Intro

When I thought, “My foot slips,”
    your steadfast love, O Lord, held me up.
When the cares of my heart are many,
    your consolations cheer my soul. – Psalm 94:18-19

Just like that, another year has passed! Of all my twenties thus far, year twenty-seven was an absolute favorite. I got to experience the adventures I looked forward to in the previous post, but undoubtedly, what made it most stupendous were the amazing people I met and the precious friends I gained. In a few short weeks, I’ll have reached two full years of living in Colorado. It’s wild how the time flies. Somehow, the Lord continues to be immensely good to me. This year I’ve continued to experience God’s providence and lovingkindness in my life — one of the most significant ways I’ve seen God’s continual love for me this year has been through His disciplining me. I know He loves me because He disciplines me like a father who disciplines his child because of his love for the child (Hebrews 12). Twenty-seven was such a blessed year. On my recent birthday I felt so cherished, loved, and cared for, and for all the people who made this year so lovely, I want to express my sincerest thanks and appreciation! On multiple occasions during year twenty-seven, I found myself reminiscent of different seasons of my life and wishfully desiring I could experience those times again. This made me realize that I should have simply enjoyed those times of my life maximally while I was there instead of always wishing for the next thing. This gave me a reminder for my present which is to be fully content and to fully enjoy the season I am in now — so that in the future I won’t look back and wish I had. Yesterday I was 18, today I am 28, and tomorrow I will be 38, so as the time keeps passing at an increasingly quicker rate (or so it seems), I am learning afresh to fully love how glorious and wonderful my present days are. Anyway, for this post, I’ve felt mostly inclined to write about love. For the purpose of this post, I mean it in the general sense of affections held for another, whether it be a brother, a friend, a spouse, or even a pet. I thought this could be a fun topic, let’s dive into it, shall we?

No safe investment.

“There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully around with hobbies, and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket — safe, dark, motionless, airless it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.” – C.S. Lewis

The quote above comes from a book I read years ago called The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis. It has stayed with me for years because of the poignant picture that’s painted of locking away one’s heart inside a coffin. What grips me is that although the heart is untouched, unbothered, and unbreakable hidden within that coffin, it fails still to keep safe from another certain danger — the disease of a deadly hardening that is just as detrimental if not worse than a possible breaking. Unfortunately, sometimes there are life circumstances that trick us to believe that a deadly hardening would be best for us or that we really have no choice and therefore, are forced to choose that hardening. This past year, I’ve found myself tempted to choose what seemed the safer route of locking away my heart inside a coffin, which was indeed the option I chose. Soon after this decision and prior to the onset of this deadly hardening, I observed other symptoms arise, namely, loneliness, sadness, anger, and confusion. Slowly, my heart was becoming something it was not meant to be. Yet, as I kept going in the direction of this lesser choice, somehow, the Lord Himself got a hold of me and convicted me of my straying. The Lord then led me towards the other option before much damage took place. Mercifully I was given grace to change my original choice. Mercifully, I was led to choose the option to instead share my heart with others and thereby choosing the route to love. As I shifted my way toward this new direction, I discovered that those symptoms began to subside. I learned that the remedy to that symptom of loneliness was not to be loved, but it is loving. I realized that a remedy to that symptom of sadness is asking for help and also being ready to lend a helping hand. Although there is always a potential for breaking when we choose, I’ve found it has the best return and has brought more joy. Why must it be that there is no safe investment? Well, I think because love requires risk in one way or another.

A Noble Feeling

“Being in love is a good thing, but it is not the best thing. There are many things below it, but there are also many things above it. You cannot make it the basis of a whole life. It is a noble feeling, but it is still a feeling. Now no feeling can be relied on to last in its full intensity, or even to last at all. Knowledge can last, principles can last, habits can last; but feelings come and go. And in fact, whatever people say, the state called “being-in-love” usually does not last. If the old fairy-tale ending “They lived happily ever after” is taken to mean “they felt for the next fifty years exactly as they felt the day before they were married” then it says what probably never was or could be true, and would be highly undesirable if it were. Who could bear to live in that excitement for even five years? what would become of your work, your appetite, your sleep, your friendships? But, of course, ceasing to be “in love” need not mean ceasing to love. Love in this second sense — love as distinct from “being in love” is not merely a feeling. it is a deep unity maintained by the will and deliberately strengthened by habit; reinforced by (in Christian marriages) the grace which both partners ask and receive from God. They can have this love for each other even at those moments when they do not like each other; as you love yourself even when you do not like yourself. They can retain this love even when each would easily, if allowed themselves, be “in love” with someone else. “being in love” first moved them to promise fidelity: this quieter love enables them to keep the promise. It is this love that the engine of marriage is run; being in love was the explosion that started it” C.S. Lewis

I’ve never been married, so frankly, I don’t have any experiential nuggets to share concerning the ideas expressed in the above quote (particularly with regard to the second sense of love that Lewis describes). But I really appreciate this quote and thought it fitting for this post as it speaks a balanced and clear message. In today’s age, most marriages are not what marriage once was. In addition, less and less people marry, and people marry later and later. There are many reasons for this and I’m sure there’s research assessing the causations and the pros and cons of these current trends. Anyhow, I wish that more people took the perspective of the second sense of love as the quote describes. Maybe the trends might be different. But anyway, I am not experienced in this realm but this quote gives us enough to think about.

A Blessed Year.

A few years ago, my sister and I were on a flight when we happened to be sitting next to an Italian man, probably in his late sixties. My yapping abilities have tremendously simmered as I’ve grown, but I was able to strike up a conversation with this man. I started asking him questions about his life, his passions, and his home country to which he was returning. As I finished a round of questions, there was a pause, and then he asked me one question, which was, “Are you a romantic?”. Me? A romantic? I found it funny because he might as well have made the point that the sky is blue! But it was clear to him that I was a twenty-something-year-old girl who was simply smitten with life. As I grow, I hope to remain just as smitten with life! It was sad for me to say goodbye to year 27. I loved it so much! But now I’m blessed to have beautiful memories of that year of growth, challenge, and joy. I am learning to give God the time He needs to accomplish His purposes. We cannot rush His work. Sometimes things just take time, so I’ve learned to fully enjoy where I am now — which I believe is what made twenty-seven such a wonderful year. I just love being the person God made me, I love being a woman, I love the work I get to do, I love that I get to take care of my health, my earnings, and the people God has placed in my life! I cannot end this post without including the fact that this year also had many many low points where frankly — I doubted the Lord’s love and care for me. But even in the depths of my doubt and faithlessness, He extended His hand and pulled me out of that discouragement and helped me onward in my pilgrimage! The Lord did this through the means of my local church community, the people He placed around me (near and far), through rich literature I’ve read that proclaims His faithfulness, and through drawing me to Himself as my very source of strength and security. “As God did not first choose you because you were high, He will not now forsake you because you are low.” – John Flavel. Thank You, dear Lord, for such a blessed year!🤍

“Grace first inscribed my name,
In God’s eternal book:
“Twas grace that gave me to the Lamb
Who all my sorrows took.
Grace taught my soul to pray,
And pardoning love to know;
Twas grace that kept me to this day,
And will not let me go.”

“Oh! to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be;
Let that grace now, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee!
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it;
Prone to leave the God I love –
Take my heart, oh, take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above!”

much grace,

Christelle Panumpabi