The Case of the Spilled Water

 I went out the other night with a friend of mine (for the sake of the story, named Sam) and one of his close friends (we'll call him John), which happens to be someone I'm interested in.

We ordered our drinks, the waitress set them down on the table in front of us when all of a sudden the cup of water slipped from his hands and went "splash!" onto my side of the table. I sat there in shock as my dress, my underclothes, and even my skin became soaked with the ice-cold water.

John quickly apologized as I laughed it off and began soaking up however much of the water I could. Unfortunately, my dress was so soaked that I had to pull it slightly above my knees along with the slip I was wearing.

I looked between the two men in front of me, red in the cheeks, and said "Please, don't look underneath the table."

Sam quickly waved it off to say "don't worry, I won't" and John looked at me apologetically and said both gently and emphatically "No, claro que no." Roughly translated, meaning No, of course not.

They both honored that for the rest of the night.

Now, to you, this story probably means absolutely nothing. You're probably like "Okay, that was thoughtful of them, so what?"

But to someone like me, who has had almost all of her boundaries violated in the past year and a half, especially physical boundaries, the promise they kept to honor both my privacy and my body, meant the world.

A lot of you probably know my story, especially if you've read the previous blog post, so you know I'm a survivor of sexual assault. The violation I experienced after going through sexual assault and then into an abusive and manipulative relationship has been tremendous. Not just physically but also mentally, emotionally, and even spiritually.

But these past few months, God has been reconstructing my understanding of love. Not solely romantic love but love in general.

This is why I think about Sunday night and 1 Corinthians 13 comes to mind... "Love is patient and kind...it does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth." (1 Corinthians 13:4-6, ESV)

Love always honors the other person. It's not selfish, it doesn't think about pleasing itself but would rather focus on how it can honor and uplift the other person.

God is rewiring my brain on how to live with this perspective of love. Not just so that I can love others the way that God intended all along, but also so I could receive love the way He intended me to receive it. To understand that any love that does not honor and respect me, my body, my emotions, etc. is no love at all, but rather a worldly substitution for it.

I'll likely be posting more about love in later posts as I continue this journey, but for the time being, I'd like to leave you with some questions.

How do you perceive love? When loving others, do you seek to honor and respect them?

If in a relationship, do you and your partner honor each other's boundaries, bodies, emotions, convictions, etc.? If not, is God calling you to something better, whether that be transforming the relationship or moving on from it?

Feel free to comment with your responses below!

Much love,

Hannah

To the girl...

This photo has been on my mind a lot lately.

We're studying Beauty in the Broken this week in God's Word for Life, and never has that been more apparent in my life than it has this past year.

Sunday marks an anniversary I would rather forget, but that will be drilled into my memory forever.

When I look at this picture I'm reminded that this girl doesn't quite exist anymore. She's lived an entire decade this past year and overcome more obstacles than she has her entire life.

She lived through the nights of only sleeping a couple hours and driving with no destination in mind at 2AM blasting music because it was the only way to shut off her brain.

She survived the nights of staring up at the ceiling asking God why. Why me? Why this? Why now? Why, why, why?

She breathed through the days where her heart ached and her lungs felt deprived of air and she felt more dead than alive.

She searched high and low, in every crack and crevice, to find healing. She did everything she could to make something right only to realize she alone didn't have that power.

She destroyed things meant to stay and built worthless structures in their place.

She hated and hurt and mourned and shifted and changed and...kept going.

She learned to love deeper when all she felt was hate. She learned to breathe when life punched her in the gut and live when all she wanted to do was lay down and die.

She still has bad days, when the memories won't go away and her emotions run rampant and she can't quite shake that feeling of brokenness.

But to that girl--I'm proud of you. You kept going when it would have been easier just to give up. You stood up even when you were knocked down again and again and again.

You loved when it meant your heart would be shattered and loving your enemies came to life. You stayed when everything told you to run and hide.

To that girl, Sunday doesn't mean you've broken all over again. It's a reminder of how far you've come and how God truly does create beauty from the broken.

You're here, you're healing, you're living, you're still loving. And I couldn't be prouder of you.

P.S. If you're that girl (or boy), please know it does get better. There is hope for healing and you are NOT what someone else did to you. Below are some resources for sexual assault survivors.

Resources

National Sexual Assault Hotline: 1-800-656-4673

National Sexual Violence Resource Center: https://www.nsvrc.org/

Joyful Heart Foundation: http://www.joyfulheartfoundation.org/

Victim Connect: victimconnect.org or 855-484-2846

RAINN: https://www.rainn.org/national-resources-sexual-assault-survivors-and-their-loved-ones

 

The Art of Saying Goodbye

The hardest thing I had to do was say goodbye to you.

Because I never said goodbye to you. I said goodbye to my version of you. To my dreams, my plans with you, the memories I was sure were the only things keeping me alive.

I still hear your words, albeit in my head while I read your letters. I still see you, even if it's in the pictures that pop up in my emails. I still sense your presence, even if it's the memories of you and the memories of us overflowing from my heart.

Truth is, my heart held onto hope way longer than it needed to. I never said goodbye to you. So my heart wanted to believe there was a chance, wanted to believe the future plans I'd dreamed of weren't shattered in a million pieces.

December 19, 2020.

The day my heart knew it was time. I held a letter from you and the cloud finally lifted from my head and clarity fell. I saw the pieces, broken and fragmented, surrounding me.

This time I knew the only way to heal was to let go. To say goodbye to the version of you I once knew. To the man I remember sitting across from me with the shining smile and sparkling eyes, who always knew what I was thinking before I even said a word.

I said goodbye to the daydreams I conjured up every morning, thinking our relationship would ever be anything more than it was. To the false hope I fooled myself into holding onto.

That day I felt like I lost everything. But I actually found something.

I found peace in what I call the "art of saying goodbye." 

In the journey of letting go of the past and moving forward step by step. Saying goodbye to the illusions and finally having clarity. In relinquishing my heart's desires and finding the courage to dream new dreams.

There are still moments when I struggle with going back to you. But then the moment passes and life fills me with a joy and vigor I could have never imagined.

It is a long journey ahead. But there is an unspoken, indescribable beauty in this art of saying goodbye.

Jehovah Rapha, The God Who Heals You

Exodus 15:26 (NIV)- "He said, “If you listen carefully to the Lord your God and do what is right in his eyes, if you pay attention to his commands and keep all his decrees, I will not bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord, who heals you.”

Isaiah 53:5 (KJV) "But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed."

For those of you who have been a part of my life for at least the past three years, you know that I've been sick. A LOT. In the past three years and 4 months alone, I've had my gallbladder removed, sustained a concussion that led to a plethora of issues and left me with chronic migraines, herniated my disk at L4-L5, got a pretty bad case of COVID, struggled with depression and severe anxiety/panic attacks, etc.

For my most recent health adventure, I've been sick for several weeks with a loss of appetite because everything makes me nauseous, and a burning sensation under my ribs, throughout my chest, and in my abdomen. After weeks of working through that and trying different medications, my doctor ordered a test for H. Pylori. Honestly, I didn't think it would come to anything. But yesterday, I got the news that the test came back positive. All these crazy GI issues and the burning and the nausea was caused by some pesky bacterial infection in my gut.

In the midst of this, I've been having severe anxiety attacks that wake me up in the middle of the night. As childish as it sounds, I immediately run to my mom's room and have her pray for me until the panic goes away.

This morning, my mom came into my room and asked me how I was feeling. Then, she told me something that put my focus back on God instead of on my problems. For those of you who don't know, I had a severely herniated disk that compressed my sciatic nerve, and they thought there was no other option besides spinal surgery. During a church service, a bunch of people prayed for me, and within an instant, I felt like something reabsorbed into my spine and the pain, numbness, and tingling went away. And it hasn't been back since. So when Mom said "Remember God can heal you. He healed you of this *referring to my back* and He can heal you of this and the anxiety. This isn't over."

It shook me a little because, while I've been trying to focus on God, I've been focusing on the pain and the anxiety more. The Bible says He is the Lord that heals us, Jehovah Rapha. He's the God who took on our infirmities on the cross. By the stripes on His back, we've already been healed.

That's why cancer has to bow before Him. Chronic pain has to bow before him. Failing hearts have to restart and reprogram in His presence. Every sickness and disease is under His feet because He already defeated it when He suffered and died on the cross. That means YOUR pain has already been defeated. He already has dominion over YOUR sickness, YOUR diseases.

And He doesn't just heal physical infirmities. He's the Master Physician, He does what no other can do. He can heal our minds, our emotions, and our hearts. He's the permanent cure for anxiety and depression. He's the mender of broken hearts. The rebuilder of homes, families, and relationships. Whether it takes one encounter with God or 10, He will do it. Sometimes God does it in an instant and sometimes He takes His time. But He WILL do it.

Don't worry, child of God. He sees what you're walking through. Whether it's physical, emotional, or relational, God will heal you. Don't give up. Don't lose hope. Look at the stripes on His back and remember they exist for YOU. For your healing. For your mending. For your peace and joy and comfort. Keep walking, keep seeking. It will happen.

God bless you <3

"The Pursuit"

 As I go into my 24th year of life, I decided to change directions for both my life and my blog. I've been meaning to post here for a while (by a while, I mean a couple of years), but just couldn't seem to find the words or the right direction for this blog.

Going into 2021 and putting my focus more on my relationship with God and what He has called me to do, I decided to take this blog in a different direction. By and large, it'll still have the same sort of content as before--encouraging posts, various poems or short stories, pictures from adventures in my life, etc. However, I wanted to focus the purpose of my blog as following my pursuit of Christ and the life He has planned for me. Thus giving the blog the new name "The Pursuit."

I'd also like to try and post more and be more interactive if my schedule allows for it. It might be difficult between a full-time job and a school schedule, but I'm sure a quick post here and there is doable.

Anyway, I just wanted to give a heads up for anyone looking at the new blog name and design. In case you were wondering about the changes.

As always, may God bless and keep you,

Hannah <3

A Way Higher Than Mine

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. 9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts." -Isaiah 55:8-9

Since my time in Costa Rica, I've been thinking about this verse a lot lately. You see, a year ago at this time, I had my entire life planned out and it looked RADICALLY different from where I am now. I wasn't planning on being single or still living at home. I wasn't planning on having my ministry focused on the Hispanic community both domestically and abroad. I definitely wasn't planning on having everything I dreamed about, everything I held firmly in my grasp, ripped right from my fingers.

At first I didn't understand it. How could God take away my dreams, my plans? What on earth was He doing with my life?

And in the midst of the chaos, in the confusion, He allowed me to walk through doors I never even saw open. An internship at a clinic working with the most amazing people. Volunteering as in assistant ESL teacher with a supervisor and students who taught ME something every time I walked in that classroom. Incredible friendships with people who had been there all along, but who I never paid attention to. Just to name a few.

As if that wasn't enough, God opened the door for me to travel to Costa Rica again with a scholarship that paid for literally EVERYTHING. And while I was there, my dreams began to change. My focus in life began shifting. Even though I was there to teach English, they taught me even more. About life. About love. About trusting God even when nothing is going your way. I couldn't help but leave changed by the experience.

At the very end of my time there, all I could do was stand in awe at everything God had done for me and everyone He had introduced into my life. All of the doors He opened and that He keeps on opening every single week. 

It was during this time that I understood WHY I had to go through the pain, the heartache. WHY my dreams and my plans had to be torn to shreds. Because God knew they weren't good enough. He knew that His plans were so much bigger and greater and so blessed that I couldn't possibly settle for my own. 

I'm not saying it's easy. There are days I struggle to let go of my will and trust that God knows what He's doing. But ultimately, I know that He wants what is best for me. That He is FIGHTING so I can have the very best. And all I have to do is keep seeking His face, keeping trusting in His dreams, His plans. 

Because His ways and His thoughts are definitely higher than my own.

Happy New Year!!