whatever is lovely

Philippians 4:8

[pursuinglovely]

“Let my heart learn when you speak a word it will come to pass.”

No matter how many times I learn this lesson, I still haven’t learned it enough. My Father is faithful, so so so incredibly faithful. He has never failed me. In Him, I truly lack nothing, even when I don’t understand, even when I don’t see the path ahead and don’t have all the answers. I know He’s got me.

So loved, so held, so seen, so safe. I’ve got you.

[pursuinglovely]

“You’ve made your bed (frame), now lie in it.”

Day 34. I think everyone’s been experiencing this warped sense of time. I don’t really know what 34 days means, quantitatively, qualitatively. What did I do in a 34 day stretch during the “before” times? How many people did I see and touch and laugh with and eat with? 

Honestly, I don’t really think much about it. My world has become unimaginably small and contained. I think back on the first assignment we had to do in Human Geog -- mapping our personal daily routes around campus -- and I wonder at my current lived experience of space, of place. I am thankful for this apartment, for my oddly shaped room with french double-doors and high ceilings, for the fluffy carpet (what a luxury! I thought the day we moved in, since I hadn’t even seen the place before I signed the lease), the living room with our large sectional couch, my roommates whom I love. What a blessing, what a privilege, because quarantine is not this good for most people. This I know.

I’ve slept on a queen bed and box spring since moving out to LA two and a half years ago. (How long is two and a half years?) And earlier this week, as I was rearranging my room to make it better for work from home, I had the idea that I should invest in a bed frame because 1) I’m a grown-ass woman, I should have a bed frame, and 2) if I’m going to be stuck in this room indefinitely, why not invest in something that absolutely elevates the space and makes it even more enjoyable than it already is?

So I dove into the online world of bed frames, opened a mass of tabs that dramatically slowed down my computer, spent hours and hours reading reviews, comparing prices, visualizing what each piece would look like in my room. I imagined myself ordering a bed frame, putting it together, giving (or throwing) away my box spring. I imagined feeling some sort of accomplishment and maybe a sense of greater rootedness. And also stuckness. That’s a feeling we’ve all gotten so familiar with, and it’s a feeling I particularly try to protect myself against. When I move next, do I want to have with me a queen-size wooden bed frame? Or is my ideal still to be able to fit my life into two suitcases and jet to wherever my heart desires? I hate acquiring too much. Two days later, I closed out all the tabs. 

Getting too comfortable with isolation, being too good at isolation scares me. The tension between our current reality and my holding hope for life after covid-19 plus my own daydreams of life beyond LA (who knows where the spirit might lead, my wanderlusting heart reminds me whenever opportunities for deeper commitment present) keep me from wanting to invest too much in making my bed (literally) too comfortable. 

What a commitmentphobe. But in all seriousness, I am still fine with the box spring. 

Here’s to useless metaphors, random musings that nobody asked for, staying safe indoors, keeping up the good fight, and returning to my long-neglected tumblr. 

[pursuinglovely]

Hello, friends?

It’s been so long. How many of you are still active?

[pursuinglovely]

A person who has not done one half of his day's work by ten o'clock runs a chance of leaving the other half undone.

Mrs. Dean, Wuthering Heights

[pursuinglovely]

The search for meaning: I’m doing it all wrong

I found myself extremely frustrated a few days ago on my way home from work. It had been a busy day, a teammate had caused a small episode of drama at the office, and I was also exhausted from several late nights the days prior. 

On top of it all, I was mulling over the meaninglessness of the work I do, how the purpose and the output of my 9-5 job has zero eternal value and what a sorry waste of time it is.

God, I wish I was doing something more meaningful, I thought.

Wouldn’t I love to do something with greater impact? Do something good that could really change a life for the better? Or create something beautiful that others would admire or marvel at? Or think of the next big thing, make a lot of money, and pour my earnings into great philanthropic work? Or go and become a missionary and do a lot of great things for God? 

If only I were able to devote my life to doing something great, where people could look at the way I live my life and find inspiration in the way I’ve fully gone after what I’m passionate about.

A moment later, a response: Melody, you are not meant to find meaning in your work.

I was taken aback.

What? But the human condition is bent on the search for meaning! And our generation is obsessed with finding meaning and joy in our work. Especially right here, right now, doing meaningful work is so in vogue. The young people are all about it. Because the world is going to shit -- people are dying of starvation, of war, of cancer, of hate crimes, of government inefficiency, of natural disasters -- and WE CAN DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT because it’s a problem of distribution not of scarcity, because justice can and will prevail, because technological innovation is advancing at rates that even a decade ago were unimaginable...and so on. We are more capable then ever before. We are a generation of movers and shakers and doers.

And from a Christian perspective, we know that God does not want us to waste our lives. Jesus DIED so that we would be new creations in Him. So how can we justify living ordinary lives, doing boring meaningless work?

Therefore, that thought: God, I wish I was doing something more meaningful!

Melody, you are not meant to find meaning in your work. You are meant to find meaning in ME.

You are meant to find meaning in ME, Jesus says.

Because the foundation of our faith is Christ crucified, buried, and raised from the dead, a situation where we have contributed NOTHING, where God has finished EVERYTHING, and where by His grace and our faith in Him, He calls us His sons and daughters. Because it’s a gift from God, not anything we can earn. Because His love for us is unconditional.

In that moment, I understood that my desire to find meaning in my work was driven by pride and a strong desire for recognition. Even the more honorable aspirations I have are at least partially driven by a desire to feel good about myself and be admired by others. Even my serious considerations of doing missions are tainted by worldly ambition. I realized that very simply this is idolatry, and it’s scary to think how easy it is to not be honest with others and even to hide your motivations from yourself. 

But God knows my heart. He sees what I do in secret. He knows where my treasure is stored, whether here on earth or in heaven. He doesn’t ask for me to end world hunger, to cure cancer, or to save the planet. He just asks me to love Him, to love my neighbor, and to preach the Gospel under the leading of his Holy Spirit. In everything that I do -- even when I’m slaving away on how corporate government affairs offices in DC can lobby better UGH -- I can do it joyfully and meaningfully from a place of love and obedience to Christ. On the flip-side, even if I spend my days singing songs of worship or ministering to the poor but do it out of a place not of love but instead to build up my own name or reputation, there is no eternal reward for me in that because God searches the heart.

Heaven and earth will pass away, but Jesus’ words will remain. God’s been showing me that I need to love him, trust him, and surrender to him with my ALL. The process is a little painful, but I pray that God would remove one by one everything in my life that is not of Him. He’s been gently but firmly opening my spiritual eyes to see all the ways I’ve been trying to find meaning on my own, and reminding me that meaning in my life is not accomplished whatsoever through what I do but entirely through what He’s already done.

[pursuinglovely]

In a 2012 study, Bruneau showed that Arabs and Israelis displayed equal amounts of neural activity in their theory-of-mind regions when they read articles about their own group’s suffering as when they read about the other group’s suffering. But when they read about the suffering of South Americans — a group with whom they were not in direct conflict — their theory-of-mind regions quieted down.

As far as the brain is concerned, he says, the opposite of love might not be hate but indifference.

[pursuinglovely]

Quick turnaround

Yesterday, we were still in the throes of winter, but today, like clockwork, spring came. Somehow, it was 57 degrees and all sunshine when just two days ago my Instagram was a bombardment of snow picture after snow picture. Sunset was at 7:09PM. Praise God.

There's hope! Spring is coming! #happynewyear

[pursuinglovely]

The mathematical probability that you would get the exact twenty-three chromosomes you got from your mother is .5 to the twenty-third power. That's 1 in 10 million. But the same is true for the twenty-three chromosomes you got from your father. So if you multiply those two together, the probability that you would be you is 1 in 100 trillion. But you also have to factor in that your parents' chromosomal history had the same probability, and their parents, and their parents' parents. My point? You are incalculably unique.

All of us start out as one-of-a-kind originals, but too many of us end up as carbon copies of someone else. Instead of celebrating our uniqueness, and the uniqueness of others, we're too often threatened by it. We forfeit our uniqueness because we want to fit in. Instead of daring to be different, we sacrifice our soulprints on the altar of conformity.

- Mark Batterson, Soulprint

[pursuinglovely]

Rejecting Hesitation

Some supernatural doors are only open for a moment. Jesus said to some fishermen, "Follow me," and he turned around. "Rich young ruler, come now." We don't see any follow-up there. There are going to be moments when God's going to say, "Step out, do it."

Let the word "almost" disappear from your vocabulary. Almost is killing people. Somebody almost was a friend long enough. Almost is not good enough. You've been the recipient of somebody's all. You're not going to almost make a difference. You are going to make a difference. 

God is looking for the available. "I'm almost ready Lord."

You can't do anything about the opportunities you've missed, but you can do everything about the opportunities that come. 

[Transcribed segment of a sermon I watched awhile back]

[pursuinglovely]

在家靠父母，出门靠朋友 (or Past Reflections at LAX Gate 44H)

Friends, an unsolicited fun fact that could give you an advantage if you ever play Two Truths and a Lie with me: I've gotten through airport security with no government-issued ID before. If you ever find yourself in a situation where you need to get past the TSA guys with no driver's license or passport, here are some tips. It helps if you go prepared with a color copy of a government-issued ID, a bill or bank statement with your name, and a police report saying that you were pretty dumb while vacationing in California and left your belongings on a bus. If you follow these simple steps, you can make it through security with little to no glitches. Jamie even described it as "underwhelming."

I frequently think about California these days. I've never really felt the pull to live in NYC, but I do wonder about California every now and then. 

I lost some things over winter break 2012 in Los Angeles, after X.ado tour. Thinking about the LA trip brings back memories of Malibu, watching the sun spill over the waves, Jamie and A.Do cooking ramen in a massive pot, Michael climbing (and falling off) trees, Dan and Minae taking pro pics, Ashley being a pro hostess, and Tim complaining that we didn't hang out (even though we did, technically). What comes first to mind is not the moment I left my purse on a public bus or the frustrating aftermath of dealing with not having an ID, money, or a cell phone. Ashley and Jamie went with me to two police stations to file a lost items report, but I only really remember eating soondubu at BCD afterwards. Memory is a funny thing.

Thank you, Ashley, for being such a considerate and self-sacrificing hostess. Your mom is a most wonderful, most lovely woman too, and it was so apparent to me after meeting her where you get your goodnatured kindness.

There is a Chinese idiom that my mom loves:

在家靠父母，出门靠朋友

It translates roughly into, "At home, rely on your parents. Away from home, rely on your friends." Thank God for parents who are too good to me, who instead of reprimanding me for being an idiot offered to drive from Arizona to California to pick me up if they wouldn't let me on the plane. And thank God for friends who freak out for me - often even more than I do for myself - and stick with me even when I prove to be forgetful and incompetent. Too much undeserved grace and love.

--

The first draft of this post was written at Gate 44H in the LAX airport in December 2012. It had been living in Drafts collecting virtual dust until now.

[pursuinglovely]

Dead Mouse in Church Basement

My knees used to be unnaturally dark because I would crawl around on the carpet at church and not know to wash my knees. My mom would make me wash my feet before bed, but never my knees. My home church back in Arizona used to meet in the basement of another church building. We rented it. As a little girl, I knew every nook and cranny of that basement from years and years of hide and seek. I still dream about it occasionally. I wonder if everything will seem smaller if I go back and visit it now. I've driven past the building once or twice when I've been back home for breaks, and it's been abandoned, graffitied up - a critical piece of my childhood that's just broken windows collecting dust now.

It must have been fifth grade when the adults asked me and three other friends - overconfident, overeager middle schoolers - to teach the Friday-night little kids class. Why they thought this would be a good idea, I still do not understand. I am mostly an adult now, and I definitely would not ask a gang of eleven year olds to supervise a room of five and six year olds.

My friends and I took our lesson planning fairly seriously. Every Friday after school, I would schedule out the evening's activities down to the minute. We wove paper baskets for Easter and performed a play for Christmas. When we got to the story of David and Bathsheba while going through the Old Testament, we got mildly tripped up: " - and he saw her and lusted after her." "Teacher, what does 'lusted' mean?" "Uhhhhhhhh..." Actually, come to think of it, we got pretty tripped up over many Old Testament stories. Why are they so often considered children's stories when most of them are hardly age appropriate? It was usually safer to pop the VeggieTales rendition into the VHS player and sit in the back of the room eating the prize candies we had bought for the kids.

One time a mouse appeared out of nowhere while we were teaching. It was the first time I had ever seen a real live mouse, and I was fascinated but also unsure of what to do. The room of five and six year olds immediately exploded into chaos. The mouse must have been pretty freaked out too because it scurried into a side classroom and hid beneath the carpet. A human adult was notified and came in with a broom which he used to beat the lump in the carpet until the mouse was pronounced dead. Another time, we put wet paper on top of a lamp to dry, forgot about it, and almost started a fire.

That all of us survived teaching with only minor cuts and bruises is truly a miracle. I cannot, however, say the same for the dead mouse.

[pursuinglovely]

If loving other people is a bit of heaven then certainly isolation is a bit of hell, and to that degree, here on earth, we decide in which state we would like to live.

Donald Miller, Blue Like Jazz

[pursuinglovely]

What you say reveals what you see.

[pursuinglovely]

In honor of the greatest love story of all time <3 Happy Valentine's Day, friends!

[pursuinglovely]

Generosity is the heart of God

People check in every now and then to see how I'm doing spiritually. Recently, I'll mumble something back - "Oh, you know, it's been hard to be consistent without the tight-knit Christian community on campus." The bigger issue, however, is that over the last couple of months I've felt my heart grow cold to the city around me, to the strangers on the subway, to the beggars on the streets. In every small decision of disobedience, of silence, of inaction, I've quenched the Holy Spirit and pushed God a little further away.

Yesterday, at church, God thoroughly shook me up to see things clearly again. It was one of those moments where a simple truth that I had once understood was suddenly brought back and I was awestruck at the goodness of God for being so patient with me when I forget simple truths such as these.

Generosity is the heart of God

This is a passage that I've read so many times before, but yesterday, it blew my mind. In Matthew 22:15-22, the Pharisees try to test Jesus by asking if it is lawful to pay taxes to Caesar. Jesus takes a coin and asks whose image is on it. "Caesar's," they reply, and he says, "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God's."

The word image that Jesus uses here is the same word from Genesis when it says that God made man in his image. Caesar may put his image on a coin, but God put his image on us! So render to Caesar what is Caesar's, but give God what is God's. WHOA. God has made his mark so clear on us! He demands and deserves our hearts.

Generosity is not about what I have but about how I think. Can I out-give the widow in Luke 21? Have I ever given out of what I don't have? And the thing is, generosity is fun; generosity is life-giving; selfless generosity is God's example to us.

[journeyofabear]

Did the title of this post catch your attention? Perhaps it sparked something inside of you. A righteous anger? An adamant "But they can be depressed!" If so, I commend your heart.

First and foremost, to clarify any misconceptions, “depression” is not simply a feeling of sadness. It is...

[pursuinglovely]

Dear God,

Please give me a jam buddy! :'(

Thank you! <3

-M