Legacy

“If ever there comes a time when the women of the world come together purely and simply for the benefit of mankind, it will be a force such as the world has never known.”

-Matthew Arnold, Nineteenth-century British Poet and Philosopher

It is clear that there is a war on women taking place. When war is declared on a country or group of people, it is because they are, or at least perceived to be, a threat. Who are we a threat to... and why? 

The Eastern world is seeing the attack on women in a different way than we do in the West. It shows up in different ways depending on the region. China has the one child rule and is gradually coming to realize that they have aborted generations of wives and mothers. Where will the next few generations come from? We see gendercide taking place in India as well, young child brides in the Middle East, female mutilation in Africa and women being sold into sex slavery all over the world. 

The attacks we see on women in the U.S. and other parts of the Western world are bit different in nature, but no less heartbreaking. The number of young women with eating disorders and self condemnation that turns into behavior like self-cutting has skyrocketed in the last decade. The standard of unattainable physical beauty set before women has  led to confusion, hopelessness and a desperation to reach the standard, no matter the cost. The message that our worth as women is related to our sexual prowess continues to spread in Hollywood and through mass media through commercials, movies, TV Shows and music videos. No wonder women are confused...

When I lived in New York City I attended a multiple different secular conferences and charity events to raise support and awareness for the daunting challenges women are up against. It was powerful and encouraging to see men and women taking up different causes and sharing stories of educating women, with the hopes of creating lasting solutions. It’s hard to not feel hopeless facing the seeming odds in many of these struggles for Human Rights and freedom for women, without understanding who the enemy is and what his strategy is. The answers are spiritual in nature. The War on Women is all over the world and the goal is clearly to destroy us. Who is to blame? Who are we really fighting against? Hollywood? Marketing Executives? The Taliban? The Red Army? To understand this epic battle, lets go back to the very beginning of history. The very beginning.

The first couple pages of the Bible give us interesting background. God, the original creative designer and artist, spoke into being a magnificent world and put a ton of cool stuff in it. Trees, oceans, mountains, birds, sea creatures, suns, stars, galaxies and animals of every kind of variety. As awesome as animals are, they were not created in the image of God. In the creation account only Adam and Eve were created in his beautiful, intelligent and creative image. Genesis 1:26-27 The woman named Eve, which means “Life-giving” or “Mother of all who have life” is created as a solution to the first problem. The man is alone. He needed a partner. The crowning moment of all creation was the cameo of the woman. God decided to make this man and this women, together as a team, responsible for looking after all he had made and they began that journey in perfect and unbroken fellowship with God and nature in Paradise.   

Eve, is the only woman in all of history who never knew the meaning of misunderstanding, guilt, shame, envy, bitterness, estrangement, embarrassment and grief, until she listened to her enemy and began to doubt God. This led to the first sin of distrust and then disobedience. Spiritual death happened from the inside out as we read in Genesis 2:15-25,3. Ann Spangler describes it this way: “Suddenly, darkness rushed on Eden. It came, not from the outside but from the inside, filling their souls with shadows and cravings. Order gave way to disorder, harmony to discord, trust to fear.” There is so much more insight to this story regarding mankind, but I just want to focus on the woman right now.

Chaos and disorder always produces consequences. With Eve’s initiation and influence over Adam to join her, they together rebelled against God and disregarded God’s instruction to not eat the fruit of this one tree in Eden. Now....

Genesis 3:14-15

So the Lord God said to the serpent:

“Because you have done this,
You are cursed more than all cattle,
And more than every beast of the field;
On your belly you shall go,
And you shall eat dust
All the days of your life.
¹⁵ And I will put enmity
Between you and the woman,
And between your seed and her Seed;
He shall bruise your head,
And you shall bruise His heel.”

The physical beauty meant to be endless begins to deteriorate. Spangler, in her book “Women of the Bible”, creates visual imagery and describes Eve during the birth of her third son, Seth (after her first son Cain, became a murderer and the younger son Abel, the victim): “Her skin, damaged by sun and age, now stretches like worn canvas across her limbs. Her hands are restless spiders, clawing the hard ground beneath her, grasping for something to ease her pain. She can feel the child inside, filling her, his body pressing for a  way of escape. The cries of mother and child meet with streams converging. Seth is born. With her child cradled against her breast, relief begins to spread across Eve’s face. As she rests, a smile forms, and then, finally, laughter rushes from her lips. Try as she might, she can’t stifle her joy. For she remembers...the promise God gave: sooner or later, despite many griefs, her seed would crush the serpent. The woman would win.”

There it is. This is the beginning of the story and the end of the story.... The solution is going to come through the woman. Her offspring would be the long awaited answer that would eventually bring the fatal blow to the serpent’s head. However, we find ourselves on earth now somewhere in the middle of this unfolding story.

In the dark days we exist in, we must reject doubt of God, but instead adopt trust like Job did in times of great sorrow and loss. 

“For I know that my Redeemer lives, and He shall stand at last on the earth; and after my skin is destroyed, this I know, that in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!” (Job 19:25-27)

Well, if I have an enemy that is terrified of myself and other women, then that must mean we have power we don’t yet recognize and a part to play in a bigger story. 

The Blue Dress

“From cover to cover [of the Bible], from beginning to end, the cry of God’s heart is, “Why won’t you choose me?” It is amazing to me how humble, how vulnerable God is on this point.” -John Eldredge

“We need not fear that in seeking God only we may narrow our lives or restrict the motions of our expanding hearts. The opposite is true. We can well afford to make God our All, to concentrate, to sacrifice the many for the One.” -A.W. Tozer 

The dress arrived in a round package. It looked familiar, but I hadn’t seen it in over a year. There was something strangely comforting about the blue polyester material of this vintage dress with the feminine bow detail around the neckline...  As I held the dress I couldn’t ignore the memories from rushing back. It brought me back to that sunny, summer day in New York City... 

I was sitting in the middle of Central Park on a rock sobbing under my oversized sunglasses and sipping on some Au Bon Pain dark roast, when I got a call. “Trin, are you ok love? Come to New Jersey with me and my friend who’s in town. It’ll be good for you to get out.”

I wish I could say I woke up that morning, but that means you would’ve had to be asleep first. The night before ended with a phone call where my current relationship unexpectedly came to an end. I had done my best. I had prayed, I loved hard, I made sacrifices, I was available, I made excuses for his lack of effort, fought hard to make it work and affirm him as a man in every way I knew how. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough and was undeniably one-sided. The time of making excuses and living in denial were over. The reality hit me like a ton of bricks, but it was definitely over. 3 1/2 years of on again off again had ended. I cried most of the night and texted my roommate in the morning to tell her the news. She was out of town for work in Miami and texted our other girlfriends for reinforcements. 

I went with them even though I didn’t feel like it, knowing it was best. I’m so glad I did. We fought the traffic in Lincoln Tunnel, got lunch and ate it on the coast in Jersey and decided to hit up a Goodwill before heading back to the city. I don’t know who spotted it first, but we discovered the cutest blue dress on the sale rack for just a couple dollars! We both tried it on and loved it! The only problem was that it had a dark stain on the front. We decided that it was worth it to get it and see if we could get the stain out, so we did. My precious friend bought it and promised to pass it on to me if it worked out. She messaged me a couple weeks later she had gotten it cleaned and was loving it. 

Now over a year later, true to her word, I have it in my hands and it’s my turn to wear it, twirl around and enjoy the beauty of being a lady in a dress! To be loved deeply is to feel beautiful. It doesn’t matter what you look like, how much you weigh, where you live or how much money you have. When you are rejected and feel discarded and “stained” it’s painful and, unfortunately, no woman can rush the healing process. The dress reminded me of the journey and the healing I have experienced since that day. Even though I have a good man in my life now who loves me deeply, I am reminded of the hope that I have had along this journey of womanhood. The hope that came to me from the incomparable love of Jesus. It was the existence and purposes of this man Jesus that gave me hope for my future, no matter I would face in the days ahead. He fought for me, he suffered and sacrificed just to have a relationship with me. He did the same for you. You are not rejected or forgotten by God. No matter what has happened in your life. Immerse yourself in this truth today: "I'm chosen. I've been fought for. I'm passionately pursued, not for my body, but for my heart."

More than a year ago, that same dress lay discarded in a Goodwill in New Jersey and I lay discarded in my Upper West Side apartment. The beautiful truth that has been so liberating for me recently is that God longs for us to love him. Not only are we not rejected by him, but he searches for us and his eyes roam the earth for those of us that have our hearts set on him. He WANTS to show himself strong for us. He is so vulnerable and humble as he fights for us, waits for us and deeply desires to not only restore us, but to be quickly found by him when we search for him. He isn’t distant and uninvolved. He is a lover that waits to romance us. He will never force us to love him, but O, how deeply he waits and longs for us to choose him! The heart of a woman is for relationship and that does not make a woman weak, quite the opposite. It is the very heart of God and woman was created in his image, so it makes perfect sense that he placed that identity of relationship within us. 

"But Zion said, “The LORD has forsaken me, the Lord has forgotten me.” “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! ” . . . declares the LORD. (Isa. 49:14–15, 18)
(A promise of the Lord for the nation of Israel, spoke by the Prophet Isaiah and a beautiful principle that we can embrace as children adopted into the family of God.)

Eldredge, John; Eldredge, Stasi (2007-07-10). Captivating: Unveiling the Mystery of a Woman's Soul (Kindle Locations 468-469). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition. 

New York Neighbors

 "And I always heard people in New York never get to know their neighbors."

-Paul Varjak "Breakfast at Tiffany's"

Occasionally I have a flashback of some of my silly experiences here in NYC...It was the year 2007 and I had graduated from college the previous year and was substitute teaching in Harlem and South Bronx while studying for a Master of Education degree online. I'll never forget the day that I gained all new respect as the token white girl in my entirely Dominican Harlem neighborhood. I got a phone call that Sunday evening : "Hey Trinity! We're downstairs." said the man's voice. I went downstairs,walked outside of my apartment building and headed for the black car waiting on the corner. The Brand-new glossy, black Lexus with 24 inch rims and dark black tinted windows was waiting and I slid in the backseat. There was Stephon Marbury, point guard of the New York Knicks at the time and his sweet daughter Stephanie in the passenger seat. We were doing a quick in-person interview after speaking on the phone a couple times about tutoring Stephanie in her schoolwork as she was just entering middle school at the time. The three of us shared some laughs, had a great chat for 20 or 30 minutes and set up a time for our first tutoring session that coming week before they headed downtown to drop Steph at her mom's apartment. As I stepped out of the backseat and walked back to my building I realized that people were staring at me and as I looked at their faces I realized the expressions consisted mostly of fear and awe. Though slightly confused at first, I realized that they must've concluded that I was involved in the Washington Heights/Harlem Narcotics trade somehow and that I must have some pretty powerful connections they knew nothing about... The thought really made me chuckle under my breath as I thought about how shady that little interview must've looked to my neighbors! lol. From that day forward, in addition to my time hanging out on my block discussing life and God with the local drug dealers, we all became friends and I suddenly acquired a couple dozen neighborhood bodyguards. If a stranger on my block even looked at me sideways my new friends (who were outside 24/7) would call out to me: "Don't worry Neighbor! We got 'chu! He won't bother you." Some of the other guys on the block whom I didn't know as well would say "Good Day Officer" sometimes as I walked by thinking I was an undercover cop. I couldn't convince them otherwise... I had never felt so safe in my life.

This was just one of those "Only in New York..." stories that still makes me laugh to this day.

The 2 year itch

"Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God's work from beginning to end."

-Ecclesiastes 3:11 (NLT, The Holy Bible)

" Poor cat! Poor slob! Poor slob without a name! The way I see it I haven't got the right to give him one. We don't belong to each other. We just took up one day by the river. I don't want to own anything until I find a place where me and things go together. I'm not sure where that is, but I know what it is like. It's like Tiffany's."

-Holly Golightly "Breakfast at Tiffany's"

Maybe like Tiffany's... or just NYC itself... I should think that journals must be mandatory for people who think about as much and as often as I do. Who else would want to listen to the constant musings of my mind, other than my Creator himself? If I want the thoughts to make some semblance of sense I have to write them down because then I have to follow a train of thought so I arrive at some conclusion. As I attempted to sort through my complex mind through writing my thoughts wandered to the point of wondering how many cities I'd lived in over the last 10 years and for how long each stint... What I came to realize was that I was approaching my limit. I had been back in NYC again for 2 years now and I don't know how much more stir-crazy I can be. In the past, this was usually around the time when I heavily began plotting my next adventure or just started to slowly die inside...

New York City is my "black hole". When I don't know where to go next, the endless possibilities of NY suck me in and I get drawn back into the Matrix! I blend back into the rat race and it's very conveniently never the same because the constant river of life is always flowing with people coming and people going. Most will just ask where you've been and how come you haven't been around  for a long time. It is the only city on the planet that has kept me occupied with adventures and unchecked spontaneity for 2 years straight. Well, that's kind of a lie, because the first year back here this last time around I was all over the U.S. every week for work. Anywho, because New York City never fails to deliver in the area of adventures it's a place where even the strangest of strange fit right in. There is inclusion and room for everyone here. Just choose the neighborhood and BAM! reinvent yourself!! God bless NY for that. It's a false sense of reality though, because its too easy to hide here. You can fly under the radar quite easily. You can play the part and be a fake... There is a new adventure to be had each and every day. The problem is that if you don't take breaks from these adventures and leave for a time you begin to think that NYC is the real world and that it's fine to not know who you are and what you want. It's not.

The closest to alive I've ever felt is boarding a plane for an new destination or hiking a mountain I've never climbed before. All for the thrill of standing at the top surveying the scene, which is at all times quite glorious in unique ways. Where is the best place for the girl who always wants to meet new people from different cultures? for the girl who wants to read every book ever written? and master every subject? I think it leaves me confused because I lack a sense of reality. Where is the line between reality and imagination?
As Christmas approaches it reminds me of the last of my memories of home that I remember... Being the youngest of 5 children and parents that were just zany enough to trust God with every aspect of life, including trans-racial adoption. Because the bullying of schoolmates in my childhood drove me deep into my books, I enjoyed the times when I felt safe. Sitting in the warm family room with my family in pajamas made life appear magical and all was right with the world.

Maybe I haven't felt a sense of home since then. One day this side of heaven I might experience the sense of home once again. Until then the gnawing desire remains and I welcome it gladly now because it is much less painful than giving up hope in the search...

Jesus and questions

Jesus apparently loved to ask questions. He never told people exactly what to think. He told lots of stories in parable form and asked them questions, burning questions that left the individual speechless. They were speechless for different reasons. Many were offended or defensive, some were shocked and others were dumbfounded because this is the first time they realized they didn't know the answer... Jesus didn't ask questions for himself. He knew the answer, but did we?  He asked not for his benefit, but for the benefit of the person asked. They pierced through to the very center of the person's heart and soul leaving then beneath an avalanche of emotions to begin sorting through. The funny thing about religion is that we have forgotten how radical Jesus was. He didn't come to earth to get everyone in a straight line, like a bunch of programmed well-behaved robots behaving properly and living perfect lives. He was radical. He didn't care about outward behavior as much as he cared about the heart and motives. He came to throw out the law and free us from our crippling pride. Love and pride occupy the same space in our hearts and there is only room for one to stay. Only one of them will make us free. Jesus knew that, but do we?

Really though. The question that pierces my broken heart now is: "Do you want to be healed?" A truly loaded question...

A crippled man lay next to the healing waters in Bethesda. He very literally was AT a pity party, minus the D.J. and VIP guest list. That room was full of people who desperately needed healing.You could find the blind, deaf, lame and crippled of the city in this very hall. The Bible says he was crippled for 38 years.  He had been there a long time. How painful must it have been for him to watch the waters stir and bubble up only to realize that every time they did someone else got to them first and received healing. He knew the routine. Even got comfortable and expected it and nothing more. To feel hope arise, spend time dreaming of what it would be like for a dream to come to and then watch another person live his dream. How many times do you watch that before you lose heart?

The very problem with Jesus' question is that the acceptance of his offer means you have to leave pride and self-pity behind. They can't come too. The man knew them so well though. They were his companions just as they are my companions today. To be bluntly honest, I am used to not being asked out on dates. I am used to not being pursued by good men. I am used to the other model booking the job I want. I have gotten comfortable with surviving and lying to myself. Pain of the past reminds me that desiring more than survival alone has gotten me into trouble in the past. I know what it feels like to be Job during the first half of his story in the Old Testament. "The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord."  Jesus entered the scene by the pool of Bethesda at that very moment, just as he enters the heart of a woman resigned to her cell in the heart of Manhattan... John 5:6 "When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?” Jesus knew this was a crossroads for the man who had grown comfortable in captivity, because he had been there so long. C.S. Lewis summed it up well in The Problem of Pain: "A familiar captivity is frequently more desirable than an unfamiliar freedom." What happened when he was healed and free? What would he do then? Makes me think of the inmate in Shawshank Redemption who spent basically his whole life in prison and suddenly found himself on the other side of the gates as an old man. He couldn't handle it and tragically took his life because the weight of the freedom crushed him. The hope we have is that Jesus will show us how to live with freedom. He promises to put an end to our shame and to fight for us (more on this later...)

Will we accept this healing, crush the hindrance of pride and allow our God to do some of the fighting for us and for our heart? He doesn't force us, but he offers joy and company for the journey. We just have to take the first step of faith and "get up"...

Two Roads

A deep desire lies within me... Many of them actually. Funny saying that, because I forgot, or just chose to. My true confession is that I have a hidden talent or habit of stuffing desire. I'm good at it. I can bury it so deeply it will disappear completely. I learned it many years ago. Disappointment taught me to survive by getting rid of those desire I didn't have mental capital or faith to entertain. However, I'm facing a season of life as a woman where they are all rising to the surface at the same time, but I am doing my best to face them one at a time. Back to the one I'm thinking of this morning. Some days I acknowledge it and other days I ignore it. The question still remains. How do I live with it? I desire adventure and simplicity, at the same time. Is it even possible to acquire both of these and at the same time? I see pictures of mountains, forests and cliffs overlooking the sea and even have occasionally gotten to experience getting close to my dream.
Standing a top a mountain is the closest I've gotten. It is one of my favorite places to be in the whole world. It gives that fleeting feeling of ecstasy... the feeling that you completed the journey successfully and didn't give up. I wish life was this simple, but life is more of a marathon based on endurance, than a leisurely day hike. As much as we desire true rest at the end of a long journey this eludes us. The interesting thing about life is that you NEVER fully arrive at the end of enlightenment or growth, not this side of heaven. Sometimes, you may grow and develop yourself so intensely for years that you get to a place where you don't even realize who you've come. For better or worse.
In my case its for the better, but since it also leaves me feeling recently like I'm living someone elses life or that I showed up a bit late for my own. I can't shake this feeling that I've walked into the movie of my own life about 45 minutes late.What happened at the beginning? I don't understand the conflict. What caused the climax and how does the character resolve it? I think it is very possible to be so focused on surviving, providing yourself and distracting the heart with trying to meet everyone elses needs that you wake up one day and realize you don't know what you want and you don't have any dreams left. It is a scary, empty place to be and the reason I know is that I am that person.
That is when you reach a crossroads. You have to decide whether you will give up and let your spirit die or whether instead you will face rising desire with squared shoulders and face set like flint in steely determination. Robert Frost really did describe it best:

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

It doesn't matter how many friends you have, how much or that you fight through 8 million souls to get to work on time each day. This place of the journey is one that you face as a lone traveler. No one can make the decision for you. I want to look back at the end of my life and know I took the one less traveled. The one that is too risky for the masses to take... The one where you awaken desire and face it like a champion.
No wonder Solomon, one of the wisest kings to ever live left this advice in the book of Proverbs 4:28. "Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life." Many times Christians remain focused on citing this scripture when referring to human love and relationship with a significant other. I think that is missing the point if we camp on that as the only interpretation. If we are spiritual being than there is much more to the condition of the heart in relation to our Creator. There is much more to this scripture and much more meaning to glean from the words of advice. If your heart stops beating in the physical body, then you die. What happens when your spirit stops dreaming?

The Lord of the Rings

First of all, I have a confession to make. The first time I saw The Fellowship of the Ring movie in the theatre I fell asleep and took a peaceful nap most of the movie until the Orgs burst onto the scene. Apparently, no one told them about "6-inch voices"! Before you lose total respect for me and think I'm totally lame, let me explain... For starters, I had a cold and was really tired. Second and final point, I was a 16-year old high school girl who had an extremely hard time distinguishing the good guys from the bad guys, because everybody had long hair and strange shaped ears. Ok, end of story and subsequent rabbit trail. Also, now that I understand the story line they are some of my favorite movies and I eagerly await The Hobbit's debut next year! Moving along...

"I wonder what sort of tale we've fallen into?" 

-J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

Being a Christian is about as boring as being Frodo or Sam in the Lord of the Rings... I say this completely out of love, but anyone that is under the impression that living as a follower of Jesus is boring, is quite misguided. Every mistake in life has a price attached and being ignorant of your purpose or the fact that you have one is too expensive a mistake to make. Read on.....Believe me, if you are doing life the right way, you will be in for an epic journey! 

Can I just say from my heart, as if I were sitting across from you and we both had coffee mugs in hand, you were lovingly thought of by a god in heaven that had a purpose in mind for you from the very beginning? 

"For you created my inmost being;
    you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
¹⁴ I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
    your works are wonderful,
    I know that full well.
¹⁵ My frame was not hidden from you
    when I was made in the secret place,
    when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
¹⁶ Your eyes saw my unformed body;
    all the days ordained for me were written in your book
    before one of them came to be.
¹⁷ How precious to me are your thoughts, God!
    How vast is the sum of them!
¹⁸ Were I to count them,
    they would outnumber the grains of sand—
    when I awake, I am still with you."

Psalm 139:13-18

I don't care if that's the first time or the 200th time you've read it, read it again and again if you need to to let the words sink in! 

I have really begun to understand my life in this framework of an epic story, because I understand what it's like to be the main character in the middle of the story where you think the end has just taken place, having a hard time realizing that it's far from over.

One of my older brothers loves the writings of Frederick Buechner and in his work Telling the Truth, Buechner describes the Gospel story of Christianity in the following way:

"It is a world of magic and mystery, of deep darkness and flickering starlight. it is a world where terrible things happen and wonderful things too. It is a world where goodness is pitted against evil, love against hate, order against chaos, in a great struggle where often it is hard  to be sure who belongs to which side because appearances are endlessly deceptive. Yet for all its confusion and wildness, it is a world where the battle goes ultimately to the good, who live happily ever after, and where in the long run everybody, good and evil alike, becomes known by his true name... That is the fairy tale of the Gospel with, of course, one crucial difference from all other fairy tales, which is that the claim made for it is that it is true, that it not only happened once upon a time but has kept on happening ever since and is happening still."