Category: From the Heart

When I was 19-years old, I met a boy.  I was wrapping up my sophomore year at UC Berkeley (so was he) and though we never had a single class together, we attended the same church.  I will never forget the first time I saw him (from a distance, and I swear it was in slow-mo like in the movies) and gushed to my girlfriends that he was absolutely dreamy. We moved from admirers to friends, until one day Erik skated up to me on Sproul Plaza (yeah, he literally rolled up to me on his skateboard) and asked me to join him at a concert the following week.  I said yes, he skated away, and the rest is history.  🙂  If you’re wondering about the concert: we saw The Juliana Theory & the Ataris at the Fillmore in San Francisco.  Major points if you know either of those bands.  🙂

From then on, we were nearly inseperable.  We dated for the rest of our undergrad years, getting engaged during Christmas break our senior year.  I’ll share the amazing proposal story one of these days…  We got married just months after graduation, surprising most of our friends and family.  Why would we want to get married so soon, so young??

Oh how thankful I am to have spent such sweet, formative years with my one and only.  How grateful I am that we knew back then that this was IT — that love is a covenant and you choose to love every day.  Love is what you do.  We set our love upon one another, and that love has only deepened, matured and strengthened over the years.

Today we celebrate ten beautiful years of marriage (and over 12 years together).  I am in disbelief that the time has passed so quickly, and yet I can think back and see how full these ten years have been.  We have walked through so much together.  We’ve been blessed to travel to six countries together, along with many US destinations.  We both abandoned our “stable futures” and everything we had studied in college to pursue what we felt was truly our calling.  We’ve lived in four homes together.  We clung to each other in years of infertility and recurrent miscarriage.  We welcomed our miracle daughter in 2012.  We bought our first home together in 2013.  We took the leap of faith into the world of adoption in 2014 and embarked on a roller coaster ride through the domestic adoption process.  We welcomed our miracle son in 2015, via adoption.  We’ve laughed to the point of tears, we’ve cried in valleys of sorrow, we’ve fought and we’ve forgiven.  We have both GROWN, by the grace of God, and so has our love.  TEN years always seemed like the first “big” anniversary to me.  An entire decade.  Now that we have made it, I wonder if the next ten will fly by even faster?

If you follow me on Instagram, you know I am currently out of town celebrating with a mini-getaway.  I’m sure I’ll share more about that on the blog eventually.  Today I just wanted to share my top ten things I love about my college (and forever) sweetheart, Erik.

favorite pic of us on our wedding day — so much joy!

singing “be thou my vision” with our guests // it’s one of my favorite pics of the day
and was snapped by a friend in one of the front rows!

  1. His unwavering faith and devotion to the Lord — he exemplifies what it means to practice what you preach
  2. His ability to be silly & playful — we have so much fun together, and I can be my goofy self around him without any hesitation
  3. His sharp wit and humor — he makes me laugh every single day
  4. His brilliant mind — Erik has always challenged me and conversations with him elevate my own way of thinking.  God has given him such an ability to study, understand, retain and teach.
  5. His patience — he has so much grace for me and others
  6. His beautiful amber hazel eyes — they are the color of golden honey and they are captivating!
  7. His tenderness in parenting — Erik is the best father to Olive and Noah and there is nothing more attractive to me than seeing how he cares for our little ones.
  8. His uncanny ability to dominate at everything he does, whether it’s a long-time hobby or a brand new endeavor.  Erik is just good at everything, and it is kinda crazy.
  9. His romantic heart — Erik has always written me the most beautiful, sincere love letters and never misses an opportunity to wow me on anniversaries and special occasions.
  10. Your loyalty and devotion to me — I feel so secure in your love and you love me so well.

to my Erik — you are my greatest blessing on this earth.  I can’t adequately express how thankful I am for you, every single day.  10 years ago, I married the very best man I knew.  You still embody to me everything that a great man is: devoted to the Lord, full of integrity and honor, respectful, well-spoken and kind, tender-hearted, wildly intelligent yet strikingly humble, utterly hilarious! and personable, and let’s face it… you’re pretty easy on the eyes, too. 😉

I know I am better for knowing you, and for having the honor of living as your companion. you teach me so much just by the way you live.  You are a constant source of encouragement and edification to me, and there is such comfort that comes from the support you give.  I know how special our relationship is.  I truly believe it to be an (unfortunate) rarity: two people committed to love each other, and also wildly in love with each other.  I treasure what we share, and I am proud to be your wife.

It is a joy to love you… for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, until death separates us.

happy anniversary baby <3 I love you.

spring 2008 — the image is found

december 2008 – amelia lyon

fall 2009 – jessica claire

january 2012 – jose villa

july 2014 – ryan ray

june 2015 – the image is found

I hope you’re all having a great day; see you soon!

Happy Monday, everyone!  I hope you had a warm and wonderful Thanksgiving holiday with your loved ones.  Erik and I hosted our very first Thanksgiving and it was a joyful day from start to finish.  I’ll be sharing more about our Thanksgiving celebration later this week!  In the afterglow of the last holiday, and in great anticipation for Christmas, I wanted to get this post up as soon as possible.  I actually planned to write and post it last week, for Thanksgiving itself, but prepping for our get-together took precedence.  😉

Every November here in the US, we are collectively reminded to give thanks for what we have.  It’s a time when we reflect on the bounty of what we have and savor it.  As I tick off my own list of blessings, I am reminded to direct my thanks to the great Giver of gifts: my God.

“Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow.” // James 1:17

I have a powerful and loving God, and a life-giving relationship with Him.  I have a devoted, silly, inspiring husband who loves me with patience, grace and humility.  My daughter — I have a daughter!! — fills our home with laughter and my days with profound lessons.  I have a wonderful family who lends me support and encouragement on a daily basis.  I’m blessed with an amazing group of friends, near and far, who have been by my side for unspeakably joyful moments as well as the dark valleys of heartbreak.  I am fortunate to live in this beautiful country.  While it may be imperfect (as we all are), it is still a place where I can enjoy freedoms that are denied to others around the world.  I have much more than I need and a whole lot of what I want, too.  Some might say it is easy for someone “like me” to express gratitude.

It catches me off-guard when someone will tell me something along those lines — that I have it easy, that I lead some sort of charmed life.  I suppose that if you’re only seeing snippets on the blog or photos on social media, it might be possible to think that.  Those who have read this blog over time, however, or know me in real life, know that I have experienced many sorrows along with my sweetest days.  I’m not here to list off burdens or compare griefs.  That’s not what this post is about.  I’m simply saying that we all have experienced pain and difficulty.  The beauty is this: gratitude transcends those circumstances and experiences.  A spirit of gratitude revels in the everyday blessings.

You’ve probably heard the difference between happiness and joy: happiness is based on your circumstances.  It can be evoked by a delightful occasion and dashed by a terrible situation.  Joy, however, is deep-seated and unwavering.  It is a disposition of the soul — a comfort and peace that cannot be shaken or diminished.  My joy is found in my relationship with Jesus Christ.  Because of who He is and what He’s done for me, I can live and walk in JOY.  When someone tells me I seem like a really “happy person,” I know that what they’re really seeing is the joy of Christ in me.  And that is a blessing (since I am so imperfect and cannot reflect Christ perfectly)!  In times of distress and trials, I can rest in knowing that God’s sovereignty and love never change.  When my heart aches and longs for things I do not yet have, I can still rejoice in what I do have in Him — that which can never be taken away from me.

I write these words and I believe them with every part of my heart, but I still fail in practice.  I catch myself wishing or wanting for more, begrudging the abundance I have and even desiring the gifts of another.  We redefine luxuries as needs.  We compare treasure and are left wanting.  I need to be reminded sometimes (even in writing something like this post!) to give thanks at always.  I must rest in the gracious provision of God and trust that He cares for me.

Gratitude is so closely tied to contentment: simply being satisfied with what you have.  It seems like we are trained from childhood to always want more, to strive for more.  It’s a tragic misdirection of our energies.  We see time and again that people who have more are not necessarily more fulfilled.  (In fact, I’ve seen almost the opposite…)  Contentment is not about quantity but perspective.  When we live in gratitude and mindfully acknowledge what we do have, we find contentment.  We can thank God for what we have, where we are.  We can rest instead of resist.  We can lift praise rather than petitions.  Let me be clear: I am not against self-improvement or goals or ambitions of any kind.  The question is whether or not my achievement of those goals (on my timeline, according to my plans) is tied to my joy.  If I live and die by the plans I make for myself, I am setting myself up for disappointment.  I would be chasing happiness, not joy.

This year is the first year that Olive really “gets” Christmas and we are seizing the opportunity to instruct her about the true meaning of the holiday.  We pray she will grow to cultivate a heart of contentment, acknowledging what she has (and who it comes from) and being sincerely grateful for every blessing.  All I want for Christmas is a heart of contentment and a spirit of gratitude.  All I want for her is the same.

Thank you for letting me spill a bit of my heart here today.  I am truly thankful for YOU, taking the time to read my fumbling words and sharing life with me.  What are YOU thankful for?

Today I’m sharing a pretty personal post but it is something that has been on my heart for a couple of weeks, since my sweet vacation.  (I promise a recap of the trip is on its way!)  The entire trip was so good for my soul; there is much value in retreating from the world, soaking up the beauty of creation, unplugging (as much as possible…) and re-connecting with your loved ones.  I was able to fully relax, calm my mind, focus on the little things around me…  Each day was a sensory overload.  I was overwhelmed by the vastness, the majesty, the loveliness of the many views we took in on our trip.  I was also taken aback when one day, I was overwhelmed by another feeling: fear.  Okay, before this gets too dramatic, let me rewind and give you some backstory…

When I was still in utero, my mother fell very ill with meningitis and was even hospitalized.  This was the early 80s when ultrasounds were not yet commonplace.  Having recovered, she went on to give birth to me and was devastated to learn at that moment that her firstborn daughter had a serious birth defect.  Though they will never know quite why (it’s not genetic), they presume it was related to her illness during pregnancy.  My condition is called fibular hemimelia and it basically means that I was born missing my fibula in my left leg.  Although it wasn’t visually  discernible when I was just a 7 lb newborn, the doctors explained that as I grew, the differences between my left and right leg would become dramatically obvious to the point where I wouldn’t be able to walk without a clunky Frankenstein-esque shoe, cane, or more…  My parents made the difficult but wise decision to amputate my left leg via Symes amputation.  This would allow me to wear a prosthesis and lead a more normal, active lifestyle.  The Symes amputation is different from the typical amputation you see in most movies or on TV, where they will show the leg cut at the knee.  In my case, they basically removed my foot (near the ankle) which means I have my entire left leg (though much smaller than my right leg) and my prosthesis is more like a boot than a pirate-esque peg.  haha  I underwent a few more procedures as a child to alleviate some of the dramatic differences in my left and right legs.  If you see me sitting in person today, you’ll see how my knees are in very different places and my left femoral shaft is a lot shorter than the right.  But all in all, my surgeries made me appear to most as a fully-able-bodied woman.  Before I was born, my parents were planning to name me a very French-sounding name (it ended up as my maiden middle name, actually) but because of my unexpected birth defect, they decided to call me Angel.

ummm was I chubs or what??  This was at 2-3 months old, after my first surgery.

not just being sassy, but popping my front leg shows the difference in length between the two legs

How many of you didn’t know this??  I am still surprised when a long-time friend of mine will realize one day that my left leg isn’t real.  They’ll see me wearing sandals, or perhaps a knee-length skirt, and exclaim, “What’s that??!”  I suppose that because I grew up as an amputee, I forget about my ‘difference.’  By God’s grace and mercy, I didn’t experience any teasing as a child.  I attended public schools all my life and never was taunted or ostracized.  Of course people stared (as they still may), but I’m human… I realize that we are all curious about things that are out of the ordinary.  It doesn’t bother me when people ask me about my leg.   My parents raised me to be proud of who I was, of who God had made me to be, and I was confident in that.  Thanks to advances in modern medical equipment, I had every state-of-the-art leg possible and learned to run, swim and snowboard with my prosthetics.  I felt invincible as a child.  I wore shorts without shyness, I swam at the community pool while others gawked.  I was just a normal kid in my mind.  I realize that having my amputation and successive surgeries during childhood was a great blessing.  There was no real transition period; I learned to take my first steps with the help of an artificial limb.  In that sense, my prosthesis was part of my original concept of self.

I led an active lifestyle throughout my youth and college years and still feel nearly 100% unimpaired physically.  So, it caught me off guard when on our recent vacation, Erik suggested we take Olive for a bike ride.  I was thrilled about the idea, because Lake Tahoe has some gorgeous bike paths to explore.  As we were signing papers and getting our helmets on, I felt a wave of panic wash over me.  You see, I hadn’t ridden a bike in four years.  And four years ago, I only got on a bike because we were on vacation (in Tokyo) and there was a fun opportunity to ride around the Imperial Palace.  It seems that vacation brings out the biker in me.  Other than that isolated experience, I hadn’t been on a bike since I was a pre-teen.

As a child, I remember being fearless on my bike.  I would ride so fast, standing in the stirrups, racing the neighborhood kids, being wild and free.  I have the scars on my knees and elbows to prove it (where there are tiny fragments of asphalt buried deep under my skin — not joking!).  But for some reason, I stopped riding my bike and got into other things.  And though it may be true that you never forget how to ride a bike, I was terrified to get on one again.  I sat down in the seat and put my left foot (prosthesis) on the pedal first, then tried to quickly balance and get my right foot on.  I wobbled.  I stumbled.  I didn’t fall (thank you Lord!) but I immediately turned beet red and got flustered and embarrassed.  I was thinking that the bike rental guy must have been laughing at me on the inside, wondering why a grown woman couldn’t get on a bike.  Did I really want to rent a bike and ride a 3 mile trail if I couldn’t even board one without stumbling??  I told Erik I was scared I might not be able to make it.  I felt my heart beating faster because I was humiliated and nervous and anxious and fearful.  Erik is one of the most athletic people I know and of course, he is a brilliant biker.  He loves mountain biking when he gets the chance.  Olive was buckled up in the trailer he was pulling and was so excited for the ride.  I felt like I was about to ruin the perfect family vacation moment.  I am pretty sure I told Erik I couldn’t do it, and he couldn’t possibly understand because of my leg and blah blah blah.  I mean, really??  I was going to use that as an excuse?  I was grasping at straws.

And then.  Erik gently told me to just get on.  To just wobble and be scared but put my right foot on the pedal and GO.  I did.  And I pedaled.  I was sure that the dozens of bikers who passed me on the trail must have been laughing or at least feeling sorry for me.  (Honestly, they probably couldn’t have cared less.  But isn’t it funny how we think all eyes are on us when we’re fearful?  We need to get over the audience mindset.)  I had my hands gripped so tightly on the handlebars that I got a cramp, I kid you not.  I was constantly braking because I felt like I was going too fast.  I would freak out when I saw oncoming bicylclists and wanted to pull over and stop to avoid what I thought would be a guaranteed collision.

holding on for dear life, but doing it

teensy Angel on the bridge

But it wasn’t.  I didn’t.  I never fell, never hit anyone, never had to call the rental company to pick me up halfway down the trail (like I feared).  I did it.  It wasn’t pretty, guys, but I did it.  And as I pedaled, even white-knuckled, I felt wild and free again.  I actually cried a little!  Cue the emo tunes.  I realized that my fear was holding me back from experiencing the tranquil bliss I enjoyed on that ride.  Erik and Olive rode behind me at a safe distance (I wanted to ride without distraction, haha!) so I felt truly immersed in the beautiful surroundings.  I could breathe in the crisp air, feel the breeze, listen to the whoosh of the wind through the trees.  It was wonderful in every way and I am so glad that I took the leap, I went for it, I listened to my husband’s gentle push.  I was still scared.  I was still nervous.  But I just went for it, fears and all, and it was worth it.

So many things in life are like that.  We worry about the audience.  We look at our perceived weaknesses.  We make excuses and at the first sign of a stumble, we back away.  We refuse even the possibility of being bad at something.  I know I do.  But why??  Why not go for it and fall and make a memory?  Why not try it and at least be able to say you did?  Erik and I agreed that that bike ride was one of the best experiences of our vacation and to think I almost missed out on it because I was scared.  I was looking at myself and my leg and thinking I couldn’t do it, I wasn’t equipped, I wasn’t able.  But God gave me the courage in that moment.  I was reminded of childhood-Angel, the fearless Angel, the one who never saw my leg as a weakness but just another part of me… like every hair on my head, every freckle on my face.  Sometimes we’ll succeed, and sometimes we’ll fail.  But it’s worth a try.  It’s worth the leap.

post-ride, feeling amazing.

from where i stand. try to ignore my un-cute real toes (I promise there’s a fifth one hiding)…

That bike ride caused a shift in my heart.  It sounds so dramatic to write that but truly, it did.  Whatever you might be fearing right now, I pray that you would find the strength to take the leap and give it a try.  Whether it’s trying that new hobby that intimidates you, or pursuing a new career, or even having a tough conversation with a friend.  Go and do.  Even if you stumble, even if you fail, it’s worth it.  You tried, you did your best, and you made a memory.  Now it’s your turn to get on the bike in the forest.  Or, something like that.  😉

Thank you for reading — see you next time!