Happily-Ever-After

I have been pondering what to write for this month's post, seeing as I have so many thoughts about so many things, but nothing really stands out. Or maybe something does stand out. It is namely a question. Can there truly be a happily-ever-after in this thing we call the human condition? If so, what would that happy ending look like? Is it the same for everyone, or are there slight variations on it, depending on what kind of person you are? Ok, that was more than one question. But the gist is this: we all want to believe in happily-ever-after.... but when we face the "real" world, it doesn't look like there is such a thing as that.... for ANYONE. And the sad fact is, this makes many of us cynical. Or we go to the opposite extreme. We want to escape, and live in a fantasy world. Or we even live in the middle of these two extremes, trying to find balance, and we keep telling ourselves that we are content with mediocrity, that we are satisfied with "just ok", or that its ok that we didn't get EXACTLY what we wanted, that second best is "good enough".

This all leads to another question. If we have this desire to be wildly joyous, to be completely content, to actually find that "one" thing (or more than one thing, in some cases) that fills our hearts to the brim, and into overflowing, why is it that we never seem to be satisfied, or be able to say "enough" in this frustrating life? Some of you may be saying to yourself, but I am content, I have everything I need. What more can someone ask for? Now be honest with yourself. Is being merely content what you have always longed for? Is it enough for you to simply have everything you need? Or do you silently dream of the day when you will have everything you want as well?

I am not saying that we are never truly happy on this journey of life. It has been my personal experience, though, that there is always the anticipation of what might be "just around the bend", that I may even have a good life, but its not the best life, so I must continue on my search to find the next thrill or adventure that is going to fill the unquenchiable hole in my heart of hearts that always wants more, and is never completely satisfied. But it's also true that with this undeniable longing, there is a silent fear in yet another question: what if I got what I always wanted? And what if it was exactly to my specifications? What then? Would I finally be happy, and find my "happily-ever-after"?

And here is another troubling thought. Maybe I don't want to reach the "ever after". Maybe I rather enjoy the pursuit more than I enjoy the arriving at something. I don't think this is true though. I think the main reason why I, why all of us, keep pursuing is because the "next" thing just doesn't cut it, and we are looking for the real thing all the time.

Well, it should be obvious to you, the reader, at this point, that I am chock full of questions, but not many answers. What I do know is that life has never been easy for me. I am accustomed to being quietly discontent most of the time. And for those of you who have followed my blog, you may begin to understand that although I do not willingly invite pain into my life, I have become an expert in many of its nuances. Up to this point, the most painful thing I ever went through was losing the man I thought I so desperately wanted. And that is where I begin to see the key to the problem: I THOUGHT I wanted.

Do you ever spend time thinking about exactly what you want? I know I do. I mainly think about this often because I am often put in a position where what I want is brought to the forefront of my mind. Why? Because, as I am on this journey towards recovery, and all that it means to recover, I am often asked by those helping me along this journey, what do you want your life to look like in the next few months? The next year? The next five years? And so on it goes. I do believe it takes skill to hone and be able to truly determine what I want from life, instead of just blindly going about my day, just trying to meet "deadlines" or looking for the next fun time I can have.

It is no small thing to plan out your life. But a plan is meaningless if you don't take the necessary steps to implement it. And actually implementing the steps can often be the hardest thing you will ever do. But always behind all this planning and all this doing is this very slippery and tricky question: WHAT DO I REALLY WANT??? Not what does mom and dad want me to do? What does my church expect of me? What do my friends want me to do? What does society think I should want? It takes great effort, at least for me, to quiet all this noise of expectations from other people and listen to myself and find out, after all, what does Crystal want?

To make matters worse, behind every want, I am beginning to see that there is a deeper longing that the superficial want is pointing me to. And the difficult thing here is that if I just try to satisfy the superficial want, the deeper longing will go unment and I will still be unsatisfied, but not know why I feel that way.

For example, I want to be beautiful. But why do I want to be beautiful? Is it just for the sake of asthetics, to make my environment more pretty? Well, no, not exactly. If I dig a little deeper, I find that this desire to be beautiful is really a longing to be loved. Follow my train of thought for a minute. Beautiful people seem to get what they want more than the not so beautiful. And the message the world is always giving me (I am guessing it gives you the same message too) is that if you look good, you can have whatever you want. People tend to gravitate to beautiful people. Therefore, if I am beautiful, I will attract people, and just by those people being in my presence, they will love me. I know there are a lot of falsehoods in this train of thought, and I won't show them to you right now. Regardless though of my faulty line of thinking, I still want to be beautiful so I can be loved. My desire to be beautiful is simply a mask, or disguise for the deeper longing to be loved.

So what I find is this dualism between what I want and what I long for. And they are always fighting to get the upper hand. So who is going to win? That all depends on which one I pay more attention to. What's a girl (or guy) to do? Well my suggestion for this problem is to really tune in to these wants that we all have and try to find out what the deeper longing is.

Wouldn't it be great though, if there were some instruction manual that told us what those longings are, and not only that, but how to fulfill them? So remember that problem I told you about? The one about where I THOUGHT I knew what I wanted? Let me just cut to the chase and tell you what I am driving at. I do not believe that I am the best judge of what is good for me or what will make me truly happiest. I do, however, believe that there is someone who does know, and I believe this someone did write a book that tells me what will, in the end, truly satisfy me. I know I may lose some of my readers when I say this next statement, but I am going to say it anway. I think God is that someone, and the Bible is His instruction manual for how to satisfy the human heart. You may disagree with me. I am not going to argue with you about the veracity of the Bible or whether God even exists. It's a matter of faith whether you believe these things or not.

So back to the question of is there such a thing as happily-ever-after? Well, maybe thats the wrong question to be asking. Maybe I should rather ask, how can I have my happily-now-forever. Here's a novel thought: maybe, just maybe, happiness is not a destination, but a journey. This thought gives me hope. It means that my endless search can finally come to rest, not in some distant maybe point in the future, but it can find its longings answered right now, here in this moment. How? Well, the Bible tells me that happiness is not found in a thing, but in a Person. Who is that Person? That Person is Jesus. And I for one believe that Jesus is the answer.

I'm sure some of you were hoping when you started reading this post that my train of thought would end up somewhere else, with some new, exciting, earth-shattering idea. That's just it though. There is nothing, and noone, more earth-shattering and controversial than Jesus. This is why Jesus rings true for me as being the answer. There is no other story out there quite like Jesus' story.

Well, I hope if nothing else, I have given you, and myself, some more to think about. It is true that I, or anyone for that matter, can't tell you where to find happiness or what it looks like. You have to go on that journey for yourself. But these are my thoughts, and I hope you will take them into consideration. Just more ideas from the mind of Crystal =)

By: Crystal Nylander

Hope in the Darkness

Like water pours from a fountain
Despair poured from her soul
Life had been shrouded in darkness
By black clouds overhead
Her mind shackled to a memory
Her heart filled with pain
Over what had been lost, never to be regained
But what was this sadness
That overtook her like a spell?
She pondered to the heavens
Why summers warming glow
Had been replaced
By winters frosty hand
And yet in the distance
There was a light barely seen
A glimmer of hope for the life to be redeemed
A candle in the darkness
For all the world to see
The Spirit of the One who knows all things
Spoke to her soul ever so gently
"Haven't I brought you through other dark times before?
Can you not trust Me, just this once more?"
It was then that she knew she could stand
Knew she would not fall
For God Almighty was holding her hand
And what lies ahead, she cannot say
But the Lord said He would be with her
And to this promise she will cling

by: Crystal Nylander

Missing In Action

Do you ever have the gnawing feeling that you are missing something about life in general, and if you could just find the gem that told you how to navigate this life, everything would be ok? I know I have. I am not here to tell you what that gem is. I believe if there is only one gem, than it is multifaceted, and can only be looked at truly one facet at a time. Once you have seen all the facets (which I believe impossible to do in one lifetime) then maybe, just maybe, you could piece them all together to see the whole of the one gem. What is probably more true to life is that there are a multitude of gems with a multitude of facets, and each gem would take a hundred lifetimes to explore just to see that one gem.

Now before you throw your hands up in frustration at me, and say "That's impossible to navigate!" and walk away, let me say that yes, you are probably right. That is impossible. After all, didn't I just say it would take hundreds of lifetimes just to explore one gem? How can we navigate life at all if there are thousands of other gems that we will never have a chance to glace at in this lifetime? Well, don't lose hope yet. Because I believe we will have those hundreds and thousands of lifetimes to explore all the gems. We will never get bored of each facet, but find that each time we look at it, it is more glorious and sparkling than the time before. I believe there is an eternal after life in which we can go to be with Jesus and spend an eternity just looking at all these gems with Jesus as our guide to see them with true clarity. But the after life is not the main topic of this post. Perhaps I will discuss this in a later post.

Whats my point then? Well, I believe, if I may be so bold to say this, that I have stumbled upon one of the most misunderstood facets and sometimes shunned facets, but if it was truly understood, we would see that it shines just as brilliantly as the rest. Not only is it misunderstood and shunned, people run screaming from it, thinking that it is something that will ruin their lives, when it never was intended to do that. Rather it enhances our lives and makes them shine all the brighter. And it is a facet that won't follow us into eternity. The only time we can truly understand it and squeeze all the beauty out of it that we can, is here. Because my understanding, as little as it is, is that it wont be in the after life. What is this facet? We know its name only too well: Pain.

The crazy thing is that if pain is just one facet of one gem, then even that one facet has many facets to look at. But I will generalize all of them to one facet, just to save time. Pain will be the facet that encompasses everything we find uncomfortable in this world. It includes loss, rejection, denial, unanswered prayers, waiting for something, never attaining a goal, ridicule, love denied, family tensions, death, wounds, hurts, struggles... you get the general idea. It extends from the very mildest form to the sharpest most severe amount it can inflict. It can be physical, mental, spiritual, emotional, etc. Have I lost you yet? Are you thinking to yourself, how can this possibly be part of a beautiful, dazzling, sparkling gem? Well, if you will just stay with me, I will try to explain what I believe I have stumbled upon.

First, let me tell you what I am NOT saying. Pain is not something to be wallowed in, or to have a pity party about. It is not a place to visit and then set up our houses and stay for a long time. We should not fixate on it, for if we do, it won't be pretty at all. It will crush us with its weight, and rather then our lives shining like a diamond, we will be destroyed.

So what am I saying? Pain is a double edged sword, and whichever side you land on depends wholly on your reaction to pain, or your attitude about pain. If you land on one side, it will split you open, and as I mentioned above, you will be destroyed. But, if your heart is open, and you have peace in your soul, then when you find yourself touched with pain, it will still cut you, but it will be a cutting away of the ugly, and only the beautiful will remain. If the latter is the case for you, pain has always been a blessing in disguise. For it is often the vehicle that propels and motivates us to get from point A to point Z in our lives. Without pain of even the mildest format, many of us would simply stay where we are in life, and would not reap the joys of a fulfilled life.

Honestly ask yourself if this has not been the case in your own life. Test your past to see if what I am saying is false. I know for me that pain has pushed me forward in leaps and bounds where otherwise I would have stayed stagnant and complacent. One example that comes to mind is having children. I don't have any children of my own yet, but I know enough to know that having a child is physically very painful for the mother. The birth process is full of sharp pain, but the joy of the child that is received on the other end of that pain is beyond what most mothers can describe. I could share from my own life the story of pain, and what it has done for me. But maybe I will share some of that later. I just wanted to share my thoughts on pain, and maybe give some of you hope, and perhaps change your perspective on things a bit. Just some thoughts from the mind of Crystal =)

by Crystal Nylander

Is There More?

I would like to preface this post by saying that this particular blog may seem preachy to some of you. This is not my intent. I merely want to share what I have been listening to, and reading over the past couple of months, and what it has meant to me.


Having said that, let me tell you what this blog is mostly based on. I have been listening to a preacher named Timothy Keller who is the pastor of a Presbyterian church named Redeemer, and it is based out of New York. He has a podcast that can be downloaded for free on iTunes, if any of you have iTunes. I have also started reading some of his books, one being "Counterfeit Gods" and now I am reading "The Prodigal God". I was introduced to his podcast by a dear friend of mine, and I have been so touched by what Timothy Keller has to say, that I want to share it with you, the reader of this blog. I will not be quoting any of his sermons, seeing as there are too many quotes, it would take up the whole blog. Rather, I am just going to put in my own words the sense that I am getting by listening to Timothy Keller.


I have been a Christian since the young age of 4. I remember clearly my conversion experience. I was sitting at the island in our kitchen in my family's California home. My mom came to me and asked me if I wanted to accept Jesus into my heart, after a brief explanation by her of what that meant. Even at that young age, I still knew what it meant, and I said yes. My mom prayed with me the "sinner's prayer" and I was born again. From that time on, I always knew Jesus was, and is, with me. Even in my most rebellious state, I knew He had never left me, nor will He ever leave me.


So how does my conversion experience tie into Timothy Keller's sermons, you may ask. Let me tell you. Even though I have been a Christian for some 28 years now, and grew up in a Christian home, and a non-denominational Christian church, I have never quite heard the gospel of Jesus so powerfully explained to me as it has been by Timothy Keller. This profoundly means that any of us can go to church all our lives, and still be in the dark when it comes to the true meaning of Christianity. We may think we know, but do we really? Or is there more, as the title of this blog implies?


Let me be careful to say that Timothy Keller is just a man and that the true revelation of God comes from God's Word, the Bible. I do believe, though, that Timothy Keller has some great insight and is worth listening to, just to get our brains thinking about the tough issues. Timothy Keller is a place to start that thinking process, but he is not the end of that process.


So what am I learning? Mainly this: There is so much more to the gospel then just the state of being saved and going to heaven. This is a great thing in and of itself, to be sure. But as some of you may already know, Jesus IS heaven, and to be saved is to be with Jesus....even now. This I have accepted intellectually and (I hope) in my heart as well. But the more I hear about the gospel, the more I feel my head about to explode (not literally) with one simple idea. What's that idea? It is this: I do not know the gospel as much as I could, and if I did, my reaction would and should be continual celebration and weeping for joy. It is that amazing and that great!


Even Timothy Keller's sermons only touch the tip of the iceberg, as it were, on what the gospel truly means. I have been feeling more and more that I am standing at a precipice, looking down into the message of the gospel, and that if I take one more step towards understanding it, I will fall into the chasm of joy, and be so surrounded by it that it would almost be unbearable....almost. I say almost because to say that anything that Jesus offers us is unbearable, is in fact, a contradiction. Jesus never gives us more than we can handle. And so it stands at this: Jesus offers joy unspeakable and overwhelming, and yet we are not consumed by it. We remain intact. This is a beautiful pardox.

So what is so amazing about the gospel? Everything! We not only will have what we need in the future, when we go to heaven, but we have all we need now! My understanding of the gospel is very cloudy and shrouded in shadow, but even my mere glimpses of it are glorious! Jesus took every punishment and depravation we should have had upon Himself, and in return, gave us every blessing and treasure that was and is rightfully His. Why did He do this amazing thing? Because we are His treasure! He values us so much more then could ever be expressed. Like I have been trying to express in this blog, I do not even know the half of it. It is truly beyond understanding. But if we could just begin to wrap our minds around this simple idea, mainly this: Jesus has the highest regard for you and me. And He is the King of the UNIVERSE! He is the most powerful being ever, but He humbled Himself to show just how much He truly loves us. If we could truly comprehend this, we would be truly changed..

I pray every day that I will be more like Jesus. Not so that He can give me things or bless me. He has already blessed me more than I deserve. And I know He will continue to bless me. But Jesus is an end in Himself. Jesus is the ultimate goal. To have Jesus is to have everything. And if we really knew this, we would no longer have a gnawing emptiness inside. We wouldn't be searching for something else, because we would KNOW that we had already found it. This is my prayer for all of you and myself. That we would truly find Jesus, and in finding Him, we would know that we are now complete.

by Crystal

About Me

What can I say about myself? After all, this blog has to do with my thoughts, so it might be nice to know something about me, right? For instance, why have I chosen to name this blog, in general, "Purity 4 Jesus Christ"? Well, I believe that in order to have a happy and successful life (Christian success is different than worldly success), you must live in purity before God. This isn't just sexual purity. This is purity of the mind, body, and spirit.

Think about it. At first it sounds prudish. Purity is not a popular thing these days. But God's love demands it. And God is not someone just living in the past. He is very much alive and well today. What does this mean for purity? It means that it is a current topic with God. So why is it so unpopular and hard to stay pure in this day and age? The world wants us to throw off the "chains" of purity. The world thinks it is binding and constraining. But the truth is, when you live an impure life, you become a slave to your sin. So I chose to seek freedom in Christ and live in purity, as much as is possible in this frail human form. Besides, my name, Crystal, means "Brilliantly Pure", or at least that's what a bookmark said the definition of Crystal is. I just want to live up to my name!

Also, I do not want this blog to be a pedestal for me to sound preachy. I hope to alternate between talking about spiritual things, and just things going on in my life and my thoughts on them. If it ever does sound too preachy to you, please tell me. Its almost as though I can't help it though. God and the spiritual life is so prevalent in my mind that its just something I talk about naturally. Its a way of life to me, not something I just do once a week.

What else can I tell you? I am 32 and I am still a student. I won't be graduating nearly as soon as I hoped to (in May) due to some setbacks, but I am very persistant and I will achieve this goal, no matter how long it takes, and with the help of God, of course.

I love animals. My favorite animal is the fox. I find it to be a very beautiful creature, and the fact that it is often referred to as being sly is intriguing to me. I have had many pets over the years, and maybe sometime, I will share that story.

My dreams for the future include, but are not limited to, owning my own coffee shop some day. I don't know if this is God's will for me, but it is something I hold out there as a goal. And every day, I try to take steps to achieve that goal. Right now, that means school. And eventually I will start working again.

Another dream of mine is to achieve balance in my life. You could sort of say this is my "motto". I believe there is a time and place for everything. But if we live in excess, or place priority for things in our lives in places they don't belong, we will lose balance, and disaster will strike. Of course, this is not to say that if you do have disaster hit your life, you are not living in balance. But I do believe that balance will help you deal with the disaster better than if the focus of your life is skewed in any one direction. Ex: power, pleasure, money, beauty, etc....

To put things into perspective, let me say my life has not always been motivated by wanting balance. I got there through a very painful journey called "Mental Illness". Particularily, my diagnosis is "Bipolar Disorder". Now I know when I say this, that all kinds of thoughts go through your mind. You may already have put me in a box, and said, "Oh this means she is like this...". I know this, and yet I will stand up and tell that I have this stuggle because I believe it is important for you, the reader, to know that mental illness is not a definition for someone. It is possible to recover. I see it every day with others who struggle from mental illness. They do the hard work to improve their lives, and that is precisely what I am doing. If you have any questions about this, please feel free to ask, and I will gladly answer them.

This brings me to something that I feel is a huge opportunity for me. I will be attending a training for an organization called "In Our Own Voice" this coming weekend. What I will be learning, from what I understand, is how to share my story to small or large groups of people in a way that is comprehensive and also concise. I hope to improve my own life through this and to grow. But I also hope to reach others and to give hope to those who need it. Wish me luck, or pray for me, whatever it is that you do, that I would have the courage to take this step of faith. And with that, I will end this particular blog, hoping that you have not judged me.

Crystal

All things

Romans 8:28 - "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose"


You may have read this scripture before, but I think it is worthy of deeper consideration then just a passing glance. This is true of all Scripture, but this morning, I would like to focus on this verse. When God says all things, that is exactly what He means.

I know we can see Him working in the pleasant, happy times, the joyous times, the times when all seems "right" with the world. But what about the harsh times, when someone has wronged you, or when you are in physical or emotional, or even mental pain? What about when someone you love doesn't love you, or they did love you, but they pass on?

Well, God said "all" things, and I have to believe He meant all things. What does this mean? It means that IF you love God (and yes, this is a requirement. See the verse above) all things are working for your good, and you have a purpose in life. I could talk about what purpose means to a person's life, but I won't deviate from the topic at hand at this point.

God can take that which appears to be ugly in your life, and turn it into something so beautiful, you couldn't have dreamed it up. He will use it to make your own life beautiful, but then I believe He also uses our pain to make the lives of others beautiful. When God's love is overflowing your life, it can't help but spill onto those around you, and they will take notice. But we must open our hands to Him and receive whatever He has for us. Just a thought from the mind of Crystal =)


Crystal