Happy New Year

This year I lost three people that I dearly loved. One to betrayal, two to cancer. There is a song we sing in church sometimes and one of the lines says “death has lost its sting.” I understand the heart behind it, the notion that we are going to be with the Lord and so we need not be afraid of death. But death has stung me. Betrayal has destroyed me.

I have never known the meaning of weakness so closely as I did in 2011. My heart and body were so feeble. I had to stop doing things that I enjoyed the most—eating and Muay Thai. My stomach was weak and I had to feed it sensitively. My body was in pain and I had to give it time to rest. But more than anything my heart was broken from loss.

I am finally experiencing the very edges of healing, glimpses into what may someday be a whole and renewed spirit. I feel older. I feel heavier in my thoughts, my actions, my outlook. I wish I could say that I feel wiser, and perhaps in some ways I do. But more than gaining wisdom, I have developed a heart thankfulness and love. People say that pain can harden you. But I have never known my heart to be so tender.

Betrayal has a way of making you feel like nothing. Unimportant. Unloved. Unworthy. But I have experienced Gods great love in the midst of great loss. I have understood how much love it takes to forgive, and seen the depth of my own sin and felt the expanse of God’s forgiveness.

2011 was a year of deep pain, but also one of unexpected gifts. Two dear friends visited me from Korea, I spent three months in Thailand, I felt so loved and supported by many friends and family, I completed ¾ of my graduate program, I read some really great books, I discovered how much I enjoy the ukulele. It was even a gift to visit the grave of my sweet and strong Muay Thai teacher and to be with others who were mourning. I would never in a million years want to relive 2011, but I am grateful for it. I am grateful that God is mindful of me.

No year is ever all good or bad, and I hate to make generalizations. But I am happy to wish 2011 a good riddance. I pray that 2012 will be filled with more wisdom and forgiveness and fun. And of course lots of yumyums, good music, friends, and Muay Thai :)

Happy New Year.

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I read this poem at the funeral of one of my classmates this year. It is one of my favorite poems of all time. I hope that throughout this year, and my life, I would be reminded of the privilege that it is to live, and that I would live a life that is rich and meaningful.

A Psalm of Life
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Tell me not in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou are, to dust thou returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each tomorrow
Find us farther than today.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world's broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act, - act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o'erhead!

Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sand of time;

Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o’er life's solenm main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us then be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.