February 2020 - Lady Kavan Blogs. Speaks. Writes. Copywrites

P.S. I Love You

If you are a rom com/chick flick/sucker for love/emotional movie kinda person, the title of this blog should ring a bell. It’s that 2007 movie with Gerard Butler and Hilary Swank where Gerry (the husband) dies but to help her healing process he leaves a series of letters post mortem that come at seemingly random moments from different sources. The letters provided instructions and encouragement to live her life fully without his physical presence. I love that movie, I think it would make my top 10 romantic movies that include among others the Notebook, Love and Basketball and Crazy Beautiful. Anyway, I came home exhausted and strangely emotional so what do I do? I torture myself with the sappy movie so I can bawl my eyes out. Surely, there must be an easier way to release my emotional tension! Nope, not me. Romance /drama movies are my drug of choice.

When my bawl fest was over I started to think about love. I love love. I love being loved. I love loving the people around me, but mostly I love that peace I have from knowing the God of the Universe loves me unconditionally. Someone asked me recently, how did I manage to love again? I said, in my view point there are two directions you can take when handling grief; you either shut down and close your heart off from the possibility of deeply feeling for anyone and anything OR you choose to grab hold of life in its fullness and embrace love in all its glorious facets. For me, I started down the first road. I made an internal promise to myself never to love again. I could not fathom it. But I soon came to realize the walls I build to shut love out also shut me within myself. It became difficult to relate to the people I wanted to love; my boys, my mom, my friends. I knew if I let myself feel anything at all I risked my whole fortress crumbling. It did not feel like living at all but I felt this was the best way to prevent my world from shattering again. It was a lonely numb place.

One day I had the epiphany that since Chris (my first husband) sacrificed himself for his family, if I were to function like a zombie and not truly live then I wasted his sacrifice. My mind went back to a conversation we had before he passed about wanting each other to live fully if the other person were gone. I recognized in that moment that to live fully, no holding back was my best gift to him. So I honour his memory by holding on to the people I care about. I try to choose quality of conversation over quantity. I laugh loudly, I sob uncontrollably, I think deeply and I allow myself to feel every emotion. The ones that lead me to unhealthy pathways like anger and bitterness I give myself a time frame to feel them, to explore the emotion and then I let them go like waves receding from the shore.

When I re-met Carlton (long story), I was still on the first road. He was my auto-mechanic and my knight in greasy armour but nothing more. When I decided to crawl out of my fortress occasionally, he was there making me laugh and getting me out of my head. When it got scary, I crawled back into the fortress. When I had the epiphany and started to pull the fortress down brick by brick he was there. He was patient and never rushed my process. He allowed me to cry when I needed to and never disrepected Chris’ memory. He still does this and I love him for it.

I’ve observed that walled hearts find it hard to see the light. I find that people who are so focused on protecting their hearts miss the joy and beauty of love and being loved on deeper levels. This is not to say they have no fun or walk around miserable. Most people will not even recognize they are in the “walled in heart crew” until they encounter Love. Love (God) whispers P.S. I love you over the course of history via His Word with timely reminders of His all-sufficient grace. He loves on us lavishly all the time but until we release the fear of being hurt we will be hard pressed to see it. Until we abandon the need to have all answers, all the time before making a move, we remain stuck in “could have” and “should have” thoughts. I saw a quote recently from an unknown source that said “sometimes we want greater clarity when what we need is deeper trust”. The quote hit me hard because Im still in the beginner class for deep trust but I’m trying. So when my heart quakes, I remind myself that Love loves me and that if I open my heart to Him, He will direct my path.

Write Fully Yours

Lady Kavan

P.S. I love you, says God.

Trust in the Lord completely, and do not rely on your own opinions. With all your heart rely on him to guide you, and he will lead you in every decision you make.
Proverbs 3:5 TPT

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Toy Cars and Match Boxes

I like to sit at the window seat when I take the plane. When I look outside shortly after take off, the cars and the buildings look like toy cars and match boxes. Soon, they become unrecognizable specks and I can only identify larger patterns; city grid, farm land, mountain range or body of water.

I also love water. The beach or any spot overlooking the ocean brings me such calm. I think it’s because each time I look out at the expanse of the water, I am reminded of how small I am in comparison. The open water points me to a Greater Source that keeps this massive element in check. I mean, land and sea operate in vastly different ways yet, when all is well, there is such synergy.

Anyway, I’ve been thinking about the toy cars and match boxes we strive to maintain. As adults, how many hours in our day revolve around earning funds to purchase lease or rent these? How many hours are spent maintaining these things? I’m certainly not suggesting that we should not. I’m just asking myself.. how important are these treasures I store up? What is the true cost of my possessions? What am I trading in to acquire them? When I’m on my “A-game”, I work, bills are paid, house is cleaned, laundry done, I splurge on retail therapy and like clockwork I push and fight to maintain the cycle without falling off balance.

Lately. I’ve been feeling like there has to be more. It all seems so insular and selfish sometimes; my house, my car, my perfect children, my enviable career. I’m not at the level of having gained the world but I believe we lose our souls a little at a time, not all at once. I believe we lose it when we become so pigeonholed in our thinking that we forget about our neighbour. I believe we lose our souls a little bit when we don’t look up and out of our own concerns to be there for someone else. I’m not saying we should all be grandiose in our projects to help others. I’m just self examining. Am I helpful to the people who live in my house? How do they see me at work? Am I a team player or all for my own glory? Am I simply a nice person? I know that I don’t have to be a socialite to be pleasant. Do I operate like that? When I leave that job would the security guard notice I was gone because I used to be the one who paused to smile at him or cared to know him or her by name?

As the questions ramble on in my head, it climaxes at this thought. What do I want to be remembered for? My aim is to not care too much if my name was spoken before great people IF the people I see and work with everyday find me obnoxious, moody, miserable or even worst selfish. I want to be remembered for being a nice, welcoming, helpful, loving and brave. When I think of the people I love, who have gone before me, I scarcely remember their accolades. I remember how they made me laugh or how they made me feel. When I am gone, I want to be felt not recollected. I don’t want to gather toy cars and match boxes at the expense of love, empathy and intimacy for the people I encounter in my everyday.

I leave these words of Scripture with you from the Passion Translation. I have been thinking about it. It may or may not be familiar, but read it slowly and intentionally…

If I were to speak with eloquence in earth’s many languages, and in the heavenly tongues of angels, yet I didn’t express myself with love, my words would be reduced to the hollow sound of nothing more than a clanging cymbal. And if I were to have the gift of prophecy with a profound understanding of God’s hidden secrets, and if I possessed unending supernatural knowledge, and if I had the greatest gift of faith that could move mountains, but have never learned to love, then I am nothing. And if I were to be so generous as to give away everything I owned to feed the poor, and to offer my body to be burned as a martyr , without the pure motive of love, I would gain nothing of value.
1 Corinthians 13:1‭-‬3 TPT

Think about it. What motivates you, is it toy cars and match boxes or is it love?

Write Fully Yours

Lady Kavan

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