He loves us

I have been reading the book Crazy Love by Francis Chan.

It is a MUST read. My heart and mind are being blown away with how much the Lord loves me. How he cares about my silly first world problems. How He listens to the cries of my heart when people are dying of starvation and AIDS. How He loves me enough to allow me to wake up in the morning.

 

 

I have been trying to understand how much the Lord REALLY loves me. He loves me enough to send his one and only son to earth to die a terrible death for all of the sin in my life. Every sin that I have commited and have yet to commit. I am trying to understand the amazingness of the Gospel every day. It was seriously the best thing that has ever happened for this Earth.

Do you understand how much the Lord loves you? How do you deal with it?

 

Death

This is something that all of us must face one day.

We must die.

It is something that we know that HAS to happen in our life.

The only thing is, what happens after we die?

I believe that I will go to Heaven and worship the Lord with the angels and everyone else who has gone before me. It is going to be amazing time and I seriously think about it almost every day. I think about how bright and heavenly it will be. I honestly have no words to describe heaven.

That is what I believe, along with many more people.

But here in Japan, they believe something else.

They believe that when you die, you become a god. Your family worships you. They pray to you so that you can be the deliver of their prayers to God. It is unlike anything that I have ever encountered.

When you die, you are cremated. You have no choice.

After they cremate you, they have to pick out your bones from the ash. They do this with chopsticks. This is the ONLY time that you are allowed to pass something chopstick to chopstick. Your family passes around your bones and say a prayer to you.

After about 100 days, your ashes and bones are buried in a small little box in the cemetery.

Why am I talking about death?

Well one of my high school girls, her mom passed away last Saturday. This was very unexpected.

As her teacher, I felt like I should go over to her house. I greeted her at the door and in the family room I could see the altar set up and someone was praying to her mother. I honestly had no idea what to say to her. I mean, what DO I say?

I told her that I was so sorry and that I wanted her to know that I love her.

I wish that I could say that she knows the Lord, but I cannot say that.

I hope one day that I will.

BFF

I know I wrote about this last year, it never gets easier.

15 years ago today, I lost my first best friend, my stepmom Lori.

She was such a wonderful person. She taught me how to tie my shoes and how to ride a bike. I think about her more often now that I live in Japan and ride my bike all the time. I think about if she would be riding with me and we could be going to the store. Or what she would think about me living in Japan. Would she worry about me? Would she think it was wonderful and want to come visit? Would she be proud of me?

The older I get, the more and more I miss her. Even though I have spent most of my life without her in it. It just makes me sad because she is forever etched into my mind as my first best friend.

Today was a day that I wish I could call her on Skype and tell her how my friend and I successfully ordered a pizza and had it delivered to her apartment. Or how Summer Camp is coming up and how I cannot wait to hang out with my kids again. Or how excited I am to go to Australia.

15 years is a long time to be without your first bff.

Lori Ann Flippin, I miss you so much and I cannot wait to see you in heaven one day and praise our Heavenly Father together.

Love,
Mallory

Rough Seas

Moving to Japan has been something that I have always wanted to do… well ever since I was 10 years old.

Moving here has been one of the best decisions that I have ever made in my life. I love it. I think for the first time I feel at home and at peace with God in this situation. It wasn’t until Friday night that I knew Satan was trying to make me doubt this.

My grandmother passed away.

She had such a loving spirit and was always making something and/or painting something.

The thing that really got my spirits down was that I would not be able to go to her funeral. I would not be there to grieve over her death with the rest of my family. Instead, I will be here, in Japan, by myself. I know that the friends that I have made are in my life for a reason. They are here to encourage me and keep me going when I don’t feel like doing anything. They are here to listen to my stories about her. They are here to be my family away from home.

This weekend we went to the cabin and it could have not been planned more perfectly. I was able to go away and get my mind off of the sadness. I was able to laugh, experience Japanese culture (eating octopus and whale) and see a tsunami…. even if it was only 10 centimeters. :] I still saw and lived through one.

God amazes me in how He orchestrates my life. And I love Him even more so for that.

14 years later…

14 years ago I lost one of the most amazing people that has ever entered my life, my first step-mom.

Lori Ann Flippin was only 27 years old when she lost her life trying to save someone’s else.

I was 8 years old. I remember this day so very clearly. My mom’s side of the family was at the lake and we were getting ready to go play on the shore when my mom got a call. I remember hearing my mom yell really loud, NO! I ran to the house to see what was going on. My mom looked at me like she has never looked at me before.

She sat me down at the table and she knelt to her knees. “I’m sorry Mallory but, Lori was killed this morning in a car accident.” I didn’t believe my mom. I asked what happened and she said that she was trying to help someone out and a car hit her. I bursted into tears, like I am now, and fell out of the chair crying. I told my mom that I wanted to leave right then and go back home.

That was the fastest that I have ever seen my family pack down our 1990 Aerostar van. That was also the first time in my life that I was allowed to ride in the front seat of the van.

It normally took us 3 hours to get home from the lake but this time it only took 2. We were FLYING!

We went to my dad’s house and there were cars all around. There were tons of people at the house. I ran inside to find my dad and when I found him we both just sat and cried for about an hour. People were bringing over lots of food and just telling us that they would be there for us.

My dad and I went outside and sat on the front porch that night and looked at the stars. We both talked about how Lori was in heaven now and how special she was to us.

Still to this day I think about all of the fun things that she taught me. Lori taught me how to tie my shoes, ride a bike and tease my hair!

I still miss her even thought it has been 14 years. I just hope that I am as good to my children as she was to me.