Making the List(Part 1 of a True Love Story)

I never thought I deserved to be happy.  Well maybe a little happy, but not a lot.  There is something about being molested as a child that leaves you with an invisible stain.  You can see it even if it's invisible to everyone else. But even if no one else could see the stain, I just knew that everyone sensed some damage in me, some deficit.  They might not understand why but instinctively they would know that something in me was broken--something vital.  I was an "As Is"--one of those items that's slightly damaged and marked down and still worth having only if you can't afford the perfect ones.

My friends were  bewildered by my choice of dates.  I wouldn't say that I deliberately chose them because they were "losers", but I have to admit that I set my sights none too high.  I made great grades, I wasn't ugly friends said(though I didn't buy that either) and I was a nice person.  What was I thinking?  I couldn't admit the truth.  I thought they were what I deserved.

Life went along like that until I got  the opportunity to go to Japan and teach English conversation.  I was thrilled and terrified but I had always wanted to live in another country and experience the culture.  It had always been a distant dream because I came from a poor family.  I wasn't about to miss it.  I almost did, however, when my father fell from a friend's roof and crushed 4 fingers on his right hand and hurt his neck.  The  doctors insisted it wasn't broken.  My mom told me to go ahead.  The contract was signed and I set off for my new life.

About 3 weeks after I arrived, I got a call from my mom.  My father actually had two broken vertebrae in his neck.  He would endure months of hospital, surgeries and recovery while I was gone.  My brother moved in with my parents to help.  I waited, helpless and praying on the other side of the world.  So many nights I waited by the phone until early morning waiting to hear the results of some surgery.   When the sun rose, I would walk to the school to teach my classes fortified with a strong cup of black tea. 

During this time, I felt like  I was in a pressure cooker, but now I see that was God's way of getting all of the poison out of my life.  I felt like I would explode if I didn't confide in someone and  one of my new friends in Japan become my rock.  His mother is a counsellor and his father is a pastor.  He brought books, listened into the wee hours and held the tissue box.  Gradually I got to the point that I told God that I didn't want to be damaged and I believed He could fix me.  By the end of my time  in Japan, I knew He had.  For the first time since I was 8 years old, I felt whole.

My friend's mom and dad came to visit him and we hit it off.  His mother, wise woman that she was (and is) pointed out how low my expectations were about my future and my eventual husband.  She  pointed out some verses in the Bible. Two that really hit home were,"You have not because you ask not." and "Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your  heart."  I couldn't argue with either of those. 

She shared her story of making a list of characteristics she wanted in her husband and then praying over  it.  Years later when she met her future husband, he was everything on her list.  It was then that I dared to hope for the first time in a long time.  

That night, I went back to my apartment, curled up on the couch with my cat behind my knees and wrote out my list.  I let my heart soar.  I wrote the desires that I never expressed  even to myself.  I allowed myself  to imagine someone who would love me and value me, someone who would be  adventurous and intelligent, someone who encouraged me and was...gulp... proud of me.  In the end my list covered the page front and back.  33 items.  I prayed over it and went to bed, hoping and almost believing that somewhere that person waited for me.

 (continued in part 2--Will the Real Me Please Stand Up?)