I’ve often heard the expression… ‘What will you do with the dash of your life?’ … referring to the dash between your date of birth and your date of death. For example, if I were to die this year, mine would be 1963 – 2013… in other words, what did I do with my life between those dates… what did my dash represent…??
I’m kind of doing the same with the dash in between the birth and death of my ‘love story’ … 49 Days – 49 Days. What happened in that dash? Still trying to figure that out!!!
Let me explain… I met ‘my love’ on an internet dating site. Yea, I know, but I was was cautious… oh, I was cautious. I met a man who was so like me… we loved to write, we loved God, we loved sports, we loved to be punctual (and in a world where everyone around me always seems to be late that’s a big one for me!!)…
We made plans to devote our lives to God, to each other, to our families, to work as a team for missions in Guinea and Guatemala… and to follow God’s purpose for our lives…
…we were a ‘match made in heaven’… I believe this because all we did from the time we met on-line, until the moment we met in person, 49 days later, was to write and share our souls. We never spoke on the phone, no skyping… we decided we would only write to each other until the day he would come to see me for the first time. Oh my… I couldn’t have met a man more perfect for me… a man who wanted to get to know my soul, above all, through letter writing… ??? Are you serious??
We wrote volumes… I mean volumes… so much so that on my 50th birthday, ‘my love’ offered me a book that he made for me… the best gift I have EVER received… compiling all of our correspondence those first 49 days… the cover of which you can see above.
The significance of the ducks in the photo … a photo I took on the day he proposed to me under a lighthouse (one of my favorite things and how he found a lighthouse in Texas is remarkable, but he managed to find one) … is that, in Korea, where I lived for many years, couples are offered wedding ducks as a symbol of fidelity for life. ‘My love’ knew this, which is why he used my photo on the cover of the book he offered. Actually, I had a pair of Korean ducks that I bought myself in the hope of someday meeting someone, and I gave him one of them to keep until we were married… uniting the ducks as we became united. He still has that duck…
Tomorrow is significant for me because I will mark 49 days since the day I said goodbye to him… 49 days ago, he held me in his arms, told me it wasn’t over, that he had to follow God, with the parting words, ‘I love you too, honey’…
49 Days – 49 Days
What happened in the dash??? How did we get from A to B?? Of course, it’s a two-way street… YES, I made mistakes… but, I still don’t understand… we all make mistakes! I fail… he fails…
… we all fail. God is Bigger than failure, right???
In any case, falling in love with him was one of the most beautiful times of my life … his words were magic… our future seemed secure… he was the first man to get on one knee for me… I’d never been proposed to… he promised to take care of my heart, my health, my kids, my life… I’ve never been happier. We prayed every night together… on Skype, and then, when we were in the same city…. every night before we parted, we prayed…
Which is why the ‘dash’ is so hard to figure out… for me and for my family… we all believed.
Today’s sermon at church was about the ‘voice’ of Jesus, our shepherd… and how a sheep knows his shepherd’s voice and will only respond to that sound. The problem with humans is that we hear other voices that distract us, rather than the voice who most wants to protect us … and so often we only hear our own voice, a voice from within, based on filters of the past, and our own longings and desires, rather than the voice of the one who loves us most. And, so, we wander off from the direction of our shepherd.
What I’ve learned in the past 49 Days is that the only voice I should ever trust is the voice of my shepherd, Jesus… He is the only one who can protect me from the wolves, the thieves, those who might harm me, whether intentionally or just out of the circumstances of life… or perhaps because they themselves are not listening to the voice of their ‘shepherd’…
… instead they wonder off, as well … towards the desires of their own hearts… forgetting the sound of the shepherd’s voice… and his direction…
It’s so confusing, right??? Honestly, I believe discernment is what I struggle with most of all… who am I hearing??? How can I be sure it is God’s voice that I am hearing??? Yes, I’ve heard that if it’s in alignment with Jesus’ life and the Word, then we ARE hearing the voice of our ‘shepherd’… and we are in His will for our lives…
‘My love’ is human… he did the best he could… he failed in my eyes… but that is just ‘the voice’ I am hearing… I am not God, so I cannot know how God sees this other than to know this…
God loves me…
God loves ‘my love’…
And He wants the best for us both…
Each night, I continue what ‘my love’ and I first started the day those first 49 Days were completed … the day we first heard each other’s voice …
I pray for him… and I can still hear his voice praying for me…
I miss his voice… and I miss praying with him each night… not gonna lie about that… after holding someone’s hand and praying as a ‘chord of three’ and then being once again alone isn’t easy…
But, honestly, I feel safe and sound within the hearing distance of my shepherd… the one who calls me ‘my darling, my dear, my child, my beloved… my sweet, hurting girl…’
Yea… I’ll stay close to him… his voice is pure… it’s powerful… will never falter… and will keep me safe! And when I do wander off into treacherous terrain… I know he’ll come after me to lead me back where it is safe… and I love that!
49 Days seems like the perfect time to ‘put a bow’ on the finished gift of my ‘love story’…
… because it was a gift.
49 Days – 49 Days
… for me, the dash was love.
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