Nor is she conceited,
And she is never rude;
She never thinks just of herself
Or ever gets annoyed.

She never is resentful;
Is never glad with sin,
But always glad to side with truth,
Whene’er the truth should win.

She bears up under everything,
Believes the best in all,
There is no limit to her hope,
And she will never fall.

It all feels so cheap to me. Look at what we’ve done to love! We’ve made it into something to be bought and sold; we’ve cheapened the word until even businesses use it to describe their fraudulent desires for my “well-being’; we’ve idealized and elevated romantic feelings, silly words and sweet promises that don’t deliver, worshiping at the feet of whatever-makes-me-feel-good. Whether we’ve known it or not, we’ve made a god of love and slavishly grovel at its feet, longing for its intensely satisfying presence and yet resenting its unrelenting control over our lives.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a Valentines Day hater. I too joined the crowds shopping online and sent my fiance a romantic token of my love for him (hopefully he’ll get it by today)! I’m an unashamed romantic; I love whispering,  sweet silly notes, and sharing spoons and chocolates.  In Kevin’s words, the experience of romance is so thrilling it ought to be illegal!

But see, I too have groveled at the feet of love, desperately attempting to fulfill my own insatiable desire for belonging and intimacy with cheap substitutes that felt good for a time but ended up sabotaging my heart, leaving me more desolate then before. Over the last two days I’ve listened to four different women’s stories of their failed attempts at satisfying that ache to be known intimately and deeply cherished. My heart ached with them in their anger, pain and resignation:

“It doesn’t matter… maybe there will be someone else…’

‘How could he be involved with me while loving someone else?’

‘My heart doesn’t hurt anymore… but I’m lonely and don’t know what to do.’

‘Are all men like this? Love for a short time and then they’re bored?’

Love… how is it that the very thing that is so essential to us as the air we breath, seems to constantly elude us? It comes, tantalizing us with its intoxicating pleasure, and then its gone, leaving in its wake a trail of brokenness, tears, and desolation. And we wonder, how could God be so cruel as to create us for intimacy with others, but make it so difficult to realize?

In so many ways I’m still such an inexperienced little girl. But the experience of discovering love and intimacy in a growing relationship with a man over the last two years has taught me a lot. Actually before God ever brought Kevin into my life, He was teaching me some of the hardest lessons about love that I’ve ever learned.

And I’ve learned that there is no such thing as satisfying love outside of God Himself. He is the source of love. Actually He IS love. To seek Him is to find love–constant, unchanging, deep, satisfying, fulfilling, invigorating.

I’ve learned that to seek love as an end in itself, will always be a vain and fruitless search.

I’ve discovered that  some of the deepest pleasures of love are found in selfless, sacrificial giving and free, unreserved receiving.

I’ve learned that love is nearly synonymous with words like trust and commitment. Long distance skype calls don’t easily lend themselves to ‘feeling’ love or romance.

I’ve found that romance is only as thrilling and pleasure-filled as it has not been expected or demanded. And that it tastes sweetest when it has freely spilled from the overflow of a love and commitment that runs deep and strong.

I’ve experienced that love between a man and a woman can only be as deeply mutually satisfying as they are currently experiencing in their relationship with God.

I’ve seen that the more I release and encourage Kevin to pursue God and His kingdom, the more he in turn surprises and delights me with his pursuit of my own heart.

So on this day that everyone celebrates romance, I too celebrate. But I’m celebrating the love that Kevin and I have tasted that derives its life and sustenance, its pleasure and beauty not from within itself but from God Himself.

Roses from Kevin!

Ahhh, I love my fiance! How does he seem to have this knack of knowing what I need when I need it?

savoring their beauty

I kept them fresh as long as I could. They were such a sweet reminder to me of the fact that just because we’re separated by distance and time zones doesn’t mean that all happiness and joy are gone. And every time I passed them I couldn’t help but bury my nose in them and plant kisses on their happy little heads and leave feeling strengthened and encouraged to keep seeking joy and purpose in the small things that exist in my life right now.

saving them for keeps

They still rally my spirits whenever I see them, even though now they’re drying upside down on my curtain rod. Its a wonderful and amazing thing to be cherished by a man!

Here’s how we feel that faith has played such an important part in our story: First of all, we met each other while we were already fully committed to following God’s plan for our lives. We were contented in the paths that he was leading us on and not desperate for some other special person to fill any gapping void in our lives. As we were, we were complete in Christ. This allowed us to enter into the relationship very objectively, desperate only for God’s guiding and his opinion on our interaction with each other. It was his spirit that opened our eyes to each other and drew us together, and only after we were sure of that, we proceeded.

Secondly, we remained committed primarily to Jesus and his kingdom throughout the duration of our courtship. It would have been easy to allow our growing obsession with each other to justify a premature termination to Naomi’s time in Thailand, but we waited instead. It was only after our paths of commitment to God’s kingdom intersected that we felt at peace to move on into marriage.

Thirdly, we continued to pursue Jesus even as we became enveloped by fascination with each other. It’s hard to keep priorities straight in the face of something as fresh and thrilling as romantic involvement, yet we both recognized the deeper significance of our relationship with Jesus, and pressed each other towards a deeper romance with him, not just each other.

Finally, we availed ourselves to God’s power to overcome the allurements of premature pleasure and pursued purity beyond our own fulfillment in each other. We have discovered in a very intimate way how enticing a man an woman can be to each other, yet confined ourselves to the spectrum of involvement that was legitimate in each phase of our relationship.

In exchange for walking in faith, we’ve experienced the “substance” described in Hebrews 11. Instead of wallowing in uncertainty and the sting of loneliness and separation, we experienced a much greater fulfillment in a deeper intimacy with God, an intensity of commitment to each other, and security and peace that what we we doing was the best possible route we could take.  We didn’t have the physical presence of each other, but we did have the spiritual presence of knowing that God was working everything out for our good.

In the end, we’ve experienced the beauty of God’s love. We are sad that God is perceived as a damper and inhibitor who ultimately works to deprive our pleasure, and only sanctions love when expressed in a way that is clean and… boring. Instead, God, as the creator and source of love and excitement, delights in lavishing pleasure on his creation, as illustrated by our love story.

God demands for purity and self restraint are not unwarranted. They only serve to protect us from vanity, a unsatisfying superficial pleasure that fades with time, and worse, morphs into serpents that punctuate the death our sin condemns us to. Following Jesus has led us to a satisfying and intensifying ecstasy that has made all other paths resemble “chasing after the wind”. This experience has been so fulfilling to us that we’ve developed a passion to inspire others to take the same route in their lives, especially the friends who will be present at our wedding day.

As with most significant discoveries, we seem to have accidentally stumbled upon a paradigm shattering understanding of the significance that our physical perceptions have on our mental functions.  This discovery, which is expected to be useful in all areas of efficient communication, relationship gauging, and counterintuitiveinterpersonal counseling, is finally being released for the privileged partners of the kevinomie research and intelligence firm co. ltd.

PLEASE NOTE: This blog post may contain information that is proprietary, privileged and/or confidential and is intended exclusively for the person(s) to whom it is addressed. Any use, copying, retention or disclosure by any person other than the intended recipient or the intended recipient’s designees is strictly prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient or their designee, please notify the sender immediately and delete all copies.

—— END OF FOREMATTER ——

In one of the many, many conversations which Naomi and I have held with each other from opposite ends of the world, we suddenly realized how much we use words that describe functions of our senses, to discuss concepts that are not related to our senses at all.  For example, we claim to see things that we’ve never looked at, feel things that we’ve never touched, etc.  This startling discovery prompted us to dissect the significance of our senses and their parallel to other parts of our existence.

To begin this study, we first made a list of the senses a human possesses, namely: seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching.  We then set out to unearth all of the words we use to describe these senses, which gave us the following list:

• Seeing
• see
• look (stationary)
• watch (moving)
• Hearing
• hear
• listen
• Smelling
• smell
• sniff
• Tasting
• taste
• eat
• Touching
• feel
• touch

KEY:
Sensations/Perceptions are Underlined
Actions are emBoldened

• Seeing
• I see.
• Future looks good.
• Looking back, I wish I’d behaved differently.
• I’ve seen it used that way before.
• Hearing
• I hear you.
• It sounds like you want to be respected more.
• Smelling
• Something smells funny about that situation.
• Tasting
• He has no taste.
• Tastefully used…
• That was sweet!!!
• His actions produced many bitter feelings.
• The deal turned sour.
• Touching
• I feel you.
• What are your feelings?
• Do you feel ______ (happy, sad, angry, complacent, loving, irritable, etc)

From this list we concluded that we use seeing to describe our logical conclusions and accessions, hearing to describe our emotional conclusions and accessions, smelling – our assumptions, tasting – experiences, and touching – emotional empathy and state of being.

As we continued to observe these sensations, we found a pattern emerging.  Some senses are very logical, while others are more emotional.  Some give extremely clarified sensations, while others are much more ambiguous.  Some function over extensive distance, while others work only in close proximity to the thing being sensed.  Some require a brief exposure to be satisfied, others, a more lengthy one.  When we compiled the spectrum, we were shocked to find that the senses fit in the same order, regardless of which characteristics are used to sort them.  Specifically:

• Logical, Clarity, Faraway (distance), Brief (exposure)
• Seeing
• Hearing
• Smelling
• Tasting
• Touching
• Emotional, Ambiguity, Close (distance), Lengthy (exposure)

We then turned on our stash of ancient manuscripts, and were shocked to find that our order was confirmed through the code of scripture!

Deut 4:28 And there ye shall serve gods, the work of men’s hands, wood and stone, which neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell.

Song 2:14 O my dove, that art in the clefts of the rock, in the secret places of the stairs, let me see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice; for sweet [taste] is thy voice, and thy form [touch] is comely.

Ps 115:5-7 …eyes have they, but they see not: They have ears, but they hear not: noses have they, but they smell not: They have hands, but they handle not:

1Cor 12:17 If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling?

As soon as we confirmed this order, we landed on an astonishing observation.  The five senses fit as natural gauges to the levels and stages of closeness in human relationships!  We compiled a chart to describe this phenomena, featured bellow:

What an enlightening discovery!!!  Never before have humans been equipped to use sensory verbiage to describe the health of their dating, the fulfillment of their church life, the vibrancy of their parental interactions, or ANY OTHER RELATIONAL EXPERIENCE.  We are pleased to have paved the way to a whole new fluidity of efficient communication on these matters.

When we said goodbye in June, we thought that we’d wait 10 months to see each other again. We soon found that neither of us could make it that long, so I decided to spend a third (and probably final) winter in Chiang Mai with Naomi.

Needless to say, we’ve been having a blast together. Since I arrived on the 9th, we’ve planned most of our wedding, celebrated Christmas with the Ransom team (Christmas caroling and all), bought alot of stuff for the wedding, sang in the Messiah, raced all over the city of Chiang Mai like crazy ppl, hung with Titus and Evie (alot), and just had fun being together.

One of the most memorable activities was a long hard bike trip over Doi Suthep, the royal mountain in Chaing Mai.  We ended up bouncing ourselves half to death on a 20 km dirt road that seemed intent on dumping our bones in a big pile at the bottom of the mountain.  We’ve compiled a few of the video clips we took of the day.  Please enjoy.

Regardless, we decided the event deserved celebration complete with gifts and candles and chocolate–a real webcam party! We both created a little romantic spot for ourselves to curl up with our computers to talk to each other.

Kevin had conspired with Evie and Titus to sneak a dress from my closet, buy fabric and take it to the local seamstress and make me a new dress! Its so beautiful! Over the last month I had sewed and painted pillowcases with a boy and girl talking on a tin-can phone. I kept the girl and sent him the boy pillowcase, as well as half a bar of chocolate (I kept the other half) and a song I’d recorded for him.

Its fun to find creative ways to have some semblance of being together. But I can’t wait till there are no more web chats and no more goodbyes! In less then a year we’ll be husband and wife!!!!