I consciously and unconsciously carry this suitcase of dysfunctional conceptions into my relationships. Understand that ensuring my own security became a cornerstone to my thought patterns very early in life, so most of these stem from that. This suitcase didn’t keep me from being gifted with many incredible, life-changing relationships throughout the years, but it does bring a constant element of risk analysis to relationships. This is a tiring way to live.

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Because loving others is not something I can check off my to-do list, it can be challenging for me at times. I am a list person to the core. I have always been very driven and place great value in productivity, efficiency, and accomplishment. Sometimes, I think I place too much value in these things, rather than on what really matters. When I read Shauna Niequist’s book Present Over Perfect for the first time, it was like a wake-up call. I was sitting in my big overstuffed chair, snuggled in a blanket, candle flickering nearby, and my journal at the ready. Thankfully, on this occasion I was reading and really paying attention.

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I’m writing this post as I sit in Peoria’s airport waiting for a flight to Dallas. I’m going to visit my friend, Katie, and while I tend to hate sitting on a plane with the possibility of throwing up into a bag in the seat in front of me (a story for another time), this trip will definitely be worth it. In fact, this trip ties in perfectly with the idea of loving myself.

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A day spent on the couch reading and being immersed in one of Jean Auel’s epic Earth’s Children novels, getting up only to refresh my Diet Coke, or switch out the Doritos I was munching on for M&M’s to nibble — that used to be my dream day. That’s the way I thought I loved myself, when I “deserved” pampering. But, it doesn’t take long to figure out, that’s not love — that’s indulgence! And, extravagance, while great in the moment, does not fill me with a lasting satisfaction. In fact, it actually leaves me feeling disgusted with myself and useless. Ann Voskamp describes telling her teenage daughter, “Sometimes the short-term Immediate You can’t have immediate gratification so you can give the long-term Ultimate You what is ultimately best.”

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It’s rainy today. I love it. The gray, dreary clouds melting onto the world. I love the color gray in general; I also love blue. My soul loves the opposites that they represent: Dreary. Hopeful. Wonderful. Pleasing to my eyes. I find the colors next to each other as I get dressed for the day. My closet is full of these favorite colors, well-worn pieces that soften with age — like my edges, I hope. A lot of my edges feel dark. Can things feel dark? Probably.

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Once upon a time, my love for God was a vibrant, shining thing.

After growing up in a Taiwanese immigrant home as a rational-empiricist atheist, I became a Christian as a high school senior. The next fifteen years or so of my Christian life were largely “up and to the right,” as they say — growing in my knowledge of God, my experience of his love and presence.

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I have just spent the last four weeks of school teaching ten-year-olds how to add and subtract fractions. This math skill strikes fear in the hearts of students and teachers alike with good reason; it is rife with opportunities to make a tiny error and mess everything up. My group this time struggled mightily with the concepts, and I found myself saying over and over, “You have to slow down and pay attention. There’s a lot going on in these problems, and you can only do one step at a time. Pay attention. Watch me. Let’s do the first step together. I know you can do this hard thing.” Slowly their skills improved, and I loved watching them gain independence and confidence as they tackled each new fraction aspect. I was so proud of them.

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I am a caregiver. I come by this naturally since I am a “2” on the Enneagram personality profile: The Helper. I am also a caregiver in fact, providing daily care to my ex-husband who has lived with me since his original cancer surgery three years ago. One might imagine the wide range of emotions I have experienced in this role, as well as the times I have had to put his needs ahead of my own. Have I always done this with grace and with a peaceful heart? Hardly.

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In Mark Twain’s novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck wrestles through a moral dilemma about demonstrating true friendship to a stigmatized person of his day — a man who bore a dual stigma of being black in a racist society and enslaved in an exploitative one. To help his friend Jim escape meant violating not only human law, but also divine law as it had been interpreted in that society, because to help a slave escape meant stealing property from his or her owner. Not only did Huck worry about God and about going to hell for obeying the impulse of his heart, but he also worried about what people would think of him. “It would get all around that Huck Finn helped a negro to get his freedom; and if I was e’er to see anybody from that town again I’d be ready to get down and lick his boots for shame.”  But such worries did not prevent him from doing what he knew to be right.

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We started 2017 knowing we were pregnant, but had no way to grasp what that would mean. We started the year with one definition of what love was and are ending it with another. With that in mind, this is what being new parents has meant for us and our understanding of love.

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I’ve spent my whole life in church (Sunday school, flannelgraphs and all), and it was good — until it wasn’t. It was fine when I was little and didn’t pay attention to all the things women weren’t allowed to do. But then later, through a series of events, everything imploded and my perception of being made in the image of God was shattered. It started to seem like men were more the image of God than women were. And it seemed like God loved women just a little less.

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Love is the basis of every great story, every heartfelt song. It’s a great money-maker for Hershey’s and Hallmark every February. It is often portrayed as simple, romantic, beautiful.

I’ve never been very good at simple, romantic, or beautiful. I really wish I was. I’ve never been a gambler either, until suddenly I was.

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Here is an old story about joy. I promise it is about joy, but it may not seem so for a bit here. I would have been 23 when this whole thing went down. It was at the end of my time in college. I was housemates with three beautiful girlfriends. We had lived together in this crummy old house, off campus for two years, and had been close friends for four. In the last six months of living there, all three of them got engaged. In addition, three other very close friends also got engaged. I was MISERABLE. There was nothing I wanted more than to end my years in college with a wedding. My own wedding.

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First thing I think of when the subject of joy comes up is my grandchildren. When they are very young, falling asleep on my chest. As they get older, coming in the front door, running to me with a big smile, for a hug, or watching them playing together, with one another, when we all get together. That is a joy that warms the heart, joy of the most natural sort.

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The doctor led me into a tiny room off the nursery at the Chicago hospital where our second daughter, Amber, was born. A sad-faced nurse entered and put the very still little baby in my arms.

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