3 a.m.

I'm not pregnant.
I'm not on a mission trip.
I'm not studying abroad.

Given the statements above, you may be wondering why I even have a blog or why you're even reading this.

To be quite honest, I'm not really sure why I'm writing this. I haven't been able to fall asleep before 4 a.m. for the past week, and I decided that blogging over binge-Netflix-watching might be a better use of my time. So, welcome to the late night scribblings of Cheryl Aguas.

During my sisterhood retreat, they had us hike with girls who we don't normally talk to and we had to answer:  1.) what was the biggest thing we learned about God that semester and 2.) what was the biggest thing we learned about ourselves that semester. And wow. It's incredible and humbling and encouraging to hear the things that God is doing in the lives of those around me. (Isn't it crazy to think that every person we brush shoulders with has an incredibly specific and orchestrated story? Just think on that. Every person you make eye contact with, every by-stander, is made in the image of God. Crazy stuff.) So, I took it upon myself to ask almost every person I talked to thereafter these questions in addition to one more question: What's the coolest thing you learned in school this year? (<-- I added this question because school is actually really cool. Seriously. I know I'm being a complete nerd here, but I love that God made the world intricate enough that we can devote years to getting an education and only barely scrape the surface of His design. Y'all, He's seriously so big; it is blowing my mind constantly!).

So, since it is only three, I'll answer these questions as well. (If you're reading this, feel free to answer the questions in reflection too!)

1.) Biggest thing I learned about myself:

I learned that I am defined by God's love for me, not my love for Him.

I think a lot of the time, I got caught in the hype that I should be known as the Jesus-loving, sweet, and nice girl.
My friends, I cannot boast about my love for God. As Christians, we are not called to simply be "sweet" and "nice". We are not even called to be known, but to make Him known.

First and foremost, we are called to be His.

Being a Christian is not contingent upon how much we express our love for the Lord. We are imperfect. We love God imperfectly. We fail. We mess up. But the beautiful thing is that we are not defined by that.
We are defined by the gospel: Christ's love for us.  "There is no greater love than this: he who lays his life down for his friends." He loves us and covers us, and we are defined by that grace, not our performance-- not our grades, not our reputation.

Let out a deep breath. What sweet freedom there is in Jesus!


2.) Biggest thing I learned about God:

He is delighted when we take delight in Him.

Isn't it crazy that God wants to spend time with us? He looks forward to it. He loves us.
Some days, I would walk to class with a goofy grin because I wouldn't be able to stop thinking about the fact that Creator of the universe is thinking about me. People probably thought I was in love, so I guess they aren't far off the mark. It only makes sense that we fall in love with Who is in love with us. We blow up this idea of "ring by spring", but even the love between humans is imperfect. Yet, we rejoice in it and relish it and write poems about it. So how much more should we delight about the perfect love Christ has poured out for us?

3.) Biggest thing I learned in school:

When sea cucumbers get stressed out, they go through a process called evisceration, which entails them throwing up their digestive system and regrowing it inside themselves.

So, with that fun fact to think over, good night and sweet dreams.

"Here I am, Lord. I'll stay."

Adventure is out there.

Please excuse the tacky "Up" quote opening, but it was the first thing that came to mind when I reflected on this past year. It's December 30, 2014, and, since the roads are too icy to drive on, I have the privilege of letting my introvert self sit in my bed and blog and reflect on this past semester (and life in general I guess). (<-- these alone moments are incredibly scarce when living in a dorm with six hundred others girls)

Since three years ago, my life has been marked with travel. Within two years, I went to Haiti, Poland, the Philippines, Italy, and Los Angeles, and I am currently planning for a semester abroad in Spain. These mission trips came only naturally since I had wanted to do missions since second grade. However, I hadn't fully grasped the concept of missions until this past semester.

In my mind, missions was tied with Isaiah 6:8.

"Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, 'Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?' And I said, 'Here am I. Send me!'"


Missions was synonymous to leaving. It was about God sending me some place else; being a missionary meant packing up, leaving familiarity, and going "out there" (you know, where adventure is according to the sweet Asian boy in Up). I'd always been comfortable with this idea. I even have a journal filled with places I want to go someday. Even when I reached high school, I asked to transfer, simply so I could leave what was familiar to me. When applying for college, I was desperate to find somewhere away from home, liberal, and diverse. When looking at what I wanted to do, I looked for a job that would get me in and out of school quickly so that I could leave for a third world country as soon as possible.

But, as usual, God wasn't asking me to say, "Here I am; I'll go."
Instead, He changed my heart to say simply: "Here I am."

His will wasn't for me to go at all. During my first semester of college, I attended a Christian conference called World Mandate. College students from around Texas came and gathered for the sole purpose of celebrating Jesus and getting fired up about missions. At one point in the evening, the worship band asked us to spend a moment in silence and ask God to break our hearts for a specific country. After three days of being spiritually saturated, I felt like I could hear God so clearly, and I was excited to hear exactly what he wanted for me.

And while those around me were getting revelations of nations and peoples and visions, I heard God tell me, "Stay." For a moment, I was crushed at the thought of being here. But I realized God has been asking me to stay all along.

When I asked to go to public school, Jesus showed me how to grow and love at my own school. When I asked to go to the University of Texas, God told me to go to Baylor. When I asked to have a career that would let me leave as soon as possible, he made it so clear to me that what he wanted me to do would make me stay in the U.S. for at least twelve more years.

And I couldn't be more grateful.

Adventure is not always "out there." Adventure is wherever God wants us. Sometimes he asks us to pursue it, but other times, the real adventure begins without having to take a step. Thank Jesus that loving God is not contingent on my location. So whether we stay or we go, may my heart always stay in the position of saying, "Here I am-- going or staying-- here I am."

Threads

God is sovereign, and He sure does have a good sense of humor. I'm sure he thinks it's "endearing" (which is the word you use when someone you love has some weird habit) when we bow our heads and begin to get frustrated when we pray. Especially when the answer is right in front of us, and all we had to do was trust Him and look up. That's a lot what this past week was like.

I heard a story about a tourist who visited Florence and saw all the magnificent tapestry art. (I'm pretty sure this was from K-Love radio station... S/O to Scott and Kelly in the morning!) He said that he stood in awe as he imbibed the beauty of the picture formed by the woven threads. However, when he saw the back of it, it was a tangled mess. Knots mangled with stray threads that formed a chaotic mesh, nothing like the art on the front of it. He said that he realized that's what life is a lot like. We're only on the mangled tangle-y side. We're completely blind to what it's actually making on the other side of the tapestry. It's a very "All things come together for the good of those who love HIM" mindset, which I've clung to in every season in life. And after many seasons of prayer, I think I've finally caught a glimpse of the front of the tapestry.

As a senior, I've always had this tinge of wishing I was like the person who could always see the front of the tapestry. The type of person who has always known what college they want to go to, what to major in, and then outlined their life in a 20 year plan. The people who have every thread of their tapestry picked out.

But praise God that I didn't pick my threads. Or else, who knows, I might have woven some messed up self-portrait that looked more like a cow than a human being.
He picked them for me. And these were a few unexpected colors and textures that He gave me to make a tapestry that I pray glorifies Him:

1. Someone didn't show up to church.
2. Once a week, I left the house before seven.
3. I was assigned a 10-15 page paper.
4. I didn't get to buy a homecoming dress.
5. My English teacher was merciful.

 These are all the stray threads that formed into one desire and calling. It was these five events, a whole lot of maturing, and a whole lot of prayer that got me ready for what God was calling me to do. If you would bear with me and let me explain (or just read the bold words and skim), it will explain why I have this eager desire to major in Biochemistry once again.

1. Someone didn't show up to church.
I never realized that having spit all over you could be worth it.
You're only allowed to work in the church nursery when you're 18, which never would have bothered me. At age 15, I still wasn't allowed to hold a baby because my parents didn't think I was strong enough. Did that disappoint me? Not really. Babies kind of looked like small aliens that cried and smelled weird to me.
But one Sunday, someone didn't show up to church, and I guess you could say that changed it all. My sister asked me to fill in, and after two weeks of babysitting, holding, feeding, and diaper-changing, I decided that I should become a full-time volunteer. Thus, I was in the nursery industry. I'm still not 18, so I would have never been allowed to hold a baby unless it weren't for that one person who decided not to show up. Not a big deal right? That's what I thought too.

2. Once a week, I left the house before seven.
For some of you, this really isn't a big deal, but for a girl who barely wakes up at 7:30 a.m. (i.e. me), it's quite a challenge. But when your teachers tell you about how Lubbock performs abortions every Thursday morning, there's not much you can do but get up, stand outside, and pray. (Update: we actually can't perform abortions in Lubbock because we have to fly a doctor in. Praise God!!!)
I did this on-and-off since seventh grade (because I couldn't really drive or I'd just inexcusably forget), but since then, God has been breaking my heart for this issue (that tends to happen when you pray). Ever since, I've had it in the back of my mind that I wanted to do something, ANYTHING, to stop abortions.
I was picturing picket fences and protests and fundraisers, but I think God has something way different in mind.

3. I was assigned a 15 page paper.
At my school, we have this infamous English project that requires interviews, experience, and a ridiculous amount of research. They called it the "Isearch", but "Icry" or "Igiveup" would have been much more appropriate titles. My teacher said that we could do it on any topic we're interested in. Naturally, I said I wanted to be a doctor, but let's get something straight: I wasn't actually interested in medicine. In fact, I hate needles. You could splatter and swish blood around in surgery and it wouldn't bother me in the slightest, but if you eject that same blood through a pin-sized needle, I might start to cry. Anyways, I was forced to do my paper on a bioethics topic instead of something that didn't put me to sleep. Thus, I wrote my paper on... wait for it... babies! I spent hours at interviews with gene experts and nursery experts, and I even signed up to watch a live birth. And the weirdest thing is that I think I actually enjoyed it.

4. I didn't get to buy a homecoming dress.
I'm the youngest of three girls, so that typically means that I get a beautiful array of hand-me-downs. I truly have no need for shopping. But junior year came along, and I decided that it was time for me to be like the other girls and go shopping for my own dress with family. I was actually looking forward to it and had some tutoring money ready to be spent on something navy or red. But here's the twist: during my only free weekend, my family was busy. My parents left town, and my brother and sister were at an in-town college retreat called "Salt-Shaker." (My brother was the intern at the Wesley Foundation, which hosted this retreat). They told me to come on over, so that they could take care of me and I wouldn't be in my house all alone. I'm not gonna lie, I was so tempted to throw an old-fashioned four-year-old breakdown when I got there because 1.) I was in a VERY introverted mood 2.) I didn't want to sleep on the gym floor 3.) and I didn't get to buy my homecoming dress. But then I held myself together solely because there were older college kids surrounding me. Pathetic, I know.
What my siblings failed to tell me was the "Salt-Shaker Retreat" was code for "Night That Everyone Shares Testimonies." At the end of the weekend, I was completely blessed by hearing the stories of these college kids. I had to leave early, and I'd made up my mind to dismiss myself quietly. But then it happened. By "it", I mean the way your heart starts pounding when the Holy Spirit prompts you to do something. I tried to quiet the conviction, mainly because older people intimidate me, and I wanted as little attention drawn to me as possible. But, like God usually does, He won out, and I stood up and related my high school life and the way God completely wrecked me in the best kind of way. I left with a sense of freedom and peace, knowing that God might have used that testimony to touch someone's life. Little did I know that his prompting led to much more than that.

Fast forward a few months.

The Wesley Foundation is leaving for Haiti, and a team member gets sick. With a spot open and about two weeks to fill it, the leaders were searching for someone to come along. Ideally, it should have been someone college-aged and on-fire for God, not a sixteen year old high school student at a Christian school. But God had something different in mind. My brother said that since I shared my testimony at Salt-Shaker Retreat, the director decided that I was "spiritually-ready" and extended an invitation for me to come along.

One of the LC's (life-changers) I experiences in Haiti was the problem of sex-trafficking. The girls we hosted the youth conference for were familiar with this abuse. One nine year old girl had even been prostituted for $1.50 a night. Needless to say, I left not only with a changed perspective but with an indignant desire to help these ravished victims. I decided that from then on, my life would not be about securing my future. It would be about securing theirs.
Exactly how I would do that was a complete mystery to me.

5. My English teacher was merciful to me.
That 15 page paper I mentioned earlier has come back to haunt me. Instead of writing about babies, my teacher thought that the daunting topic of Bioethics seemed much more appropriate. So, that's where DC English is right now: stuck writing 15 pages over something very few are interested in. I asked my teacher if I could write it over human sex trafficking. In my mind, I pictured her laughing and telling me it was a stupid question, but I figured it couldn't hurt to ask. So I sent her a text that night, and, to my surprise, she answered: Sounds great. You already have some interest in that.
 
Thus, at my English teacher's mercy, I began reading through over a hundred pages of human trafficking and health care.
That was when my epiphany occured.

Woven

Now all these "threads" hung in my life, miscellaneous and somewhat useless, until I found myself multitasking one night. I was reading through my sex-trafficking sources as my mother was discussing my college plans with me. (<--  if you're a senior, then you must empathize with the fact that this conversation happens much too often.) I was telling her how I wanted to do something to help the girls in sex-trafficking, but I couldn't quite find a middle ground between counseling and medical relief. Frustrated, I glanced down at the next sentence:

"The state is required to provide healthcare for all babies born through the sex-trafficking industry."

I don't know what went off in my mind, maybe it was just a light bulb or a couple of fireworks. In that moment, I knew exactly what I want to do. I want to be an OB GYN doctor. This job includes prenatal counseling, which ties into the stopping abortion and trauma counseling dream I've always had. It involves babies, which I now love. It involves blood, but not the kind that come in needles. It involves women, instead of men (which I always had some weird phobia of operating on). Most of all, it gave me peace. This is a profession that fit everything I feel I was trained for, interested in, and passionate of.

Thus, I'm on my way to be a midwife. That night, I watched birthing videos and read job descriptions until one a. m.  It's incredible to watch God get your little dream and turn it into something daunting but beautiful. I find that He's been growing this passion in me from the start. When my life was messy and frustrating, I had only yet to see the tapestry He was weaving on the front. Just a glimpse of that tapestry is enough to keep me going because I know the more I trust him, the more that tapestry will look more and more like Christ.

And what other picture would I ever want to weave?

What My Grandma and a Pigeon Had in Common

My earliest memory of my grandma takes me back to the cement driveway of my old house. With a jumbo chalk in one hand and chalk dust stained on the other, I was in the middle of my masterpiece when I heard a discomfiting THUMP against my garage door. I glanced behind me to see the aftermath of an unlikely collision: a pigeon, writhing and flightless on the pavement. Immediately, I ran into the house to find my dad to move it or put it out of its misery. However, only my sweet grandmother, Nanay, was home (she was living with us at the time), and I could barely imagine her doing either of those things.

And she didn't.

She gently picked up the pigeon and brought it inside. She nursed it back to health in our old bird cage, and it was no wonder that the bird recovered perfectly. I was convinced that the care of her tender, frail hands could cure anything. With nails always painted with red polish, her hands had wiped everything from food to tears from my face. They had blessed me, held me, and loved me. It was a familiar haven, and I had no doubt that pigeon thought the same.

It wasn't long before the pigeon had fully recovered, and I was elated at the thought of a new pet. I dubbed it "Seedy" because I thought it was best if you just added a "y" to whatever food it ate. (Original, I know.) However, Nanay, who had obvious custody over the pigeon, let it out of its cage and set it free."We need to set it free," she told me. "It's not supposed to live in a cage."

Although I was heartbroken at the time, I've thought little of the incidence since. That is, until November 9, 2013 happened.

It was 9:00 p.m. My family, extended family included, and I were crammed into a tight hospital cell, and the heart monitor controlled our every sob. My grandma lay in the middle of our huddle, conscious, but unable to respond. Her skin was as thin as paper now. An unsettling reality began to settle over us: These were our last moments with her. So we sang hymns and prayed and held each other-- the three things she would always do for us. An hour later, the heart monitor moaned, everyone screamed, and the doctor offered her condolences.

The next week felt surreal. I kept replaying the scene in my mind, and I kept second-guessing if it really happened. The same hands, firm and gentle, that blessed me could not have been the swollen hands I held in the hospital. And they definitely weren't the same cold hands I touched beside her coffin. But reality told me differently.

I replayed every memory we had together-- from trying to help her with the dishes and laundry to her birthday party, karaoke, and constantly asking her which grandchild was her favorite. Everyone kept telling me that she was in a better place now-- that she was dancing with her husband in the presence of God. And they were right. She was finally where she was meant to be, and she was happier there. God gave her to us for a time-- so that she could love us and so that we could love her. Ultimately, she was God's, not ours.

And I think that's what she had in common with that pigeon: Neither was mine to keep.

Nanay is a citizen of heaven, not of earth, and she knew that. This earth was just a cage, built with bars of her sickness, pain, and sin. Although she is gone, her words and her love echo today. While most of me misses her, another part of me rejoices that God set her free because she was never meant to live in a cage.

Chewing on Rocks

"I remember my affliction and my wandering

The bitterness and the gall.

I well remember them and

my soul is downcast within me.

Yet this I call to mind, 

and therefore I have hope."

Lamentations 3:19-21

The book is literally called LAMENTATIONS. Last I checked, that meant crying, whining, and grieving. How on earth did the editor let the word "hope" get into this book? It's too out of place. "Oh no, Cheryl!" you're thinking to yourself. "I know this Bible verse, and it's one of my favorites. Hope isn't out of place at all. Stop being a cynic." Well, read the couple verses in front of it, and you'll sympathize with my confusion. Jeremiah is talking about his body being mangled, living in darkness, and chewing on rocks. Chewing on rocks?! The only background information I had on Jeremiah at this point was that God sent him speak to the Israelites, and he didn't want to. 

I thought, "Jeremiah. Sometimes God makes me do things I don't want to do, but I don't write a book about it. Calm down."

Reading this, I already thought he was being dramatic. Then in verse 19, it got worse. It was like he got on the Mood Swing ride and came back delirious, spurting out words like "hope" and "faithfulness." It was like someone replaced the rocks he was chewing on with the best gum in the world. He seemed like he was being capricious.

But that wasn't the case at all.

Jeremiah wasn't whining on a whim (<--please take a moment to admire my alliteration). He was not grieving for himself, but for the people. Jerusalem was being destroyed, and he was in the thick of it. He watched the people starve to death and the temple of the Lord be raided. Since he was a child, God ordained him to prophesy to the Israelites. He told Jeremiah that no one would listen to him. And what could be worse than carrying a message that God himself told you no one would listen to? The truth burned while the people died. Jeremiah had a lot of reason to complain, and little reason to start this "hope" thing.

And it struck me. Jeremiah was comparing having to present truth to a dying and stubborn people to the worst grief in the world. He knew they wouldn't accept the only truth that mattered as he watched them die. I have the gospel, the Truth, yet no such urgency moves me. I have the promise that His Word will not come back void, yet whether or not someone listens didn't pain me. It only annoyed me, and then I moved on. After reading this, I prayed that I would have the same burning desire to tell these people of the truth. That I would feel like if they didn't listen, maybe I would be grinding my teeth on rocks too.

Even though Jeremiah was called the weeping prophet, he makes one of the most profound statements of joy in the Bible. After verse 19, he talks about the remnant that remains:

"Because of God's great love, we are not consumed

for his compassions never fail.

His faithfulness is new every morning; 

great is your faithfulness. 

I say to myself 'the Lord is my portion'

therefore I will wait for him."

Jeremiah said that God was his portion-- that He was enough. He was enough when dead bodies surrounded him and his city was being captured. He was enough when he had to proclaim the truth to a crowd that wouldn't listen. He was enough when he was experiencing the most pain he ever could. He was enough when he was chewing on rocks. Then I looked at my life compared to his. I have a promise that the gospel will bear fruit. Even though the government just shut down, my nation is doing fine. And the last thing I chewed for more than an hour was a piece of Arctic Cool Five gum. So why would I have any excuse to not let God be enough for me?

A Better Question

Open up with a cliche Pinterest picture and a quote from C.S. Lewis? Check.
I also wonder if Pinterest has a modeling agency. I bet their quotes could make the back of anyone's head look good.

I've never had much trouble finding my place in the world. I've had more trouble creating it. I've always been a deep thinker. You know, the kind of person that would sit down, eat a sandwich, and wonder how eating this sandwich would effect his life in ten years. In seventh grade, I already had a ten-year plan. I knew exactly what college I would attend, what age I would be when I got married, what my kids names would be, and where I wanted to live. Did I mention I was eleven years old? I thought I had all the answers, and the road ahead was smooth-sailing. I was so wrong. Of course, now I'm five years older, wiser, and better. I tweaked my plans, and I have my whole life figured out.

Psych.

This is my last year to live at home, and I'm still not sure what the rest of my life is going to look like. I've gone back countless times to my seventh grade agenda and wondered why it's been half a decade and I still haven't become the revolutionary I thought I would be. I tweaked my answers to fit what I felt like doing every year and improved them to make them more realistic. However, the more I think about it, the more I've discovered that I should stop wasting my time.

Maybe life isn't always about finding better answers. Maybe it's also about asking better questions.

The question I asked in seventh grade was "What will make me happy for this life?" Don't get me wrong. My answers weren't that I wanted to get drunk, party, and do drugs. They weren't even about winning the approval of others. I didn't want to be world-famous or rich. I just wanted to be happy.

In fact, my seventh grade list was actually very moral. I wanted to become a doctor and help in third-world countries, start a pro-life campaign, and find a cure to cancer. (Let's all take a moment to note that I was probably the most idealistic seventh grader there ever was.) I thought that if I finally did all these things, I could be satisfied in myself. I would be a good person, go to heaven, and leave this world better than I found it. I strove for perfection. My seventh grade question was exposed for what it really was: "What can I do to satisfy myself?"

I was spiritually, physically, and mentally balanced. Yet, I was never satisfied. My life by anyone else's standards should have guaranteed happiness. I had friends. I had work ethic. I had Jesus. My life should have been perfect.

But that's the thing. We were never made to be perfect. And Jesus was never meant to be apart of some list, even if he was at the top. God was meant to be at the very center of it.

I think that's what a lot of Christians look over. They think that they can satisfy themselves with morality, family life, and loving others. We try so hard to satisfy ourselves with religion. We think that a healthy dose of Jesus will make us into a better and happier person. But may I just emphasize: JESUS IS NOT A DIET. He is not some plan we get on to get a better version of ourselves. Under his grace, we are a new creation. We are no longer satisfied by the things of this world. We cannot be satisfied in anyone else.

The answer I so meticulously contrived in seventh grade could be answered simply. "What can I do to satisfy myself?" Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I could be the best person in the world, but I would only ware myself out. Instead of asking "Will this make me into a better person?", I started asking, "Will this make me look more like Jesus?" (Thus, I bought Chaco's, because I'm 70% sure that Jesus would have worn them.. but really.)

C.S. Lewis about sums it up in Mere Christianity:

The Christian says, 'Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire: well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.

I still don't know what I want to do. I'm sixteen years old, and instead of writing my college essays, I'm blogging about Jesus. Honestly, that's all I want to do. I want to talk about Jesus the rest of my life. As long as I love him, I could be starving. I could be homeless. I could be broke. (S/O to Justin Beiber) But truly, maybe we should stop asking what else will satisfy us and start asking "Is God enough for me?" Will we simply settle for what is before us because it is convenient? Will we scramble to get our best life now? Or will we live, knowing Jesus IS the life? 

If you're in the same boat as I'm in and you're deciding what you want to do for the rest of your life, I encourage you to have peace. Stop fretting over the trivial things. I've found so much freedom in chunking that seventh grade list. Good news, guys. I don't have to find the cure for cancer in order to be happy at the end of my life. There is so much grace to stop asking "God, should I become a doctor or a lawyer or a sanitation engineer or...?" and to start asking, "God, what can I do to look more like Your Son and glorify you?" 

Insanity, by definition, is doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result. So, I guess we're all a little clinically insane. We keep asking the same questions over and over and still become frustrated at every dead end. If you're still searching for something that will satisfy you in this world, I'll save you the trouble. Nothing really will. We were made for a different world. So stop scrambling to create your spot in the world, and start finding yourself in all God is.

Love Notes On Candy Wrappers

The more I learn about relationships, the more my parents completely astound me. Even after 25 years of marriage, they still sit on the couch together and talk every night. My mom still sings while my dad plays the piano (Sometimes it gets depressing when they choose to sing Les Miserables songs every night, but I guess it's almost cute). My mom still gets excited every time my dad comes home from work and greets him with a kiss. As I look at them, I see the love-struck eyes of young honeymooners somehow trapped in 50 something year old bodies. (If Mom or Dad is reading this, that was a typo. I obviously meant **30) Honestly, who wouldn't want a marriage like that? The older we get, my siblings and I wonder about their secret. How does a marriage like theirs even start? The answer came at dinner one night: It all began with a nine-year story of quiet pursuit, sprinkled with a few love notes on candy wrappers.

Long story short, my parents met in a church during a missions meeting my mom was speaking at. Apparently, my mom was quite a beauty when she was my age. With long locks of ebony hair, a dentist-advertisement smile, and a heart after God, my mom was eight-five pounds of beauty when my dad first laid eyes on her. He met her at a missions meeting while she was speaking to raise money for a trip. His  small donation ended up being one of the biggest investments he'd ever made. She worked as a receptionist at her church, and it didn't take long for my dad to leave his church and start attending hers "by coincidence." Long story short-- nature took its course, and my dad became the first and last boyfriend my mom ever had.

Growing up in the Philippines, neither of my parents were very "well-off." My mom had eight brothers and sisters, poor living conditions, little food, and three jobs. My dad had ten brothers and sisters, mediocre living conditions, and a high value for education. Obviously, neither had much money to spend on dates or gifts.

Still, my mom has a trunk filled with all the things my dad had given her. I felt privileged to look at and hold the relics: old bookmarks, figurines, and love notes. I came across what appeared to be trash, but then the sharpie scribblings on the back caught my eye. The crumpled candy wrappers were embellished with confessions of love and "I'm thinking about you" notes. I asked my mom about them, and she told me that they didn't have spare money to spend on nice cards. As a result they would often write notes to each other on napkins, receipts, or candy wrappers. Things have changed drastically since then.

After becoming a doctor, my dad could afford to give my mom much more than bookmarks. He began lavishing her with exotic trips, dazzling jewelry, and fine clothes. Still, I don't think anything will quite compare to those candy wrapper notes, burrowed in the corner of their trunk.

There is something so sweet and innocent in those candy wrappers. It was like elementary-kids passing notes to each other during class. I think it was those seemingly insignificant reminders which made everything else so significant.

(I took this creeper shot at the Valentine's Day dinner^)

People always say that the Bible is God's love letter to mankind. The more I think about it, the more it blows my mind. I mean, the God of the universe, who IS love, who IS the most beautiful, cares about me simply because Jesus has made me beautiful to Him. That's wild. He wrote a 1800 page love letter to us? Yet, I act like I don't have time to read it. When someone you like texts you, you read it over and over again. How much more should we do that with God's Word? 

This past spring break, I began to think of it like this. While in Haiti, a boy decided to write me love letters which was frustrating because 1.) this was a mission trip, not summer camp 2.) we didn't even speak the same language 3.) he pulled the "Maybe this is what Jesus wants" card and 4.) I still have no idea who he is. Needless to say, I have no idea where the letters are. My brother said he burned one of them, and I'm sure the other two are buried in a traveling suitcase in my attic.

On the other hand, I have a box full of notes from my loved ones. It's called my "happy day box." Every time I'm having a bad day, I go through the box and read and reread all the notes from the people I care about the most. 

I think that's a lot like how it is with God. The more we know and talk to Him, the more we want to read and reread what He has said to us. The Bible takes on a whole new meaning. It brings on feelings and memories that are unique to our relationship with Him. However, if I maintained a superficial relationship with God, he would seem more and more like a stranger in a foreign country. My Bible would end up in my attic, kept out of obligation. If I wanted to get to know someone, I wouldn't ask people about them, I would simple ask them directly. Learning about God is awesome, but it means little unless we know God for ourselves. I hope this is making sense.

Anyways, I was thinking that in the same way my dad wrote love notes on candy wrappers for my mom, God does things like that for us. The small things we often take for granted are actually love notes that we overlook. I guess God's love notes could look like all sorts of things. 

It could be in those West Texas sunsets, starry nights, or just having your favorite worship song come on.

My best friend, Kylie, and I have this thing for making secular songs into worship songs. Hers is "A Thousand Years" as featured in Twilight. It's actually about how Edward has loved Bella for a thousand years, but it's kind of cool how God loves us like that too. Mine is "Everything Has Changed" by T-Swift. Weird, I know. But the chorus keeps singing "I just want to know you better" and that's become the cry of my heart lately. It's been pointed out that the green eyes and freckles thing doesn't really line up, but I try to block that out. It astounds me how God uses a song originally about a vampire stalker boy and high school relationships to show us how much He loves us.

A lot of God's gifts are found in the obvious things, like church, prayer, and sermons. These are foundational, and I'm not underplaying them at all. But today, I want to encourage you to look for God in the less obvious things-- in the little things that He's doing and working in to show you how much he loves you. Listen to what's going on and look at the world around you.

And maybe, just maybe, you'll find a few of His love notes on candy wrappers.