the heart as it is | courage • grief • beauty

Oof it’s been more than a month since I’ve posted on these. But also I had a really intense summer class that just ended last week ! So here are my life reflections from that time:

Things I have been learning about Yahweh:

• The one thing I can really list here is something I’ve been thinking a lot about from the really funny romantic comedy, Ali’s Wedding, that’s really been making me think of the love and grace of the Father. It’s based on a true story (of the main actor + character) of a Muslim boy who pretended to go to medical school and get out of an arranged marriage. Spoilers ahead… only Ali’s sister and girlfriend know that Ali is faking medical school attendance. Eventually his father finds out, and Ali and his father have a heart-to-heart after his father bails him out from jail from trespassing on private property to escape his arranged wedding. His father asks him why Ali lied the way he did, and Ali shared honestly that he just wanted to make his father proud. His father apologizes in saying that if he ever made Ali think that he needed to impress him in any way, he shouldn’t have done that as a parent, and that the best way that Ali could make his father proud, was that Ali would be proud of himself.
  
  I would not have expected this coming from a film about a Muslim community – although I will say I have been noticing God in so many more ways the last couple years of my life – but that line from the father stands out to me so much; that the way to make him proud was for his son to be proud of himself. Obviously not proud in an arrogant, self-absorbed way, but more in a rejoicing way – one from high self-worth and not shame. God the Father of anyone wants us not to be living from a place of shame (by the way, He also doesn’t shame us if we do, He has infinite compassion for us as He is Compassion Himself), and a lot of that journey has to do with learning to be proud of ourselves, and learning to love ourselves in addition to loving God and neighbor (because all three of those avenues of love cannot be separated from one another, per Jesus).

Things I’ve been learning about people:

• Something I’ve learned in my psychopharmocology class this past month is the importance of having relationships in addition to medication. Yes, one important relationship is a counseling one, but it continues to remind me how powerfully wired we are for relationships, and pain ensues when those go awry.

Things I’ve been learning about the world:

• Okay I did not know that lava is basically molten rock ! I thought it was just some fiery substance my whole life, but I only recently realized that lava is what rock looks like when it is melting.

Things I’ve been learning about myself:

• Something my therapist mentioned to me that only seeing my flaws is an avoidant behavior from seeing my full self, and I definitely have been pondering that a bit. It’s been reminding me of a quote that Emily P Freeman frequently shares (not from her) that says “O God, help us to believe the truth about ourselves, no matter how beautiful it is”. It’s something she prays frequently, too, and maybe I should as well to see and love myself fully.
• Backpacking on this previous point, I’ve been reflecting that it is totally okay if I still need to grab compassionate voices elsewhere. I did not grow up with compassionate voices in my own family and most churches I attended, so this is quite the muscle I need to develop, but I need a lot of hand-holding, mentorship, and general help, too.
• Also in one of Emily P Freeman’s episodes that I’ve re-listened to for the nth-teenth time, she shares that something she reflects on periodically includes movies that have touched her in particular. I recently had a girls’ night with my new mother-in-law while Jacob and his brother and father went to watch a scary movie (which neither of us ladies enjoy). We re-watched the 1995 film adaptation of Sense & Sensibility with Emma Thompson and Hugh Grant (my mother-in-law has the film so has watched it a number of times while I watched it once over a decade ago in my senior British Literature high school class). More spoilers here ! At the end of the film, Hugh Grant’s character, Edward Ferrars, is finally able to profess his love to Elinor (Emma Thompson’s character), and Elinor has this panic-crying moment of pent-up emotion being able to be released because the person she loved that she was trying to let go of ends up being available and wanting to be with her. I’m not entirely sure why that scene stands out to me so much, other than it’s touching. I’m sure a lot of it is in the acting, as Emma Thompson does such a good job of it, but I think there’s something moving in general seeing someone release all their emotions (in healthy ways), whether Elinor got the man she wanted or not.

• Also… Sense and Sensibility was directed by a TAIWANESE director !!! I am learning this just now while looking up things about the film. Such pride for people of my heritage !!

This was a much longer reflection post than expected, so thanks for reading up to here if you have ! My plan is to post another one of these hopefully in at most another month !