imagine a day
Imagine a day where you are unbound. Untethered. Unrestricted. Unbound from your fears. Untethered from your “identity”. Unrestricted in your love.
Imagine a day where you fully open up. Fully Embrace. Fully receive. Fully open up to the love from above. Fully embrace your true potential. Fully receive the Holy Spirit.
Imagine a day where you are truly spontaneous. Where everything you do comes out naturally from your ingrained character. A character born from the one above.
Imagine the possibilities. Imagine the joy. Imagine the hope. Imagine the unimaginable.
Now imagine a life filled with these days…
a moving reminder from an unlikely source
Figuring out what I’m doing next has left me a lot free time on my hands right now and to pass some of the time, I’ve been watching some Gossip Girl. Not particularly proud of admitting that, I don’t even like the show, but it has this weird way of drawing me in. But in spite of my dislike of it, I must say that its Thanksgiving episode was alright and was the surprising source of an invaluable reminder of what real love is.
Jenny is a teenage character on the show and leading up to this episode, she has been on the rise in the fashion scene as a new designer but has alienated all those who care about her in the process, including her dad, Rufus. She even moved out of her home, away from her family. In this particular episode, she is trying to start the process of emancipating herself from her dad so she can start her own fashion line. Rufus eventually finds out and is initially furious again with his daughter. But after a calming talk with his son, he approaches Jenny in an unexpected way.
Jenny: …and you’d be really mad.
Rufus: No, I’m out of angry. I miss you too much.
Jenny: Dad, please don’t try to guilt trip me right now, ok?
Rufus: Your brother helped me realize that I haven’t told you something, something important.
Jenny: What?
Rufus: I love you Jenny. I love you so much, I’m willing to let you go if that’s what it’s going to take to get you back. When the time comes for a court hearing, I won’t stand in your way. But there is nothing you can do to make me stop loving you.
Reminded me of a post I read in a friend’s blog last year. Another illustration of real love from TV.
relationships
This one is inevitable. If you’ve talked to me at some point in the last 2 weeks of November, you may know that this has been on my mind a lot: relationships, specifically the ones of the guy-girl flavour. And I’m not the only one, some of my other friends have been thinking and blogging about this too.
Now, what made me think about this? I don’t know. Maybe it’s the fact that many of my friends and people my age back home are getting married soon or have already done so. Maybe it’s because I may have a longing for one myself. Maybe it’s because of the conversations I had about this topic with various people in that 2 week span. Maybe it’s all 3 of these reasons. Whatever the reason, I was super-saturated with relationships during those 2 weeks.
So why all this relationship stuff? I think God is trying to tell me something. What is it? Still trying to work that out. But there are some thoughts I have about this.
First, why even bother with a relationship? If you look at the world, relationships seem to suck. Even in the Christian context. Half of all marriages (Christian or not) end up in divorce. Even personally, I’ve heard of all these screwed up things that happen in relationships that just hurt both people. It almost seems like there’s no point in getting into one. Almost. Where some may find the marriage statistic discouraging or become disheartened when they hear about yet another messed up relationship, I kind of take it as a challenge. To show the world that there is still such thing as integrity and honour in a relationship. There is such things as pure love that comes from above. I hope to slightly change the marriage/divorce percentage to the better side through my own marriage, God-willing, and show that there is something worth fighting for, worth working hard for.
So back to the question, why even bother with a relationship? Well, according to Voddie, there are two purposes for a relationship, specifically marriage: imitation and procreation. It’s to imitate to the relationship of Christ and the church, where the man is like Christ and the woman is like the church (see Ephesians 5:22-33). It’s to procreate, basically make babies. Now, I totally agree with this, but I think there’s more. What that more thing is, I’m still working out.
Now, why would I want a relationship? Well, of course, to honour God, but true as that is, it sounds like the typical Sunday school answer. There are more reasons that just that. During a dinner outing last year, a friend of mine was going around the table and kind of profiling all the guys with what kind of a boyfriend we would be. When she 
got to me, she said I’d be the type that would do almost anything to make the girl happy. Now, I don’t know if it’s because she said that or if it’s really true, but I believe it is. One of the reasons for me to be in a relationship would be to make the girl happy. This is taking it out of context, but it’s kind of like when Jesus said, “I didn’t come to be served, but to serve.” It’s not what I’d get out of the relationship, but what I could put into it. Now that’s not to say I wouldn’t get anything out of the relationship, but that wouldn’t be my movtivating factor. In fact, if and when I get into a relationship, I hope the girl will really challenge and push me spiritually, help me become more of the man that God intends me to be. I really like the triangle illustration for relationships where God is at the top corner of the triangle and the guy and girl are at the bottom corners of the triangle. As the guy & girl grow closer together, so also will they grow closer to God. 
So that’s a snippet of what I think relationships are about. There’s more, much more, but I’m still learning and still trying to discern what God is saying to me. This is going to take a lifetime to figure all this out.
But let’s end on another type of relationship: one between a father and his son. Truely one of the most inspirational videos I’ve ever seen. Brought many tears to my eyes. The story of Team Hoyt.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryCTIigaloQ]
unconditional love
The other day, I was just standing there, at the Cecil & Spadina streetcar stop, listening to my iPod, when this guy comes up to me and says, “You’re not dressed for the grey cup!” So I take off one earbud and respond, “No, not much of a football fan.” And so starts one of the most random but most interesting conversations.
We get talking about all sorts of things, or rather, he gets talking about a lot of things. I don’t remember saying much myself but listening more, which I was more than happy to do. He tells me about his two kids, a son and daughter. How his son’s into football and his daughter’s (who he says, of course, is beautiful) into rugby. He tells me about how he recently went to the African Lion Safari with them and had so much fun, even more than his kids did. I find out he’s a mathematician from Queen’s but will be working in South Africa soon for a few months. But the thing I’ll remember from this conversation, is how there’s no other feeling like that of unconditional love for his kids. To see his face light up, to see that great smile eminating from his mouth, that twinkle in his eye, when he tells me about how great it is to be a parent and to have the no-holds-bar kind of love for his kids.
Wow. I hope I’ll get that opportunity one day to show that joy of the love I have for my kids.
