The Story

For You Christina Ha As You Take off for the Windy City...

When we first met, I was writing the story of my life and so were you. I knew next to nothing of your story just as you did of mine. I wanted to call my story "Porcelain Paradise". I thought it to be a very fitting title. It never crossed my mind that we'd be friends. It never crossed my mind that anyone around me would ever understand who I was, why I was who I was, or why the story of my life was being titled "Porcelain Paradise".

As impeccable of a memory as I have, I can't recall the exact moment when it all clicked for me and you. I remember sharing my testimony in our small women's group 6 years ago...how you arrived late, listened, and then left. I remember listening to your testimony a few weeks later. Even though I wanted to react, I didn't...I couldn't. I was different back then and so were you. So we began to share a few dark and twisty moments. We both liked to run...and so we started running together. We ran so long and so far that it seemed like it would never stop...it wouldn't stop...not on its own. I remember when it all went to hell for you and the night we stood under 4th of July firework-filled sky, both feeling weak, tired, and numb. I remember when I was just about at rock bottom and the night we sat in a small Mediterranean Cafe barely nibbling away at our food...both feeling unsure, alone, and stuck.

And then your story took off and you lost the dark & twisty. I remember holding onto mine as you shared your good news with me. I was happy for you. I remember telling you "God is so good to you" and wondering to myself when He might decide to be good to me as well. I caught on a while later...10 months later to be exact. It was as though we were a stained and slightly buckled jigsaw puzzle w/some pieces missing...but now there were at least a few border pieces in place...enough to make a full picture...or so we thought.

You went 3 years and I went 2.5 before the picture came undone again. Instead of circling back to that painful bend in the road...the one that had gripped us for so long, we were both somehow able to remember that we still had those border pieces in place...the ones that helped us find our way out of that self-made rabbit hole of a hell we had created for ourselves long before we first met. I remember the afternoon you held my hand as you cried your way through the story of those last 3 years and the morning after the 2.5 years when I could barely see straight and you let me cry on your shoulder. "Love, Lavender Honey, and lots of Curry"...that was your MO....and then came the next 11 months: the trips to LA, adventures in Haiti & Miami, late night pillow talks and phone calls, crazy times of laughter...lots of laughter.

In the last 6 years, I've come to understand just enough about life to understand that I don't understand much of anything...except that our lives were meant for more than where we were allowing ourselves to take them. Thanks for being there to learn this with me. Thanks for being there to laugh and cry with me, to teach me how to be shameless, and show me how to hold onto my heart a little less tightly. Thanks for always being there to pray with me and to call me out when I've been over-rational & over-logical. Thanks for understanding exactly what I mean when I tell you that 95% of the time I feel positive about life but that 5% percent of the time I feel like...well like everything is PUKE. Thanks for challenging me to bring that 5% down to 2%. Most of all, thanks for journeying alongside me during the most painful yet most formative times...from dark & twisty to shiny, happy, and new.

Tomorrow, you start the next chapter of your story and though we won't be in the same place, I wanted this to be a reminder that we are both still writing the story of our life. We want to know what it's about, what are its themes and which theme is on the rise. We want to know where we are headed. We want to ensure that we will get there and that when we do, we will look back and know it was not all in vain...that we mattered and made a difference somewhere or to someone. And while life does not seem to present itself to us for our convenience, to box itself up so nicely that we could talk about it with wisdom and a point to make before putting it on a shelf somewhere, I'm certain that this story of our life--the one with laughter, adventures, risks, and faith--will be wrapped with the courage to get it right and to fight hard for what we love.

Here's to loving you like a fat kid love cake.