Well - here goes. Last night was a crazy day with Pastor Andrew about what feelings, love and relationships are all about, and some very good things about the will of God in your life and the nature of God.
Mind=blown.
I think at some point I just looked at him and went "Why don't you have a book out yet!! People are dying out here!"
Thankfully he is writing a book, some of his notes and points can be found: Here.
Seriously, this will change your life. Its been so intense and I'm so privileged to have had dinner with him yesterday, with this man of God. Catch him out for dinner guys, he won't be around forever. Really.
And also, here are Hannah's amazing thoughts on the subject: http://twinkilya.livejournal.com/305458.html
If I can even write half-as-well-written a piece, I will be so happy. So much better blog formatting than my dusty 2-year old Blogspot days too. <_< But yes. One of the best ways to learn is to keep reading and writing, so hopefully I can capture something here-ish.
Sighhhh. Well here goes nothing (probably going to take me hours) -
What Is Love?
When I was 15 - I was having the crappiest time. Counting down the days in a nerdish, elite, Chinese school that was constantly focused on results, I was so unhappy. Beyond unhappy. Nobody liked me, and the only things I had going for me were Lit and English, really. I'd always been all about the school spirit (Fairfield pride fwoar!) and I found none here. I was all about having fun, wanting to do pranks, daring to do anything - but nobody else was. And I always, always got in trouble all the time because nobody had my back.
I wondered if going to a new class in Sec Three would change anything. A pure lit class, the only one in the entire level, and surely there had to be cool people here, right? Change is good. Anything would have been better. And omg English. I remember walking in...we were stuck in register number because it was first day...and I noticed this girl sitting about three spaces to the front and left of me, at the front of the class. Longish, wild, nape-length jet-black hair, yellow hair-tie around her wrist, tanned skin, bouncing a bit and tapping her foot. She had a basketball tucked under her table, and I don't play basketball, but cool, you know? She was different from the monotony, dryness and lack of vision I'd resigned myself to always finding in this school, though I couldn't quite place it.
Class Introductions. She got up, turned around, swept her hair about, and with that twinkle in her eye I'll always remember, laughed - "Uhhhh, hi, my name is Anna, I'm in band, and I like basketball". (Honestly I think I've forgotten a lot of the details but the point was that I knew I had to talk to her).
Was CCA Day that day, us presenting the clubs and sports we did to the Sec Ones. I had badminton but honestly I kinda sucked and I wasn't going to showcase anything amazing anyway, so I just hung around out back at the top of the stairs where the assembly hall was. Concert band was below. And there was Anna with her trombone, with her section, jiving away with the rest of the band...I'd never seen anyone that gorgeous with that much energy. So happy. I....its so silly, but for the first time in years I thought I saw hope.
So after everyone was packing up and trying to get home, I hung around because I was trying to figure out how to talk to her, you know? I said hi to this other sweet girl in my class running this ice-cream booth for charity. Interact Club. Gave me a place to stick around and not-be-too-obvious, just "bump into her", you know.
Turned out she was waiting for friends in the Scouts or something, idk. We eventually started hanging around the ice-cream pole at the booth, said hi (!!!!), and got along as well as I knew we would, you know? Laughing, messing around, I forget what we were doing.....and then we broke the ice-cream pole.
I don't even -
Totally "uh-oh" but also "TOTALLY AWESOME", you know? To me, anyway. Been dying to find someone to do crazy stuff with me all my life and here she was. Nuts.
Anna was actually the best. We threw live lizards at each other, I skipped CCA to kick a ball around with her, and brought my dog around a lot. (Yes into school. Yes I stayed pretty close). She was gorgeous, willing to try anything, not afraid of anything but ants (omg ants), loud, crazy, laughed the most musical laugh, was excitable but also deep. Read a lot. We were intense rivals all through the years in Lit and English, though I was an intense offbeat exposition writer and she wrote the most beautiful descriptive prose. I brought my dog around her place tons (a condo divided by beautiful canals), and messed around with basketball. I'd found someone to be crazy with. She talked about dreams of doing journalism in Columbia. We showed up to assembly with cake in our hair cause we were the only people nuts enough to have a food fight. I was beyond happy you had no idea.
Then she fell in love with a band senior.
I remember the exact day she told me on MSN. 9.45pm, though thankfully I've forgotten the date (yay healing). My whole world shattered. She told me about this crush she had, and the guy told her he liked her, and she asked me if she should be with him.
She asked me.
And I said yes.
I just wanted her to be happy, you know? I figured as long as I got to be around her anyway, be her friend, I'd be happy. Be happy for her being happy. So it sucked and it was absolutely terrible but I thought I'd be okay.
Went into class the next morning and moped about on my table the whole day, not saying or doing anything to anyone, praying she would notice the state I was in. She asked me what happened, at night, and I was happy, though I said I was okay. That was the last time she ever asked me that, caught up in life with her new boyfriend and all her band friends, and I had no right to her life because I wasn't hers.
Absolute mess the whole year, carrying a torch for her all the way. It burned when I saw her happy, it was terrible when the teachers shifted me away from sitting with her because we were too disruptive to the rest of the class, though she got to sit with the rest of my friends (we were a group of five). He broke up with her in November, and though I was sad for her too (I was already beyond broken anyway), things started to get better for a bit, you know? We started being friends again, sitting at the MRT at Jurong East watching the evening rush, making laksa people on the floor (don't ask).
Then there was another guy. And I was just like - I can't do this anymore, I can't make the same mistake twice, I can't just let this go again. Its going to kill me. So I told her I liked her, over MSN of all things, while I was in a lan shop. (Don't know how I thought that was going to work).
Turns out she never, ever, had feelings for me ever.
I was a mess. Texted her most of the night, telling her I'd wait for her, would always wait for her, she telling me she wasn't worth it, and the rest of the night I spent out sobbing on a bench at the basketball court at the community centre (climbed the fence past midnight).
And if I thought the previous year was hard....this was worse. Us being in the same class, me not having any other friends, she copy-pasting our MSN convo to her close friends (._.) - Wow. I don't even know how I lived that year. (That was the year I came to COOS, so there's that).
Eventually we graduated, and the distance helped. A little, then a little better. I made some mistakes along the way, but for the most part God took me, saved me, and taught me about love. I learnt a lot that end-year about who I was, how girls work (I thought), and many things you should never do with girls (I thought). I was blessed like a crazy, Ngee Ann gave me the space and the people to be crazy with like I always wanted, it was a clean slate, life was good.
And somewhere along the line I decided that I was going to love. I was always going to love. And especially with girls that I liked, now that I knew the cost of unrequited love, I decided I was going to love anyway. That I knew what I was getting into, and it was okay because I wasn't loving to get anything from them, I just genuinely wanted to be a friend. Not waste the potential amount of love that could grow there (as friends), just because I was afraid of the possible consequences of crushing and friend-zone and all those things I knew really well. Love casts out all fear, right? And love overcomes, yes? And love has no boundaries so I don't need to be afraid, aye? Figured since I was blessed with the ability to pay more attention to these amazing girls..I would use it for good, and not selfishly. After all, I knew the cost.
(bear with me, I know this is getting really long)
I used to think for years after that I was all about love. That I knew love. That love is unconditional, has no boundaries, and no matter what, as long as you have love and keep loving, it'll fix everything. What of fear? God is love, and love casts out all fear. Don't forget to love, and be unafraid to, despite fear of consequences, because once you've given in to that fear - it already is a consequence, you know? And because I had loads of positive feedback, people saw that I loved unashamedly and they liked me for that. You'll probably know this as the phase where I hugged everyone. Keann is so full of love, people said. He's amazing. He's always there and he'll do anything for you and he'll never ask for anything in return.
There was the small part about me driving pastors and leaders a little bit crazy because I didn't respect "boundaries" at all. See, I wanted to show love. Love became who I was. My answer to everything - was love.
I always knew the wise things to say to my friends in hurt, and if not, I'd pray for them, always be ready with a hug (or multiple hugs), or be ready to call and listen, no matter what. Or gifts. Big surprises. I knew love and I knew how to fix it. And people loved me for it.
I thought I knew all about love because I had gone through so much pain, and I chose to love anyway, it was working out, so clearly I was on to something. And everyone else was just limited. Fearful. Boring. I'd understand and love you anyway, but I'd be sorry for you too, you know? For not seeing what I saw. Because of this, I wasn't teachable about love at all.
[ Parts 2 & 3 will come later! I promise to have more points about the stuff I've been learning recently, in later posts, but I felt like I had to put this here to show where I'm coming from. For me anyway, and my journey. Thank you for staying this far ]
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