Tag Archives: grace

failure.

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Most people don’t know this, but I actually applied to graduate school back in 2008 right after completing my undergraduate studies at Biola. Once I swiveled my tassel to the other side of my cap, I was proud of myself and felt so certain about my future as a counselor of lost souls and hopeless delinquents. I didn’t think of any other possibilities and was absolute in my decision to go back to school, and couldn’t wait to start my career. I literally holed myself up at the local Starbucks for days at a time, pouring my life into applications and essays. I got great letters of recommendation, all my transcripts were sent out, and I pretty much spent about $2000(!!!) on fees on top of more fees.

I applied to seven schools.

I got rejected from seven schools.

It was one of the most embarrassing and demoralizing moments of my adult life. I felt like the years of painfully enduring through classes would grant me the reward of going to a school I actually wanted to attend, studying what I actually wanted to study. All that I had hoped for, prayed for, and expected with all of my heart came down on me like fire. I felt like my dreams had crashed and burned.

I have to admit that I was a mess, and I was completely muddled. What was I going to do now? Do I apply again next year? Do I just find a job now? All these questions plagued me and I was even too mortified to tell my mother and my friends what had happened, so I lied to cover up the fact that none of these schools accepted me. They didn’t want me. All that money gone, all those prayers gone, I was disappointed in myself. But more than that, I scowled at God and wondered, “Okay, what the heck do you want me to do??” It was a dark moment for the both of us.

One of my dearest friends recently had a big dream crushed… something that she had talked about and planned around for years came to a screeching halt and it really frustrated her. I felt helpless because I wished I could have done more to ease her disappointment, but all I could really do was stare at the blinking cursor before my eyes and just type out “I’m sorry, it’ll be okay, it’ll get better.” I felt stupid, because when people said that to me as I tearfully gazed at my rejection letters, I wanted to punch them in the face. It’s not consoling at all during the heat of the occurrence.

But something I learned as I recovered from that time of my life was that the beauty of dreaming is that it doesn’t allow room for cynicism or pessimism. If you don’t believe in your own dreams, those shouldn’t be called dreams at all. The reason why people are so dreamy about dreams is because it’s just unrealistic, otherworldly, and unlike the “reality” of our world, which can suck most of the time. Another wonderful thing about being a dreamer is that if one dream ends, another can be born. That’s why the terms “hopes” and “dreams” are seen together so often – you need hope to dream and dreams to hope. When failure smacked me in the face that year, I allowed that temporary lapse to push me down many flights of stairs. I came to the bottom and simply laid there, thinking that my purpose was done for.

Isn’t that such an underestimation of the power of God’s grace? God didn’t save and sacrifice for the sake of one little dream to be accomplished. He opened up realms of infinity for us, and I truly believe that He delights in our creativity and big picture visions for our lives. Through that grace, we’re able to experience different and unique things that God constructed for each and every one of us, and a new balloon of hope swells up in our hearts, readying the next dream He has placed within us.

Dear friend, this dream may be over, or maybe it’s postponed. But you are a beautiful woman who is fearfully and specifically crafted by God to carry out not just one dream at a time, but many throughout a lifetime which will impact others and rock you inside and out. Believe that as you cling to His grace, refill your hope tank, and envision new dreams.

There is no such thing as failure, or the death of a dream. We have the limitless capacity to develop the most amazing blueprints, but it is with the fuel of God that skyscrapers are built. The supernatural component of it all though is that the actual thing will actually look far grander and shinier than what ink and imagination could have proffered.

commit.

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The willow trees swayed, leaves falling like confetti onto the lush grass floor. I swept over them in my white gown, the long train floating over the ground like liquid ripples. Through the thick veil, I managed to see my husband standing at the end of the aisle, and all I could make out was that he was tall, with a full head of dark hair. The hushed murmurs of admiration encircled me as I continued to walk, but suddenly, I felt my heart seize in absolute fright and the room started to darken. I stumbled backwards, and before I knew it, I was sprinting through the parking lot and heading home.

I actually had this exact dream twice. And it’s interesting because during both of those times, I was in a relationship. And both of those times, my boyfriend expressed his desire to marry me, and I was on the opposite end of the world with that idea. The concept of making a commitment, riding on the true belief that you’re risking something to partake in an adventure that may result in pain has always been an idea that made me squirm and sweat.

Once the going gets tough and the pressures and responsibilities that may befall me as a result of my commitment becomes burdensome and difficult, my typical reaction is as it was in the dream. My heart seizes, and I stumble on all that I invested and poured my heart into, only to end up outside and alone yet again.

I almost gave up on something recently. Something important to me. The lies and the baggage clouded my heart, covering my view of what was waiting for me at the end of the aisle, and I started spiraling backwards into the vat of lost causes. But through the wisdom and patience of dear friends, I was able to recognize the Liar, and he could so easily manipulate my past and my weaknesses to create a huge heaping of self-doubt and bitterness. I am confident in the person God created me to be, and I believe with all of my heart that He loves me. The labor is always painful, but the birth… the beauty and power behind that is radical enough to wash away all the pain and suffering that had been previously experienced. Giving up is easy. Persevering is not. The occasional prickling of my battle wounds can distract me, but I’m so thankful that I can go back on course. Because that’s what Grace does for me; it allows me to come home.

If I recall my dream once again, I was walking down the aisle by myself. The biggest difference between that and my reality now is that I don’t have to be afraid to walk towards my destiny anymore; I have some good people who are walking closely beside me, cheering me on and celebrating the beautiful fruits a commitment can produce.

stoned.

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There’s a well-known book called “The Five Languages of Love” by Gary Chapman, and it explains how people express love in five different ways: physical touch, words of affirmation, quality time, acts of service, and gifts. I have always believed that I felt loved in the utmost way if someone affirmed me through words, but in the past year, I have realized that I determine how much a person loves me by how much time they want to spend with me.

This is an interesting revelation, because I would always be that person who would get weary of seeing the same people over and over again, and I would have to hide for a few days just to get some alone time and refill my social gas tank. In hindsight, I know this to be true: I took advantage of seeing the same, good people over and over again, and now that I don’t see them anymore, I have entered a state of utter withdrawal.

It has been a difficult transition for me, leaving my home church of five years to a brand new terrain of strangers. Although my new place of worship has been hospitable and very welcoming, a small prick of longing is felt every Sunday morning and even during the week when I don’t see my old church friends, and unfortunately, the phrase of “out of sight, out of mind” has taken shape in all aspects. Satan then infiltrates my heart and spews lies of how I have been forgotten, no one really cares, and I start questioning the authenticity of the relationships that I had.

I then came to a decision. I became sick of being the Initiator, the Giver, and I even went as far to make a list of people I would cut all ties with, because what it would come down to is that they would not notice it anyway, and I would be free of the burden of fretting over the relationship. Wow, talk about being defensive and throwing up those massive walls again.

Pastor Dave Gibbons recently spoke on Acts 14, where Paul is in the presence of lies and persecution in Iconium, and he was even stoned nearly to death. However, he didn’t flee or give up, but he went back into the city and “stayed there a long time” (v28). I don’t know whether it’s the fact that I’ve been “stoned” by numerous people I trusted in the past, and most recently, I felt like I had definitely been injured severely by my stepfather. But when I reflect upon Love, it is not a reaction. It’s not a reward for good behavior, nor is it something only certain people deserve. It’s an action, a display of God’s grace upon my life, and I should shamelessly, boldly, and freely give it to those I love, because I MYSELF know that it’s real and true.

Realistically, I will probably lose relationships and I will probably endure some more abuse from various people. But the most important thing is that I don’t want to lose myself. I don’t want to lose the soul in which God has infused SO much love and grace, and that’s the only thing I know personally and with truth.

Throw away that list, throw down those walls.
I will love you, even though you may not love me.
I will give to you and honor you, even though you may not to me.
Stone me, wreck me, but I will learn to stay with you, for as long as I can.

hiding.

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With wallpaper peeling and the lights dimming from low energy, my mother somehow thought it was a good idea to spend what little she had to buy the most obnoxious looking bedsheets in the universe. Now mind you, our whole apartment was absolutely ghetto, and if not for the screaming sirens and the distant gunshots floating through our rickety window, you’d think we were in the middle of no-man’s land in an abandoned haunted house. But these bedsheets… they were so bad that they were just as memorable.

They were cyan in color, with white ringlets all over to signify waves. And as if a 3-year-old was hired haphazardly to make it worse, sloppy and disproportionate fish were pasted all over. To this day, I have no idea what moved my mother to buy those sheets. Aside from the ugliness of the fish and their idiotic grins, that ocean slowly became my escape, and I recall becoming quite reliant upon its existence. I became thankful for the atrocity it presented.

There was an unspoken rule that if something bad went down, I would rush to the bed and hide in its covers. My mother actually meant any violence or natural disasters, but I used any excuse to screech and howl, plummeting into the bed with complete dedication to my mission. The most memorable “emergency” I remember was when my mother brought my stepfather home for the first time to introduce him to me. I was a monster, pouting in the corner and snarling at him whenever he came near me to offer orange juice or produce a lame attempt at a gift to woo my heart. A couple hours later, I was sitting on the living floor and glanced over towards the kitchen, where the candles softly flickered the shadows of two silhouettes dancing and kissing, the crooning of Kenny G’s sax almost acting as a voiceover to the romance. Upon witnessing that, I reacted in curiosity, then realizing what was actually happening beyond the shadows, I opened my mouth and let out a piercing scream. I bolted to the bed and scrambled under the covers.

The white, squiggly waves calmed me, and the fish smiled reassuringly towards me. I started sobbing, clutching onto those blue blankets, wishing I was drowning in real life. I remember punching a certain dolphin in the face over and over again, imagining my mom’s then-boyfriend’s head in its stead. Then my whole world began to move, and everything, including me, was lifted into the air. I continued to scream, clutching onto my watery cave for dear life. And that’s when I felt her arms encircling me, keeping me in my warm escape, but contributing to my sensation of feeling comforted. In a muffled fashion, I heard my mother speak to me through the fabric right into my ear, as if she knew exactly where it was: “I’m sorry, I’m here for you. You can come out whenever you’re ready.”

She continued to hold me, and then my head finally emerged from the deep sea. With bloodshot, puffy eyes, I looked around for the boyfriend. He was gone and it was back to being her and me. She never stopped rocking me, and asked if I was all right. I bobbed my head in response, and asked where he was. “He’ll be back later, but only when you’re ready.”

I don’t know if I was ever ready. And I don’t know if I’m ready now. But it’s assuring to know that yes, we all have our hiding places (whether in physical form or even internally) and it’s so easy to retreat to that place when things go south. But the simple fact of the matter is, nothing is ever going to progress if I don’t come out and face what’s awaiting me. How silly to think that there are moments when the fake ocean with the fake fish with the fake smiles seem so much more appealing than the hurdles of reality which will lead me towards unfathomable discoveries?

Even with all the time and preparation in the world, and even if I say I’m ready, leaping out of the blankets and exposing myself to destiny, I have this strange feeling that I’ll still be amazed.

But they don’t call it amazing grace for nothing.

fire.

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Why is it that people simply cannot let themselves crumble, and in the face of difficult situations, they slap on that brave face that is impenetrable? When did being doubtful, fearful, and frightened become enemies of our hearts which fight to survive? I remember specifically this one moment when I was with a group of friends and one of them made a comment that I’m always happy and that it never seemed like anything ever went wrong in my life. I couldn’t help but laugh, not only because this person knew nothing about me, but at the fact that I had become this award-winning actress who had fooled people into thinking I was perfectly happy at all times.  It was then that I realized that I was more false than any of those other fakers that I despised. In actuality, I was the worst of them all because I had become so good at it that no one could even tell.

It really is a discipline to be authentic. With every “how are you?” asked in my direction, I try to be as honest as possible. I don’t want to give people bullshit answers or make them believe that I’m one way when I’m another. It’s a selfish thing really, to give disguised answers or withhold information because it’s “too painful” to share. All that does is erect walls around your heart, and people who love you and who care for you may not even be able to glance over the top. How can one expect people to invest in a relationship when life is not even shared openly? Another thing that I’ve learned is that if there is baggage from my past that I refuse to confess to people or share with someone who’d be willing to lighten that load for me, I become a slave to that baggage and it eats my soul, little by little. That is where the self-victimization comes to play, and I’ve only myself to blame when I suddenly find myself in a deep pit.

I’ve been crying a lot in the past two months. I’m talking convulsions of the body and gasping for precious air. A lot has dropped like a sack of rocks on top of me, and the only thing I can really do as a reaction is to cry, cry, cry. I could probably count how many “good” days I had where I didn’t shed a single tear… but the funny thing is, that happy-go-lucky Caroline that everyone thinks they know has completely gone ballistic and transformed into an emotional wreck with a swollen face and bloodshot eyes. I’ve tried so miserably to hold it in, to clench my jaw and fight the blows, but my weariness in doing so only aggravated the wounds. It was like quicksand… the more I struggled against it, the deeper I sank. Then someone dear told me to just let it go, to go with the flow, and then told me something so simple yet so profound: To go through the fire, you have to go THROUGH THE FIRE.

So I stopped fighting. I unraveled and let go. I allowed the fire to consume me. And I continued to cry, to convulse, to hyperventilate a bit.

And it felt good. Freeing, to say the least. I felt like I wasn’t hiding anything, I felt real as ever, and a wave of serenity washed over me with God’s embrace letting me know that He’s there, and He had been waiting for me to surrender. Another remarkable thing I discovered was that I gained a strange sense of clarity, and in this new perception I was able to discover people around me who truly cared for me, who really prayed for me, and who really wanted to be my support system which refused to quit on me. What the hell did I do to deserve that? I find that if you meet chaos with chaos, you’ll surely fail. But if you meet chaos with stillness, you’re more aware of your surroundings and who’s present. When it gets really tough, who’s there to be your community, the warriors by your side?

The one thing I want to end with is this though: God’s grace is beyond me. I will never fully understand what it is, but I really got a taste of it during this really difficult time in my life where I’m mourning, I’m fearful, and I’m overcome with tears. I mess up, I doubt Him, I let my past slap me around, I’m disobedient… but he still loves, blesses, and embraces me.

I know this is going to be a long battle. Even though it’s going to be hard and I’ll want to give up numerous times, I need to believe that the war is won already, and it’s a matter of having faith and hope that yes, there is victory waiting.