I know I always make humorous posts, complete with pictures and ridiculous text for craps and giggles. But rest assured, I am made of more than that stuff. So here it is, a "serious" post, something that will hopefully prove to be food for thought for all of you.
What society revolves a great deal around in today's day and age is the notion and wonderful idea of love. Heck, there's even Datingish - an entire Xanga branch dedicated to it and the toils (and joys) of dating and all that it entails. As humans, love serves for us a means for survival. Without it, we are heartless, gloomy creatures.
Recently, my small group has been watching a sermon series on Love & Marriage by Voddie Baucham (really a great series, by the way). In a recent sermon we watched, Baucham spoke about the worldly, Greco-Roman concept of love versus the definition of love via what the Bible has to say about it. However, I think I can put a spin on this in a way that it can relate to all of you. Well, hopefully.
If the heart wanted what it wanted, if this thing was bigger than the two people involved, if you couldn't choose who you were to fall in love with... would relationships and marriages not be in big trouble? A married individual could walk down the street and meet someone who they were attracted to, get to know them, decide that they are head over heels in love, and then go to their spouse and say "The heart wants what it wants", "This thing is bigger than the both of us", and "You can't choose who you fall in love with". Now, wouldn't that just suck?! What was the marriage built on in the first place?
I believe that, in many ways, love is intentional. To choose to love somebody is a commitment. It is the conscious decision to love somebody that allows for real love to shine through. Don't understand? A real life example would be my parents. When my mom was sick, my dad did not have it in him to be around enough to take care of her. It was a husband who couldn't love his wife enough to see her through. It was too much work, it was too much of a hassle. This was evident throughout all of my childhood and upbringing. I don't know how many of you have taken care of someone who is severely sick. I can tell you right now - it takes a buttload of love and the will to love somebody in order to be around all the time. My entire summer was devoted to spending time with my mom and taking care of her every need. I sacrificed having a job, spending time with my friends... among other things, to ensure that I could make her as comfortable and happy as humanly possible. I wanted her to know that she was loved. This was not, by any means, an easy task. You can bet that there were times that I wanted to go out with my friends and stay out late rather than stay at home and sleep in my mom's room to make sure she was breathing properly, to rub her back during her nightly coughing fits, to take her to the bathroom in the middle of the night, and to wake up early and make her breakfast. There were times that I wanted to be selfish. There were times that I didn't want to stay at home every single day all the time. Yes, it was frustrating. It took a lot of me reminding myself of how much she had sacrificed for me over the years to realize that I needed to suck it up and pour my love out onto this woman who had loved me with every fibre of her being for the past 21 years. How could I possibly be selfish at this time?
I always asked myself, "how much do I love her?", and the answer was always, without a doubt, "more than I could ever say". So I made the conscious decision to devote my summer to her. It was the will in me and the desire to show her that she was loved in her last months that allowed me to do the things that I did for her. It was my intentional love that kept me going and enabled me to set aside my selfish heart.
If I had just let my heart get what it wanted even at the slightest times where I wanted to walk out the door and step away from my responsibilities as a daughter, all that would not have been possible. Looking back, at the very least, I can say that I loved her with everything that I had, even at the times that my heart wanted something else. I can't tell you how glad I am that I didn't do it any other way... because if I did, I probably would not be able to live with myself knowing that I didn't give her all that I could. I would be damned if I was not there at her bedside with her hand in mine at the moment she drew her last breath. This summer, I learned so much about love, patience, and what it is to really be intentional in caring about the people around me. I suppose this was the last thing she taught me before she had to go... and I'm glad she did.
Let me just say... I am not trying to dictate the way that anybody should love nor am I trying to impose my views of what I believe love to be on others. I apologize if anybody is offended by this post. But it is something to think about. How do you love the people in your life? Try being intentional. It really goes a long way.
Note: I think there is some confusion as to whether I am referring to romantic love or familial love in this post. The aim of this post was not to gear towards one or the other nor to equate them, but to give general ideas and situations in which love could be intentional. Sorry for the mix-ups! Thank you for reading!
An apple a day keeps the doctor away? Look at the size of this thing! Heck, I could just eat one of these babies per week and never have to visit the doctor once.
I'm eating a bigass apple, trick!
What's your favourite kind of apple? I think (I love how I don't even know) I'm eating a fuji apple. It's hella crispy - just the way I like 'em!
P.S. It's... December? WHAT?!?! Where did all the time go?
Random Fact about D #39: I snowboard. I'm actually better at skiing since I learned it at a very young age, but it's been years since I've skied. Plus snowboarding is badass, right? Except I don't look so badass when I'm snowballing down the hill while all the little kids are carving around me. Stupid kids.
So while y'all have been snoozin' and losin', Thanksgiving for us Canadians has already come and gone. I'm onto the next holiday, son! CHRISTMAS!!!!!
In anticipation, I recorded a little somethin' somethin' tonight to get into the holiday mood - my favourite Christmas song of all time! Way in advance. Don't worry, it's short. Enjoy!
I was at my school's UCC today and saw that the Imaginus poster sale had come back for the second time this term! I was waiting for a friend, so I decided to take a look around. I originally wanted to hunt for a nice John Mayer poster, but came up with nothing. However, I found something that may be even slightly more awesome than The John Mayer himself. Feast your eyes on this...
Okay, seriously, look me in the eye and tell me that this isn't awesome. The last one is my favourite. YEEEAAAA, BOIIIIIIIIIII!!! I'm in a particularly good mood right now because I'm going to have some sushi tonight! VEHHH NAICE. And I'm going to catch up with a friend that I haven't gotten to talk to in a while. School is just too busy! Speaking of which, I should probably do some reading for my paper before I head out.
In other news, I am going to embark on my very first Black Friday adventure tomorrow night... Eeep! I really don't know what to expect. I'm going to mentally prepare myself for the worst. I don't really do well in really large crowds... I tend to get easily irritated when I can't move around freely and there are people stepping on my feet left and right. A few friends and I will be driving down to the US and A to Michigan so we can participate in the American Thanksgiving festivities of shopping all night long. This will probably be like Canadian Boxing Day... except a gajabillion times worse. Oy vey! Will this be a bad idea? Maybe. But I really need to invest in some new earphones. Mine are buuuuuust, son. I hope I won't have to lay a smackdown on someone who decides to step all over my little Asian self. Happy Thanksgiving to all my American homies! Hope you all load up on some tryptophan and have both a delicious dinner and delicious sleep. Itising hardcore is the best! Well, except for when you have studying to do. Dang, I wish I had a long weekend.
Side note: I have had some things on my heart that I've been wanting to blog lately... but I just haven't been able to sit down and bang it all out on the keyboard. Hopefully I'll conjure up some will power to do so. Then you guys can have some good content to read instead of watching my stupid self stutter and talk about nonsensical things on my lame vlogs!
Random Fact about D #37: My favourite kind of sushi is spicy salmon. Mmmm... so excited for this tonight!
I am so sorry that this was extremely boring and... boring. I also apologize for sounding like such a blithering idiot. I got nervous (yes, nervous) and suddenly everything that I wanted to talk about was forgotten! Haha... I covered the main points, though. I promise I'll come up with something better next time. I swear I'm not actually that bland of a person. Now I'm going to lose about 50% of my subscribers. Hahahahah.
To make up for the boringness of the video, I will now share a photo with you all that I took (and edited! Editing is tough!) this weekend at my friend's house with my new DSLR. Meet Mojo! He's so cute (but Hailey's cuter).
Random Fact about D #36: My favourite colour is green.
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