of you, to have your best interests at heart. In the hospital, you trust doctors to treat you well and to take the time to listen and to help you become better, healthier- to bring you out of whatever sickness or state that brought you there.

But people will fail. People will betray you. People will doubt the vey part of you that wants to be heard, understood- that voice waiting to emerge amidst all of the chaos and confusion. Slowly, you emerge- that voice emerges- and each day you take one step towards the truth. You take one step forward and then another. Others may not fully understand but they do not have to. You just want to move forward. You want to spread light and love to every crevice, every hole in the world.  You want to show love- not anger nor hate- just love. You want to spread the love of God.

What is the only thing in this world that can shine and truly fill the crevices and the holes in our lives, in those deep, dark places in our world and within our souls?

God. The love of God. The love that is God. The unconditional love. The love that shines even when you make inevitable mistakes. The love that shines even in the darkest pits.

There truly is no area, no space, nothing in our world that has never felt this love.

You ask why is there hate?

Why are there natural disasters?

Why are there wars?

Why are there so many negative things, so many negative events in our world?

I cannot explain that because I am just one person. One little person in a world with a sea of people. This world may not make sense and that is the point. We were not created to understand all of the negativity and evil on earth. We were created to love each other and to find some meaning for why God brought us to this earth. Why He chose you, me- all of us. We each have so much to offer the world- so much meaning. Only God can explain our meaning and the truth that is in each of us. There is more meaning in each of us than we can see here.

Our meaning is so far beyond comprehension- no human mind can even come close to understanding our meaning. We can study all the neurons, the cells in our bodies, the atoms which make up everything we see and do not see. We will spend eons and centuries trying to understand ourselves and God, but we simply cannot.

In the process of trying to understand and to be understood, we become even more confused. Our lives become more chaotic- a stream of subconscious mixed with conscious, darkness mixed with light, despair mixed with hope. Only God can bring some clarity to our minds flooded with the confusion. Only God and who He is can bring light to the chaotic mind flooded with both negative thoughts and positive thoughts.

The dichotomy of good and evil. That battle. It is not ours to fights. With God, good overcomes with confusion. That dark hole filled with a swirl of good and evil. We cannot understand and we will not understand. We cannot answer the questions of why, how, when, where. The answer lies in God. It is He who helps alleviate the confusion. Takes the clouds away and brings the sunlight of a new morning.

Fly Away Home

I was asked this morning, “Do you think everybody has to understand what you’re going through in order to love you?”

And this got me thinking.

All of my life I have really been alone. My family did not understand me. I did not feel accepted by them at all. When I was 13, I found out that I was a “mistake” and that I was almost not even born.

I shared a part of the white bird story with my mother and the person I had been talking to earlier this morning that I did not write about. I have shared about the significance about the white birds quite a bit this past week. But there was something that I did not share about that moment. In that moment, when I looked up at the white bird flying across the lake, I had been reading about the enemy’s strongholds.

I have lived for most of my life pretending that the things I was going through were not happening. When the bad memories come back, I am usually overcome with shame and guilt. That’s when the first set of lies come into my mind… “You’re not good enough,” “You’re stupid,” “This is all of your fault.” The first stronghold I have been dealing with is that shame and guilt.

The second stronghold is the one that has been most apparent in my life recently, which is the complete opposite: pride. I have overcome so much in my life and when I start to think about everything I’ve overcome, I’m overwhelmed with a sense of pride. “I did it all by myself.” “I must be one of the strongest people.” And that is where I think all of this started.  I began to think that I had to be more than God already has made me to be. It was in my quest for all of the answers to why my mind was the way it was, why the things that happened occurred, and why the things of this world are the way they are that I lost sight of who I really am and that I do not have to know everything. I have joked about building time machines and other devices and those were jokes. But the truth is I do understand physics, mathematics and engineering. But I also have been deeply hurt and God is helping me through this in a way that nobody else can.

I really do have the intense memories I do. I really could not control my spasms and stuttering. But I spent all this time trying to get people to believe what I was going through and when I gave that up and went back to the source, God, is when the physical symptoms and the anxiety stopped. That is when I started to see the white birds and the yellow butterflies.

I know what has happened in my life and I know what I experience. I know what I remember. Nobody can go into my mind and see what I see. Others will not understand how God uses nature to help me through this healing process. Because they do not have to understand.

I watched the Fly Away Home video that I posted about 5 times yesterday. I have watched that movie so many times yet I never realized the great significance and symbolism in that movie until yesterday. I do not even know if the people who created the film meant what I am going to say.

The beginning of the movie starts in the dark. The girl and her mother are talking and her mother gets distracted and the next second you know, there are headlights and the car is in a million shattered pieces.

When we get distracted from what God call us to do, from who we are, from the path that God has planned for us, and we do not see the light of God, we tend to crash and our live can feel like a million little shattered pieces.

The girl wakes up in the hospital and she sees her father. She realizes that her mother has passed away and then she moves to her father’s house. She goes to live with her father and she has to deal with the loss of her mother as well as her new home with the father she did not really know that well.

When God calls us to do something, it may be in our time of healing and it may be out of our comfort zone. It may be in a place where we feel absolutely the least comfortable.

At her father’s farm, she watches these people who want to get rid of the trees. They want to damage the environment and in doing so, they create danger for the birds on the farm.

Sometimes we lose sight of God’s creation. This is something we are currently doing to our world today. Our forests are quickly becoming smaller and are now known as “conservation” parks, whereas they used to be a huge part of the world, not just something that needed to be conserved. Animals as well are becoming endangered and in danger of becoming extinct.

The girl takes care of these eggs and she helps them to grow up. She becomes one of them, so much so that they look to her as a mother. They follow her everywhere. She is literally the only person or thing that these birds will follow.

The same thing happens in our lives with Christ. We can get distracted by the stuff of this world- the fame, the want to know everything, to understand anything, etc. And people try to find comfort in alcohol, drugs, money, you name it. But the only thing that gives us the freedom to fly in our lives is following God.

The girl and her father create this plan to help teach the geese to fly from their father’s farm South because they will not be safe where they are. Everybody who they talk to thinks they are absolutely out of their mind.

Sometimes God calls us to do absolutely crazy things that nobody else could even understand. Noah and the ark ring a bell? Everybody else around Noah probably thought he was crazy but he was doing what God called him to do.

Many of the scenes of them finally flying in the sky after months of preparation are of all of these places that we see in our world: they fly over cities, over farms, over various different places. People all over these various places look up and feel excitement as they watch these birds and the girl and her father helping them to fly.

The same goes for being a witness to God. People see what God is doing in our lives and hopefully they feel excitement. And they look up to God. Not to us, but to God. They see us soaring in the sky, above the storms, above the people shooting at us because they think we’re something we’re not (there were some people shooting at the geese). When we are a witness to God, it is never about us. It is about shining God’s light in our world.

The father and the girl touch down due to an accident with her father’s “bird plane.” They bump into this woman who invites them into her house to stay the night.

To me, this woman represents the people in our lives who are in our lives but for a moment, but they are necessary to come into our lives in order for us to continue our journey. It does not matter who they are or how long they stay in our lives, but they make a profound impact.

The scene that makes the most sense to me right now and as I watched this clip yesterday is the father waiting. He stands there waiting. And as he and this crowd of people who are fighting with each other over whether to tear down the trees and get rid of the environment for the geese, he just waits there.

This is how I believe God is waiting for all of us. In the chaos that our world is, with the constant arguing over politics, the environment, etc, we lose sight of the one who really holds our world together. As the girl soars to her final destination to meet her father, the battle over the trees is won and the geese find their environment as well. In this, I find the meaning that we are supposed to take care of this earth as much as we can until God finally calls us home. And until then, we are called to soar over the storms in our lives, whether it’s financial hardship, disabilities, losses, or just other strongholds.

I apologize for this really long post. I have watched this movie over and over again, but all of this came together right now as I am writing this.

I pray that whoever God wants to read this will read it and that those who do read it join with me to shine God’s light in our world in a way that has never been seen before. Share the unconditional love that Christ showed to all people on the cross. This goes for every single human being on this earth. I do not care who you are, where you’ve been, what you’ve done or not done… We need more love in this world.

This earth is not our real home. And until we "fly away home," we need to take care of each other and bless each other in what we say and do to each other, but also to ourselves and all of God's creation.

Amen.

The Possible in the Impossible, The Real in the Unreal

I realized last night why some people have been having a difficult time understanding what I'm going through. I have told many people throughout the past few years, especially in the past few months, about my ability, or my perceived ability, of "photographic memory." I actually never thought to do any research into it, because it was always something I have had.

My first thought that I might have some sort of photographic memory came with a conversation with a professor. I had just taken a medical leave after my fall and I was getting back into the swing of classes, work and life. I was explaining how I usually memorize everything before an exam. This professor asked me if I had photographic memory. I was always known to finish exams in 20-30 minutes when it took most students the full hour and a half. One semester I got 11 100's on exams and I had always felt questioned by the professors. My peers often joked about my pencil being on fire because I wrote so fast.

Any of the professors I have ever had will tell you that their most frequent response to all my questions was "I am about to go over that", "We're going to go over that next class," etc. When I looked at what was on the board, I was not only processing what they were saying but I was applying everything I had learned on anything related and constantly questioning the limits to what they said. I have had professors tell me not to answer out loud when they asked questions. One told me that I needed to give others a chance to think and answer. To be honest, often I knew what they were asking by the third or fourth word in their question.

I also understand that some people may think that I spent all of my time reading books about the topics. But any of the people who know me will also tell you that I spent the majority of my time outside of class working 3-5 part-time jobs on campus. These jobs did not allow me to do anything but work. I often did not even have that much time to study.

When I do study, I often just skim the notes not to actually study or memorize anything. Instead, I test my ability to recall what the professor said. I would look at an equation and remember what I was looking at and what the professor was saying.

In everyday life, my mind is going a million miles a minute. If someone says a word to me, I literally go through a "chain" in my head. Seemingly unrelated things become a chain of thoughts in my head.

Now how does this all fit in to my visual memory of life events? I have always had an ability to look at the details of something. Look at my photography. Look at my drawings. I listen to music all the time and music is one of the things that has the most patterns in it. Any of my mathematics professors will tell you that I was constantly finding patterns in what they were teaching and would often ask them about more complex topics.

It is this ability to see all of the details that has helped me get to where I am. Those details were how God talked to me when I was younger. Those details are how God speaks to me now.

My family will tell you that I never sat around drawing. I actually do not like drawing. I have probably drawn around 20 sketches in the past 5 years. Until this past summer, my piano keyboard has been in my basement, completely forgotten. I never took a photography class. While I do like reading books, I also have not sat around reading books all the time. In college, I rarely ever had time to read any books.

I have always been told I have a good ear and a good eye. In high school, my band teacher needed more people to play french horn. So I switched from clarinet to french horn and learned how to play the french horn in about a month. I practiced it at home, not a lot. My mother does not even remember me practicing at all.

One time he asked me to play in front of the whole band during practice. At the end, he said that I had a good ear. I have always played music by ear. I have always drawn what I see. I have always remembered what I experience.

One of the biggest arguments I have had with my mother has been about my inability to understand why others couldn't just draw like I did or play music by ear. It has not been my thinking that I am better. It was truly that I have felt so different. Some of the people at my college even commented on what was my "unusual intelligence."

It is through these abilities that I have that I am able to process my past and present. I do not understand anything unless I can visualize it in my head. I loved Calculus 3 because it was in three dimensions. That's also why I like physics. It's the application of mathematics and so many other things I have observed.

I cannot actually look at a page with words for a few seconds and memorize it word for word. But I think in pictures. I remember in pictures and videos. I can walk through various parts of my life like I am living through it again. And this is with all of my senses, especially visual and auditory.

I have always paid so much attention to detail that the most basic things, like communication, are very difficult to me. I have always been observing the things around me. My mother once said that I've always been like a sponge just soaking up everything.

The most difficult part of it is that I have been through so many traumatic experiences, which makes my extreme visual memory sometimes very difficult to deal with. But I am slowly learning to deal with those difficult memories and to see how God carried me through them.

When I was six, I was trapped in my home in a house fire. I was alone and I remember that like it was yesterday. I went into the kitchen. The phone was on the wall closest to my bedroom. The stove was where the fire originated from, so the kitchen was the worst place to be. But I knew I had to call for help. So, at age six, I looked around me and I looked right by the sink. There was a small black garbage can. It was empty, but I went to the opposite side of the room where the phone was. I tipped it over, stepped on it and called the police. The firemen apparently got there right on time.

Thinking about this event in my life, I am reminded that it is my attention to detail that has continually saved my life. And having to go back to those bad events and memories in my life is exactly what will continue to help me through, just like I had to go back to the source of the fire in order to be rescued.

Who would have thought that in such a life threatening situation that a six year old would look around the kitchen, taking in the details around them and think to tip a trash can over so they could call the firemen? My attention to detail and ability to think on the spot has been what has helped me continually survive against the odds.

And of course, God. I would not be here without Him.

We may feel like God gives us more than we can handle, but I can tell you from my experiences of life that He always gives us what we need to handle the obstacles. I have been dealt extraordinarily difficult things to deal with in my life, but I do not know if I am surprised that I have been given extraordinary gifts to pay attention to the details and to express myself through ideas, drawing, photography, and music.

These abilities are why I have recently been given the diagnosis of Asperger's syndrome, a form of autism. And I believe that autistic people, as any other human on this earth, should be loved, appreciated, not ignored, embraced and validated.

Resilience and Peace

Last night, I had a difficult time falling asleep. But unlike most nights, my mind was not overflowing with worried thoughts. Instead, my mind was overflowing with positive memories of something that God has been using to bring peace into my life…Birds.

This song kept coming to my mind last night and this is a song that I have listened to hundreds of times. I used to listen to it and sing it all day long, in the same room where so many of the most difficult times in my life happened. To me, it has always been a reminder that God is always there. Because God is love.

Listen to Twila Paris singing "Love's Been Following You."

As a Christian, I have often been asked when I first believed in God. I have never really been able to pinpoint one point in my life when I knew or when I completely surrendered my life to Him. He has always been a huge part of my life. I have definitely had periods when I have felt closer to Him than others. Sometimes He has seemed as far as He could possibly be, and in those times, doubt crept in. But fortunately those times of doubt usually were very short because God always brought me back. Not because of anything anyone else said. But because of things that He did in my life.

When people have heard my testimony, one of the first words that they say is “Resilience.” I have heard this word a lot throughout the past few weeks. While God has always been a big part of my ability to be resilient, I think the actual first time that I truly devoted my life to Him and surrendered everything to Him was last October, the moment I was praying on my knees asking Him to take my pride away. Ever since then, no matter how difficult things have gotten, I have never lost my hope and there has not been doubt about how He is working in my life.

I had so many nightmares as a child and unfortunately, I can remember quite a few of them. I had quite a few that had variations but I was always being chased by something that scared me. I was overcome by fear and the closer these “bad guys” got to me, the more afraid I became. And there would always come a point when I would bend my knees and jump and I would quickly be soaring in the sky. Sometimes the sky would be dark but most times, the sky would be light as day. I would just fly until my eyes opened and I was back in reality. I am not sure but maybe this is why I have always loved birds. I always wanted to fly like them, to feel the freedom that I felt in those dreams.

The bedroom I grew up in had three windows and it was in the front of the house. There was a huge tree right outside the window. I am not sure how old I was, probably around 9 or 10. I would have to ask my mom, but one day, a bird started to build a nest in that tree. Every day, I would spend a lot of time watching this bird and its babies. I cannot explain what it was like for me to watch the bird take care of its babies and then there came a point when the birds became old enough to try to fly. I was honestly scared for them. They were so little and I feared that they would try to fly and fall and get hurt. No words can really describe my excitement when I saw them fly. I also became sad, because I came to realize that all the time I had spent watching them grow up and transform was coming to an end and that nest would soon become quiet as they flew away.

In the second house I lived in right down the street from the first home I lived in is my second significant memory of a bird. Although this bird was not real. Yet it has still had a profound impact on me to this day. My family argued a lot as I grew up. One night, my mom and brother had their worst argument that I had ever witnessed and at the end of it, my brother came into my room. He gave me a bird sculpture that he had created. He may not have known it at the time, but I felt that through that gift, God was telling me that I had to let him go and give him to God. My brother ended up leaving that night and then my family became just my mom and I. I grew up watching my family literally fall apart. My father was the first to leave, then my oldest brother left, then my other brother left, and then my mom left for a period and it was just me. My brother often apologizes for leaving me when I needed someone. But I am not mad at him, as I am not really angry at any of my family anymore. Of course, I have been angry at them all before, but God has helped me transform that anger into peace and forgiveness.

Over my many years of talking to doctors, therapists, friends, and pastors, many people have come to know that the verse I have thought about the most throughout my life is Isaiah 40:31, a verse that represents “resilience” in a way that is so true and real to me.

“But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; 

they shall mount up with wings as eagles; 

they shall run, and not be weary; 

and they shall walk, and not faint.” 

–Isaiah 40:31 (KJV)

Eagles are supposed to represent strength and resilience. I read once that they also often fly alone. They are known to wait for a storm and once the winds pick up, they use the winds to rise above the storm. I have shared this with so many people and one of my doctors recently told me that whenever she sees an eagle, she thinks of me.

The third home I lived in is right near a lake. We moved into that home after many months of living out of a suitcase. As I shared in another post, I lived in about 8 different homes over a period of a year or so.

God used that lake to transform and heal me through some extremely difficult times. It was at that lake that I met two swans. Every summer, I would walk around that lake watching the babies of these swans grow up. For many years in a row, I would be deeply saddened as I watched the babies slowly disappear. Year after year, none of their babies survived. This past summer, however, they had eight babies. I prayed every time I saw them and my heart was full of joy as I watched all of them survive this summer. I had a chance to visit them when I was home for the holidays. It was like visiting another family of mine.

What I learned through watching these swans was to never give up, especially on family. These swans went through the worst of the worst together, including Hurricane Sandy. There were so many times that I saw the parents protect their babies against people as well as the geese who also inhabited the lake. I have been extremely angry, upset and disappointed with my family at times, but I have never lost hope in them. I never stopped praying for them. I have asked so many of my friends to pray for them that I often felt like a broken record. But I knew that God would work in their lives and do things that I could not do myself.

My mom and my brother have come a very long way and we are learning slowly but surely what normalcy is, if such a thing exists.

Now as I am healing, does it surprise me that God would yet again use birds to speak to me or teach me a lesson? Not at all.

A few weeks ago, I was at my lowest point. I absolutely thought nobody was there for me and I felt completely abandoned. I did not want to see anyone. I did not want to talk to anyone. But I posted on my Facebook asking for prayer. I ended up walking about 4 or 5 miles to talk to someone I knew could help. I do not remember how I walked that far, except that I literally felt like I was being carried. I said “I need support. I need help.”

That day, I found the lake that I have spent the majority of my time at over the past few weeks.

This past week, I was extremely upset. So I went to the lake to cool down. My anxiety was extremely high and negative thoughts were flowing through my mind. I was listening to Pandora and all of a sudden, I felt this urge to look up. The second I looked up, I saw a white bird soaring and my anxiety and the thoughts just stopped… Abruptly stopped. I was overcome by a peace and calm that I cannot explain with words, something you have to experience to understand.

I called my mom and told her and I said it was a white bird. She kept asking me if it was white. I got frustrated and asked her why she kept asking me if it was white. I told her I know white when I see white. She told me she wanted to make sure she heard me clearly and explained that white birds are a symbol of peace. I did not put it all together until I remembered what I had grown up hearing about the Holy Spirit.

I have seen so many white birds this week since that day and every time I do, I am filled with that same peace and calm. Nine of them actually flew and landed close to me yesterday during the sunset.

I want to end this post with a video of my favorite movie of all time, “Fly Away Home.” When I was younger, I used to watch this movie so many times that my family thought I was crazy. One time I rented the VHS tape from the library and watched it 5 times in one day. They asked me, “You’re still watching that?”

At the beginning of this movie, the girl loses her mother in a car crash, one of the most difficult things that a human can endure. She finds peace and meaning in her life when she finds these geese eggs on her father’s farm. She takes care of the baby geese as they grow up. My favorite scene of this movie and the reason I can watch this movie so many times is at the end when she flies with the geese to their final destination after a very difficult journey over many miles.

This scene always makes me cry, not of sadness, but of great joy because throughout my whole life, this scene has always been a scene of overcoming the most difficult moments in our lives. It is in this scene that she finds peace with the loss of her mother and realizes the meaning in her life.