An Honest Letter: Lessons in Laundry

Dear friends,

I am emerging from the caves of winter:

It has been two months since I last blogged.  How in the world has it been two months since the end of January?  Somewhere in between then and now my online classes started, Zach and I launched our business, and I learned a lot about being married.  Last week I wrapped up two of my classes, so I'm back to having some extra moments for reflection on questions like:

Why doesn't anyone receive a BA, MA, or PhD for four, eight, or sixteen+ years of learning in marriage?  I'm asking honestly.

Why is spring so late in coming?!  I am still asking honestly. (I am also sounding like Toad from: Frog and Toad.)

I've also been pondering some of the lessons I've recently learned, such as:

1)  Always check the load of laundry very carefully before you wash it.

I have washed some of the strangest things in the past two months.  For example, last month I washed a banana.  In fact, I washed the same banana three times.

Here's what happened.  One Monday morning, Zach told me that his backpack was growing mold.  He often carries a protein shake in his backpack when he goes to school, so I figured that at some point the protein must have leaked.  I asked him to empty his backpack so I could wash it.  He did.  I double checked to make sure he hadn't missed anything.  He hadn't.  I washed the backpack.  It smelled funny.  I washed it again.  It still smelled funny.  Puzzled, I washed it again with extra detergent, extra hot water, and then I even put it through the extra-hot dryer cycle.  I felt proud for having conquered the mold.

But when the backpack was dry, I noticed that one of the pockets was strangely lumpy.  This confused me, as the pocket appeared to be empty.  This is when I learned about the secret pocket.  Somehow, both Zach and I had failed to discover the secret pocket...except, we must have discovered it at some point because when I opened the secret pocket I found the remains of a thrice washed banana.

Are you disappointed that I didn't take pictures?  Let it suffice for me to tell you that a banana that has been washed three times with extra detergent and extra hot water and then dried in an extra hot cycle is a very sad looking banana.  I definitely fared better in this lesson then the banana did.

Anyways, I learned from the experience and have graduated with a 3.0 in laundry learning. (The professor generously curved my grade in return for the laugh.)

In fact, this is one of the greatest lessons I've learned so far:

a little laughter goes a long way for growing love.

It's easy to settle into the normalcy of living...the school, the meals, the laundry, the dirty floors, the growing business...

The workload piles, and suddenly one has lost the art of living - the joy of surprises - the fun of marriage.

So this is where my question about BA's, MA's, and PhD's in marriage comes full circle: marriage must be celebrated!  In fact, this principle reaches beyond marriage into the realm of all relationships.

Don't miss the gifts loving and being loved simply because they have once been given and received.

Take time to delight in the daily gift of loving and being loved.  

Want to join me in my new personal challenge for the month of April?  Here's what it is:

Do something daily that is solely for the purpose of bringing a smile to someone's face.

I dare you to do it!  And if you do, I'd love to hear about your adventures!

Mucho love,

Natalia Rosa

(Since every post is better with a few pictures, here's my "P.S." - a few smiles from the past few months:

Heartbeats of home

home | hōm |

            1 "the place where one lives permanently, especially as a member of a family or household."

home | hōm |

            2 "wherever I am with you."

In the past few weeks I have packed up twenty years of my life and shipped it across a thousand miles.  I have been married.  I have become a wife.  I have had a beautiful honeymoon and have road-tripped through Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Virginia.  

When I first started writing this post two weeks ago, I was sitting on a stool in the middle of stacks of boxes, half-assembled furniture, and a stack of wedding gifts.  Sometime that day, someone asked me if we were "settled in" yet.  Zach and I looked at each other and laughed.  Because the apartment looked something like this...

Please note: I'm cringing as I upload these pictures.  If you are not going to read the rest of this post, please, I beg of you, at least scroll down and look at the clean apartment pictures! ;)

The unpacking process was actually quite comical.  Did you know that when you're unpacking, things get worse before they get better?  There may or may not have been a few times when Zach and I suddenly dropped everything we were doing, let out a claustrophobic cry for help, blazed a trail through the forrest of cardboard, and ran outside to breathe some fresh air.

Finally, we began to catch glimpses of the rewards of our labor!  And the apartment began to look like this:

Slowly, but surely, it is beginning to come together.  It is beginning to become:

Home

But it is not just, "the place where one lives permanently, especially as a member of a family or household."

In fact, it is not even the place where we will live permanently.  Moreover, it is still a bit bare and "in-progress"...but that's okay, because "home" is far more than a place.  It is: 

Wherever I am with you.

And that, is a beautiful place to be!

Loving fully: Part 1

Some say that love is weak...That we must not focus only on the love of God lest it result in leniency towards and trivialization of sin.  I say that we grossly misunderstand what love is.  Love is not weak.  Love is not lenient.  Love does not trivialize.  Love is stronger than death.  Love is jealousy more demanding than the grave.  Many waters cannot quench it, death cannot defy it, sin cannot stand it.  To be loved by God is to be claimed completely by Him.  There is nothing weak about love.

So perhaps the reason why we resist love is not merely because we misunderstand it, but also because we are afraid of it.  

We are afraid to receive the love that will claim us completely.  

We are afraid to give a love that will require a surrendering of self entirely.  

We are afraid.  

But we are commanded.

“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.  If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.  If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.”  (1 Cor. 13:1-3)

What is keeping you from loving fully?

The greatness of Love

What is greatness?  

I have always longed to do great things for Christ, to reach this broken world for Him in a meaningful way.  But what is the definition of ‘great’?  Especially after my high school graduation, I began to feel a mounting pressure to find what that ‘great’ thing was that I could do for Christ.  I was faced with decisions regarding education, work, and ministry opportunities.  Yet, try as I might, I could not perceive a clearly marked plan to follow.  This frustrated me immensely and I wrestled with feeling like I couldn’t hear God’s voice.  I needed a plan and He wasn’t giving me a clear one!  In our American culture we like to think that our lives are so linear…each year a stair step on the ladder of success…each accomplishment an affirmation and milestone of our value and identity.

Maybe we are wrong. 

Look at the very life of Jesus:

He was a baby.  He was a carpenter.  He was the Son, and he was also a son. 

The majority of His life composes the minority of what we read and know. 

What about the Jesus who was working on the wood, eating with his family, playing with his brothers and walking with his Father?  What about all of the ‘small’ ways in which he served his disciples?  We remember the revelation of his magnificence when He told the disciples to cast their net into the sea and their nets overflowed, but how many of us remember the verses right after that where the Bible says that Jesus prepared a meal for his disciples and invited them to eat breakfast with him?  When did we decide that the first act is ‘greater’ than the second?

I have also considered the question of greatness as I have read the story of Mary, Martha’s sister, and how she poured the perfume at Jesus’ feet, and those at the dinner wondered why she hadn’t sold the expensive fragrance and given her money to the poor.  Yet Jesus responded that she had done a beautiful thing.  He proclaimed that her story would be remembered and recorded for years to come.

What if sometimes Jesus calls us to demonstrate our love by pouring our talents and gifts – our very lives – our expensive oil – out in ways and places that are ‘radically insignificant’ in the world’s eyes, but beautifully significant in His eyes?

This is a lesson that the Lord has started to teach me.  Gently, He has been redirecting my soul.  I am a slow learner, but I am hungry to learn.  He is teaching me the lesson that Greatness is defined by Love. 

I can’t ‘do’ love; I can’t ‘think’ love.  Love is not a thing; it is Him.  Love is not worrying about something ‘greater’ that must be done in the future. Love is not pushing relentlessly for ‘more, more, more,” in the present.  Love is not glancing back in disgust at the inadequacy in the past.  Love is communion with Jesus.  Breathing now, living now, caring now.  Love might be reading books to little brothers today, because ‘tomorrow’ is ignoring Love for too long.  Love might be making dinner with my mother today, because today will soon be gone and I’ll never be able to go back and practice Love in this way again.  Love might be filing taxes for my father today, because Love knows that typing lots of little numbers into an excel spreadsheet can echo the beating of God’s heart.

Love is marveling at the blessed significance of every opportunity. 

‘Great’ is an ugly, rapacious idol when Love is sacrificed on its altar.

I haven’t lived long and I still know so very little, but the longer I live and the little bit more that I learn, the more I believe that God’s heart for us on this journey is so much more than a line to walk or a prize to win.  Perhaps life is not so linear, but more like a tapestry.  And all God asks of us is a yielded heart.  A yielded heart… and His reflected Love on this heart transforms more of this broken world than we could ever imagine. 

So my challenge has been to walk out the truth that in order for my life to be ‘great’ my Love must be real.  Right now.  Right here.  I must embrace Love knowing that the majority of my life may be the minority of what the world will know or remember…But I am not living to be known or remembered by the world.  I am living to be full of His Love – He is the one who works in me His will according to His purpose. And, “real love is when you live the daily faithfulness of making whole decades of minutes tell the truth about the glorious gospel.” – Ann Voskamp

Love is the key to the question of greatness.