flake part ii

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[ flake part i ]
[ on disappointment: by love ]


"i took a nap. i met someone and started talking. i forgot."

when certain people flake after making plans with me, it tells me that they don't value spending time with me as much as taking a nap, talking with someone. it's not important enough to commit to their memory. in my mind, in my world, you spend time with someone because you love them. beyond disrespecting my time, flaking equates to "you are not important enough to me to attempt following through my commitment to spend time with you."

it hurts to be flaked on. it feels like i am forgotten or unloved or betrayed. it hurts to say with increasing heaviness each time, "it's okay. i accept your excuse" only to hear that excuse again later. and as that heaviness settles, it becomes subtle bitterness, just like freshly fallen snow becomes icy dredges if someone does not shovel it away.

but this is not my world, and not everybody lives with the same mindset. to expect that would be borderline ludicrous: that would be like saying that i am a little god with whom friends i considered close should spend time with. it would be insulting to them for me to assume they care nothing about me, and i would be disregarding & demeaning how they value friendship. so at the end of the day, the question is not of where the blame lies, nor is it of who values whom more. the conclusion is that we are simply broken people; we hurt each other unintentionally, we understand love differently, and we are hurt easily because we are selfish and fragile. & if i can immerse myself even deeper into the knowledge of His love for me, i won't be able to prevent others from hurting me, but i can stand up again and i can run away from the temptation to be bitter because i know how much He has forgiven me and i can love again.

"There is no safe investment. to love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken... The only safe place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell... We shall draw nearer to God, not by trying to avoid the sufferings inherent in all loves, but by accepting them and offering them to Him; throwing away all defensive armour. If our hearts need to be broken, and if He chooses this as the way in which they should break, so be it." -C.S. Lewis

it makes me so humbled and amazed by God & how He sees us. why is it that we, who daily choose to worship the creation instead of the Creator, are seen as beloved in His eyes? we, who forget Him & His sovereignty so easily as we fret over the looming future which we sinfully want to know and control, are the object of His love?

"He sees because He loves, & therefore loves although He sees." -C.S. Lewis

because He is a gracious God, His love for us drives His forgiveness; woe to those who knowingly reject and rebel against His outstretched palm.

"Forgiveness is not so much a word spoken, an action performed, or a feeling felt as it is an embodied way of life in an ever-deepening friendship with the triune God and with others. As such, a Christian account of forgiveness ought not to simply or even primarily be focused on an absolution of guilt; rather, it ought to be focused on the reconciliation of brokenness, the restoration of communion—with God, with one another, and with the whole Creation. Indeed, because of the pervasiveness of sin and evil, Christian forgiveness must be at once an expression of commitment to a way of life, the cruciform life of holiness in which we seek to “unlearn” sin and learn the ways of God, and a means of seeking reconciliation in the midst of particular sins, specific instances of brokenness." -Gregory Jones

good reads:

[ Forgiving and Reconciling ]

[ How Far Should Forgiveness Go ] 

[ The Manipulator ]

sidenotes;
made spring rolls, panko fried chicken breast, chinese sesame chicken soup, & in the process of making red velvet snowman & strawberry reindeer cake pops with roomie :)

october the thirty first

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“Slowly, quietly, like snow-flakes—like the small flakes that come when it is going to snow all night—little flakes of me, my impressions, my selections, are settling down on the imagine of her. The real shape will be quite hidden in the end. Ten minutes—ten seconds—of the real H. would correct all this. And yet, even if those ten seconds were allowed me, one second later the little flakes would being to fall again…

And grief still feels like fear. Perhaps, more strictly, like suspense. Or like waiting; just hanging about waiting for something to happen. It gives life a permanently provisional feeling.” -A Grief Observed, C.S. Lewis

"today i foray unabashedly into the unreasonable.

somehow it feels like a disservice that my human brain is incapable of storing permanent memories of him. at best, i have but a foggy image that slips away the more i try to hold onto it. 'like a fool, trying to hold water' -- i said. the more i forget, the more he dies, the more he becomes a construction of my imagination. as i cling desperately to that raw sharpness, like some stupid child holding onto a knife, time mercifully and cruelly blurs and smudges until i am left with the memories of a younger me whom i am not anymore. and in that way, grief is how i remember him. without grief i feel as if i am betraying him, forsaking him. i embrace grief because it is all i have."

sidenotes;

my first cartoon was published in the newspaper today :)
adding croque de madame egg cups to my cooking repertoire
planning to make frozen chocolate covered pb&banana bites tomorrow <3

god is good to me

you are freaking breaking my heart into a bajillion little pieces
please please please, god of mercy and grace, help