.love.

Reflections.

Many people, for their new years resolutions, decide to lose weight, or wake up earlier, or devote themselves to a new lifestyle. As a “sort of” resolution to myself, I decided to take a look back on the past years of my life and see how I feel about it all.

Right after January 1st, my life went right back to being caught up in a whirlwind, and I hadn’t had a chance to really sit down by myself in quiet time and go over the years in my mind, until three days ago. 

Looking back on much of my childhood - while it doesn’t pain me anymore - I am left empty and hollow. I lack emotion, and I feel devoid whenever I think of those years. Reflecting on the past, I’ve even realized that I don’t remember most of my childhood. I don’t have many memories. I cannot recall anything from before I was 11, and the years of memories after that are scarce, if any. It’s like my brain has shut them out and I struggle to recall events. I look at old photos and think, “Did this really happen? Is that really me?” All the days seem foreign to me. Even when friends say, “Hey Hana, remember that time when ______??” there are many times I just nod yes, when I honestly don’t.

Don’t get me wrong, I have met some of the greatest people during my childhood, whom I know the Lord placed specifically in my life. Without many of them,  I could not have gotten through in one piece, still smiling and laughing on the other end. I have fond and joyous memories from my childhood that I am blessed to remember, but the truth is that most of those memories are not from home, from family. Perhaps because of these experiences, I have learned to find genuine joy in the smallest things, like finding a glimmer of a smile on my mother’s face randomly, or wrestling with my little brothers, or going on a short drive to the store with my brother. I learned to cherish the times when happiness existed inside my family home. 

During these years, not many have sat down with me in times of anguish and simply said, “I’m here for you, I love you”. I’d often get words of false hope or encouragement, or sometimes even words of frustration and concern, like “Hey, you can’t be like this. You shouldn’t be sad like this. You gotta do better, you can be better.” While I knew these things in my heart, sticking it straight into my face never helped. 

Pointing out the errors in others, is much like casting the first stone, I think. Or like laughing at a splinter in someone’s eye when you yourself has a 2x4 stuck in your eye. The Light is supposed to light the way, not blind the lost. 

“Your word is a lamp to my feet
and a light to my path.”
~Psalm 119:105 ESV

There is a world out there is that is hurting, and the Lord has taught me that if you are a part of it, you will find yourself either in or next to tragedy at a certain point in your life. If I were you, and as the Lord has been teaching me these past years, encourage- live life in such way that if friends and loved ones were to see your deeds, you would be that beacon of light to them and guide them, instead of taking the truth and smack-blinding them. I’ve learned how big of a difference there is between the two. If you take time to be around people that are hurting from the bottom of their souls, and love people well, you begin to find that the message of Gospel has such tremendous and incredible power over those moments.

Encourage, but do not blind. Support, but do not overwhelm. 

I pray especially for those of you next to tragedies, whether you have a friend, or maybe a loved one going through a rough time, I pray for these- that you could be people that could encourage and lift up, to take away the grief for a little while. 

My pastor was speaking in church today about a guy that was extremely wealthy (Horatio Spafford). He lived in Chicago, and lost his home and most of his fortune during the haunting Chicago fire. Luckily he was still quite wealthy, so he sent his family on a ship to England ahead of him, for a planned holiday. However, on the way to England, the ship sank, in the middle of the Atlantic ocean. This man received a cable from his wife, which simply said “Saved alone”. After receiving this message, Spafford boarded a ship, the next one out to England. While on board, the ship captain knocked on his cabin door one night, and said that the place they were floating over was where the previous ship had gone down… That this was where his daughters had lost their lives. Back in his room, this man wrote down these words-

Though Satan should buffet,
Though sorrows like sea billows roll,
Whatever the cost, You have taught me to say,
It is well with my soul.

When the world sees your world shining, they instinctively want to follow. I pray for myself, and for all of you, that we could all be a flashlight in the dark, and be encouragers of those suffering, that we would be able to say, “It is well with my soul” when we are faced with troubled times.