HERE COMES THE SUN . . .

Yesterday, Flacon was grateful for me, that I had sun. Ironic, given that I woke up and saw the sunlight and thought "damn you, how can you be shining?" Strange, how two people of the same soul can have such divergent views of the same God-given gift.

The sun is shining again today. And today, I am not so angry. For I found the Lord, and He did not turn away from me, and He came to me and comforted me and engaged me in conversation and began the slow, bone-breaking process of lifting me up.

I still don't know where He is leading me. I don't know what He is going to teach me through this stage in my life. I don't know yet what this suffering is for, but I am convinced it is for something. Not convinced just because I feel it must be for something, but convinced because He has given me the faith to believe. I don't yet see a healing for my heart, and the reconciliation for our differences. But I do see that He is sovereign and powerful and merciful and gracious, and the fact that these things about Him never change, though everything around me might, is a soothing balm for my soul.

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THE BEST MEDICINE . . .

God is my refuge and my shelter and my comfort at all times, in all circumstances. And so I am thankful that He gives me more lists to compile to take my mind off of things. And I am ever more grateful for the friends He stands in my life, to whom I can link for inspiration when I have none of my own ...

First best friend: Caroline. Wonder what she's up to now ...

First Car: that I ever drove was an automatic transmission Audi Quattro. That I ever drove legally was my mom's enormous silver Cadillac DeVille. That I "owned" is Good Girl -- I ain't paying for her, but she's mine, all mine! That I really owned is LuLu, and she's only three months old and mine legally, but I seem to have been her surrogate mother, for my parents have her now and refuse to relinquish her to me because she rides smoother than Good Girl does, even though I pay for her upbringing. What is that all about?!

First kiss: aside from the 1st-grade classmate who smacked me a wet one on on the cheek in the stairwell of our elementary school and then commenced chasing me and yelling all the way down the hall, "KISS ME BAAAAACK!"? 8th-grade ski trip of three families. I fell down on the slopes. He, the son of a family friend, picked me up and pecked me on the lips and said, "there, now you can keep going, right?" UGH, SO CHEESY.

First big trip: France and Spain in the 7th grade. I wish I remembered it.

First flight: I was three years old and my family went to Korea and I remember some of it, actually. Images of a large great-grandmother flit about my memory. That, and tasty ice cream treats.

First time skiing/snowboarding: Winter 2004-5. I spent one whole day with Cheeser not being able to go heel-side. Then I spent another whole day in Whistler not being able to go toe-side. Then I spent another whole day realizing that although I am right-handed in all things, I ride goofy. Who AM I?

First alcoholic drink: an involuntary gin-&-tonic in a bad hotel bar in Korea the summer after I graduated high school. I thought they were drinking 7-UPs, and I was extremely thirsty from dancing to bad club music, so I grabbed one out of a friend's hand and sucked the whole thing down in one sip. They were amazed. I got drunk and lay on the floor and pronounced that I could no longer feel my knees.

First ticket violation: autumn 2003, I got trapped right at the point where it went from a 55-mph zone to a 30-mph zone. I was going 73 mph along with everyone else on the road. When the po-po asked me if I knew why he stopped me, I said, "Because you THINK I was speeding?" I am so lucky, I know, that I did not get a beat-down, and he agreed to drop me from 6 points to 4.

First job: mother's helper for my Russian teacher in high school. Now I realize how weird that was, to be so close and intimate with my TEACHER. I mean, I saw her LAUNDRY, for crying out loud, and saw her in a BATHING SUIT, and knew that she ordered PLAYBOY magazines as a gift for her husband! ARGH! THE TRAUMA!!!! But the kid was really cool.

First date: aside from the high-school-y "hanging out in a big group even though everyone knows that we're sitting next to each other exclusively throughout the evening because we're 'a couple'," my first 'official' real date was autumn of my senior year in high school when I was taken to a special event at Carnegie Hall by the son of its then-director (God bless her soul), then taken out to a late dinner at Essex House, along with his family, board members of Carnegie Hall and Isaac Stern and his wife.

First memory: being with my dad at home in the evenings while my mom worked nights, making kimchi together, asking him to make me a hot chocolate treat, "helping" him fold laundry, snuggled into his armpit while watching "M*A*S*H" and laughing at all the times he laughed even though I understood not a single word of it. This must have been in the 3-4-year-old range.

First true love: what does this mean, anyway? In every relationship I have had, I think I have had glimpses of what "true love" is and so I continue to build my expectations and hone my desires and the things I seek in The One. I know what to ask of the Lord now ... but still the phrase "true love" is unreal to me. Jesus is my true love. Everyone else is a gift.