Writing this has been one of the wildest and most redemptive processes. 

Go see the other blog.

One day it will be available to get direct blog updates, but it's still not an option on the website. So time and grace por favor!

tiffanyhandley.com

That (not) sound means go visit my other blog!



This is just for good laugh purposes.
Guess which one I am.

My Beloved, what do you want?

(That's a pretty AWESOME one thing to hear...if you know what you want)

... I have since made countless lists, crossed countless things out, circled, bolded, highlighted, erased.
The consistent thing that comes up is good: God's best. I want God's best.
Which brings us back to square one.
The options before me are all GOOD ones, and the Lord is GOOD to honor me in any choice I make.

So.
The Question Remains.

What do I want.

...
Welcome to the next few weeks and months and lifetime. (*4)

I went to bed last night still a little ill, but in a feisty mood. I was done with the devil and his games, and I was ready to fight anything he was going to toss my way today. What I didn't know was that he wanted to have a little fun... and what he didn't know is I woke up in a laughing mood.

Now, this particular Wednesday was supposed to consist of a mild morning drive down to Orange County for a mild fix of a chipped filling on a tooth from biting into a rock that was in my rice in Kenya. Naturally.
However, by the time I was leaving the house, my lips (AND ONLY MY LIPS) had begun to swell... a lot, which is really complicating when you're on your way to oral surgery.



So, I'm driving and staring in my rear-view at myself watching the lips continue to grow. As a world race alum, I recognize this can only be one thing: yet another attack. I hadn't eaten anything weird, I hadn't popped any pills, I had changed any routines. There was no logical explanation. Still, my lips were puffing at an exponential rate...I knew I had yet another run-of-the-mill devilish attack on my hands.

Naturally, as a world racer, I know that the best way to combat this is to start speaking out against him, to make declarations (MY LIPS ARE NOT SWELLING. I AM HEALED!) , to pop on that warrior worship playlist, and to speak in that good-ole prayer language... aka: tongues.

So I'm driving down one of America's busiest interstates blabbering non-stop tongues for forty-five minutes and am completely positive that my lips will be normal by the time I get to the dentist's office. In the meantime, I am watching the guy's eyes in the car in front of me stare in his rear-view at me because here I am jabbering up a storm, clearly not on the phone, clearly moving my mega-lips too fast to be singing. His options were: I am the best rapper of all time OR I am having a seizure. Luckily his confusion didn't cause him to crash his car.

I safely arrived at the dentist with MASSIVE lips in tow, which, of course terrify the dentist. He swiftly ushered me out of his office with a "take some benadryl" as he closed the door behind me... day's plans: shot.

So, mom and I get in a texting war over me going to see my general practitioner who is a stone's throw away. But she only won because at this point the puffer-fish attack is starting to itch. Well, the receptionist (aka doctor's wife) looks at me with huge eyes as she rushes to pull out my file and mumbles about the strange things I have contracted overseas. I smile a really swollen smile as I make my way into her husband's office.

But instead of talking about my lips I talk to him about my wildly abnormal cramping, typhoid, diarrhea, malaria, vomiting, leptospirosis and strange blood test results. He writes me a bunch of prescriptions and tells me to get to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota for a "very thorough full body" examination. He too rushes me out, but not before handing me three full packets of birth control (*1)... because I'm a missionary and that's the best solution to life's problems.

In the meantime, his wife has gone on to ask me about medical facilities overseas, the diagnoses, and the treatments. Of course I oblige with the many stories I have collected and include the time where my menstrual cramps were diagnosed as asthma from not wearing shoes on cold tile (Peru)(*2).

 So, here we are chatting away (quite loudly) about all the freakish female issues I have encountered overseas, and I notice that I can see merely the pant leg of someone sitting in the waiting room. I'm thinking to myself, This guy is probably wishing that he didn't have to hear this conversation, but maybe he's praising the Lord that he was born with body parts that don't seem to malfunction every few weeks.

She ends the conversation by saying, "Well your mother must sleep so well at night knowing she didn't raise a wild-LA girl, but instead a nice missionary daughter."... I responded only by raising my eyebrow suspiciously. (Mom, I'm pretty sure you slept better when I was a wild-college child and not sleeping in Thai hospitals, right?)

Eventually, wonderful-wife-receptionist needs to call my insurance company and kindly escorts me to the same waiting area with the pant-leg... And what an attractive young man is wearing that pant-leg. He's dressed in a nice blue button down and a tie, he's around 28, he has crystal blue eyes... and he's heard everything there is to know about me... and now he's staring at my unfortunate not-botoxed botox. LUCKY ME.

So Pant-leg is sitting in this doctor's office on his lunch break, as little sleuth me has surmised. He's on his i-pad answering emails, which, now upon reflection of what continued to unfold, are probably his online-date matches.

BELIEVE IT OR NOT, he puts down his online-dating service and proceeds to converse with me. He introduces himself as David, and obnoxious me responds, "So do you consider yourself a man after the Lord's heart?".(*3) Kidding. Of course, I just introduced myself back awkwardly. We get to talking, he apparently has found all my life very fascinating (or the giant lips?).

And somehow I left having given him my phone number and agreeing to a date next week.(*4)
...
Before I even got the Cortizol prescription in me, the swelling had gone down immensely (Tongues and declarations! Write that on a prescription!).  Tonight, I simply look like my lip-implant surgery is recovering right on schedule. It must be time for that date.

So.
Dear Enemy, I am sorry that you meant to rob, kill, and destroy my joy, my health, and my day. But take that. One of the most entertaining days on record. And this was all before lunchtime. (*5)
With Love,
Daughter of the King of Kings.

*1. Someday, I may write a full blog on "birth control" and why it should be renamed "women's general antibiotic" because they give it to us for E.V.E.R.Y.T.H.I.N.G. It's apparently the miracle drug of our generation. Better than the polio vaccine. Seriously, men--you may be prescribed it soon too for all of your ailments.

*2. The treatment for this, naturally, was to stop eating ice cream and chocolate. 

*3. The other night at dinner our waiter's name was Noah, and the question that immediately pops to my head is: "How do you feel about boats and twins?"... I just have a thing about names being prophetic, and it just happens that the biblical ones are the easiest to pinpoint.

*4. And if that leads to another date, or an exchange of facebook information (as all dates must these days), then expect this blog to be coming down VERY quickly.
*5. There could definitely be a part two recounting my afternoon via IKEA, geometry and small cars.
...
And within the next few days, we will be switching blog sites to my very own. I will no longer be contributing to the slew of awkward blog titles that roll by day-by-day on the World Race.