It Just Hit Me!

I had a really interesting thought earlier. But, sadly and not so surprisingly, I forgot it. Forgetfulness tends to be something too characteristic of me. Perhaps this next thought may be half as brilliant as I think the previous one is, whatever it was anyways.


Not to long ago, I read the book The Five Love Languages, Singles Edition. The book basically talks about five different ways that we show love to others and receive love from others. And this is not just romantic love, while it can be, but love as it truly is: an action, a divine way of interacting with others. Not to sell the book short or make you not have to read (I think is a fantastic book that anyone who wants to should read), but there are five types of "love languages:" words of affirmation, quality time, receiving gifts, acts of service, and physical touch. Every person has one of these "love languages" they are fluent in. It's their primary love language, how they interpret love and (generally) how they show love to others. They can receive love through the other love languages too, but when some one else speaks or fails to speak their particular love language they feel specially loved or unloved.


Anyways, I would really love for you to read it so I won't go to deep into, but to the point I was trying to make: I realized that my love language, the way I receive love most easily, is through words of affirmation. This means that when I'm complemented or told nice things, I feel real good about myself and most importantly, I feel loved. I remember those lovely things or that simple statement the entire day. Conversely, when I am told negative things, I immediately feel poopy. Words take a  hard toll to my heart, in both a negative and a positive manner. 


In addition, to the way I relate to others, Words of Affirmation being my primary love language helps explain many things. For example, I've always loved word games like Scrabble and TextTwist and the like. I love puns and wordplays. Silly knock-knock jokes crack me up! Let me share one of my favorite corny jokes: What did the volcano say to the island? I lava you!! Kinda lame I know but that's just me :)


My quest for patterns and wordplay is never ending. Recently, I realized probably the most significant wordplay to me in the personal. About two years, I was reading in James chapter 4. The subtitle for the section was "Submit Yourselves to God." Around that time I was having some personal issues and I understood the direct message of literally letting God take control of my life and, simply put, submitting. But in my idiosyncrasy, I looked for something more than that. I like to think that God is a super genius planner and that He does things that to some one it has one meaning and a different meaning to someone else and to another person and another, etc. yet in His perfectness His individual message is given to all those people. And for me, since He knows I overthink things, He has like an allegorical writing specially for me that I can spend a bunch of time analyzing only to realize that the "hidden message" is: keep it simple silly. BUT that's just my theory, I think God knows I'm silly and since He has such a great sense of humor, He plays along with me. But yet again this is only my opinion.


Anyways, I digress. When I was reading James 4, the word "submit" stuck out to me. I kept on looking at it and I thought about the meaning, looked at it in context, considered the etymology, etc. When I got around to considering the etymology, it was clear: sub - mit. Sub- meaning below. At the time, I was receiving my college acceptance or better yet rejection letters. I had applied to MIT, and I already knew I was going to be rejected but I had a free application and thought it was worth the shot. Smart, minority, female student with a lot extra-curriculars. There was a little bit of hope in me. My dreams of college had been shot down because of several complications that are far to great to name right now, that this was the conclusion I came up with: not only was I below MIT standards (sub-MIT), my efforts throughout all my schooling had been rendered useless because I wasn't good enough. Or so I thought.


So the word submit has stuck with me since. God had a change of plans when it came to college and He provided a grand door hundreds of miles away from home but definitely a great plan. When I started school, one of the first classes I took was pretty introspective and reminded me of my very submissive way of being. Being the youngest girl in my family, I've never really been good a voicing my opinions (though that has been changing for the best). I am a pretty fantastic follower, you won't hear much dissidence from me (well know you might). Basically, the point is the word came up again. I didn't understand the significance til another year later.


Last summer, I more or less realized what I am going to do in the future: I'm going to be a bi-vocational missionary! More specifically particularly to Muslims. It's something that just kind of hit me, all of a sudden it was clear to me. And now this semester, I am taking a class about Islam. I'm pretty sure I knew this before, but like the latter statement, it just hit me! Islam means submission. SUBMISSION. I was simply flabbergasted. A simple six-letter word has led to the second greatest realization of my life! Muslim means one who submits. I'm still mind blown.


I am convinced God gave me my quirks so I could understand Him uniquely and grow to love Him uniquely. I'm sure we all have some special connection to God. We are made in His image. What's yours? :)