I scored a flattering 5 correct out of 7 questions on a test about Kevin.

I received many notes of blessing and encouragement from the ladies… brought tears.

And I was the recipient of much generosity–gifts that were on my to-buy-before-I-leave-Thailand list, as well as many other lovely, thoughtful things that I’ll enjoy later.

Heidi and Rosa, thank you dear ladies so much for all the work you put into making the afternoon a beautiful time for me. Thank you for the ways you two constantly celebrate with me, and cheer me in on in this journey! Love you ladies!!

Hi folks, I’m officially back in Thailand for three weeks.  If you’ve been reading this blog recently, I think you’ll agree it was time.  A big thanks goes out to Kelly & Curtis, and all the others who helped me pull this one off! Love you guys!!!!

It’s another month down,
Another milepost passed in this marathon of waiting;
Five more months to go.
Will we make it, Lord?
Will we run well to the end?

I feel like my strength is about gone;
I’m not sure I can run anymore.
I’ve been gasping for air,
And my throat feels parched…
The last bit of life and energy that seemed to exist in this cyber relationship
Is draining down
to the last
drop.

Oh God, give me strength to run
I can’t give up now; we’ve come too far!
Come take over and empower these feeble knees;
Pour life into these unwilling limbs;
Breath hope into these screaming lungs.
You promised that those who wait on You,
Will have their strength renewed.
They will soar with wings like eagles;
They will RUN and not grow weary;
They will walk and not get tired!

Only 6 more months to go!!!

8:11 AM me: WHY!!!!
Kevin: ugh
not the last ten minutes
please
me: i can’t hear or see you
ugh i could cry
8:12 AM Error Message: Sorry! The video chat failed because of a network problem at 8:12 AM. Please try again.
click here to report Google
Thank you!
(Error ID: 0a1649236fbe8a46b).
8:14 AM me: where did you go????
8:15 AM me: i restarted my browser… it was frozen

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 following Jesus has played such an important part in our story.

First of all, we met while we were already fully committed to following God’s plan for our lives. Contented in the paths that he was leading us on, we were not desperate for some other special person to fill any gaping void in our lives. We were already complete in Christ. This allowed us to enter the relationship very objectively, desperate for God’s guiding and his opinion on our interaction. It was his spirit that opened our eyes 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 our courtship. It would have been easy to allow our growing obsession to prematurely terminate 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 in our growing fascination with each other. It’s hard to keep priorities straight in the face of something as fresh and thrilling as romance, yet we both recognized the deeper significance of our relationship with Jesus, and pressed each other towards a deeper romance with him.

In exchange for walking in faith, we’ve experienced the “substance” described in Hebrews 11. Instead of wallowing in the pain of loneliness and separation, we experienced a greater fulfillment through a deeper intimacy with God, an intensity of commitment to each other, and a persistent security and peace in knowing the route were taking was best. When we lacked the reassuring presence of the other person, we gained a deeper knowledge of God’s presence.

In the end, we’re overwhelmed with the beauty of God’s love. We are sad that people perceive God 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.

(Updated: 5/20/12)

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.