It’s 2024, and it already has surprises!
It's 2024. I return to this blog nearly a year later. So much has happened, but all accumulating to my completion of my Master in Counseling Clinical Mental Health. I would like to begin this year by logging my pursuits to live an integrated life with this new adventure of my career as well as my reflections on healing and wholeness. I am prepared to apply that trust in the Lord in all the new experiences which will help me learn and unlearn closer to the person that is authentically me. Follow me on my journey for 6 weeks in Puebla, Mexico for Spanish Immersion, 1 week in Tijuana for the Esperanza International on Mission with the local community, and preparing for the Camino de Santiago for about a little over a months.
Last night for New Years Eve, Celyn and I went to Bellingham for drinks, dinner, and an Improv show and count down with our friends Kelsey and Andrea. It was a great night of showing off our year's best thrift find outfits and sharing our hopes over cocktails. In the morning, we got up for a late breakfast and headed south for our first hotpot of the year which was worth the long wait.
A highlight of the first day of 2024 was when Police Sergeant Officer Scott pulled me over for having expired tabs. To my embarrassment, he asked me why it had taken me so long to update them. I sheepishly expressed my honest answer of struggling with balancing finances while finishing grad school. I could tell with his anwer that he wanted to offer mercy and empathy for my situation having experienced similar in his past. He said that he would let me off with a warning if I promised to take care of it in a couple weeks. He asked me what my degree was in and in my response of clinical mental health counseling, his face showed a light in gratitude for contributing to a much needed field that he as a law officer along with his other colleagues deal with in the struggles of encountering situations regarding mental health on a daily basis. His warmth and fatherly presence brought me close to tears as he expressed an understanding I was not prepared to witness in general, not only because I understood if he gave me a fine, but also aware of all the negative press regarding the role of law officers that would tempt one to stereotype.
This story is not to disregard injustices that have happened under the guise of authority, but to emphasize the individual human to human encounters we can have benefiting from each other's kindness, integrity, gentleness and mercy. I felt like this encounter, much like anything in life, pointed me to God's love. A good officer who faithfully did his job by reinforcing the law with both respect, fairness, and humanity archetyped for me God's affirmation that never fails in "seeing me", even in the form of a routine traffic stop. For the many ways I can doubt myself, God has always been faithful in surprising me with his extention of love through others.
P.S. I spasmed my back while sneezing! When I say surprises, I meant it!