I took a photo around two or three days ago of the view outside our dining room window, we don’t live in Metro Manila. It helped me envision exactly how I had begun to feel the moment February crept in. On Valentine’s Day, I made sure I was home, away from everyone, and safe from the view of every cut-out red heart strung up in the city. I wasn’t brave enough, not yet anyway.
I’m never particularly cynical about anything. I’m not corny like that. I’m a hopeful romantic who’s never hopeless but last year I didn’t make it through an almost 3-year relationship…my choice. The separation hurt indescribably, but I put on a pretty good act to make sure no one worried bout me, and before this being an emotional idiot I thought I wouldn’t recover if this ever happened to me again. I’ve moved forward in my life to say the least because that’s all I should say. God is mysterious and beautiful like this though, because at the very least over Christmas we patched up and are somewhat civil now even in the bittersweet aftermath of a relationship fallout.
Still from Dear John
At this point in reading my mom is going to ask “Yes, but why were you fasting…”. I fasted for nearly two days, being hyperacidic it could not be a complete fast, I took 1 soup per day, water, and an occasional cracker or piece of toasted bread. In the beginning I thought I’d do the fasting for a specific cause to make myself spiritually charitable on VeeDay. In the end I became self-absorbed (as usual) I fasted for hope, I fasted for peace, and I fasted for courage for myself, all of which I felt I did not have much of on Valentine’s Day…which I feel is why sometimes I’ve got such a short rope for other people because I don’t possess enough of all three. So of course to fight off cynicism bout myself I denied myself consumption, but of course got my hair cut and recolored, then prayed internally to get my heart and spirit back on the right track.
One of the videos I watched to help process was a message by Lisa Bevere, a girl whose rollercoaster life was changed when she met her husband in college, he was a young missionary and she called herself something short of a young mess. Lisa is funny, spunky, fearless, has one real eye, four Spartan sons, and of course she has her beloved, the tender and righteous John Bevere who helped heal her lactose intolerance on their first date. This is the first part of a 6 or 7 part message. I think it was uploaded in the years when YouTube could only receive 5 minute videos, it’s easy to find the next parts. Lisa Bevere is a Pastor’s wife and strongly advocates self-esteem and Spiritual purity in young women today. Her stories about her and her husband when they first met are so funny. Her message The Confident Woman Fights Like a Girl is about how women ought to embrace who they are in order to be more powerful and effective in life.
