a word (or a bunch of words) of thanks.

Today is my 20th birthday. And I wanted to take this time to tell everyone thank you.

No, not for the tons of happy birthday messages. But for the tons of heartfelt messages I've received over the past few weeks.

To state the obvious, these past couple of weeks have been hard. They've been hard on me, on my mom, my family, and I'm sure that they've been hard on John too. When I decided to share the whole story, I was not expecting so many people to respond to it, especially in the way that they did. I thought people would hear the story and pity me thinking "that poor girl, she is so stupid for ending up in that situation". I thought people who knew John would have an awful opinion of him, knowing how much he lied to everyone. The list goes on of what my imagination thought. 

But I was wrong. I received nothing but support and prayers. And through my willingness to open up and share, God started working in incredible ways.

So today, I want to say thank you.

To my mom for being there for me to lean on. For sleeping with me the first few nights because I didn't want to be alone. For being able to cry together. For not telling me "I told you so" which she had every right to do. I love you!

Thank you to my family for sticking by me and for your prayers. You've been there to offer advice, to invite me to hang out and do things to keep my mind off of the bad things, and to hug me when I needed it the most.

 To my best friends, Amy and Emmy. For being there every time even though our relationships have slacked off recently. For making me laugh and just having someone to talk to when I felt lonely. For being there to hear me be sad and to hear me burst at the seams with joy during other times.

To my church family for checking in on me. For sharing their hearts with me. For encouraging me. And for praying with me and for me. I am so thankful for a church that is like family.

To my coworkers for putting up with me calling out of work. For listening to all my drama. For making me laugh in a way only they can. And for never telling me to shut up cause all they hear about is John. I love my team.

To my TeenPact friends. The ones who are my best friends, the ones I've talked to a few times, and the ones I've technically never even met. Your heartfelt words touched me. And I was so comforted by all of you taking time to share your thoughts, encouragement, and your own stories of hard times. You have told me you were praying for things that I didn't even think of. And you've encouraged me by sharing how my story is encouraging you. I can always count on my TeenPacters! Allison Kelly Peanut Butter and Jelly loves you all. :)

To the Heejunies (fans of Heejun) who only know me through my mom and her many tweets to Heejun. You've been praying and sharing Bible verses and words of encouragement to someone you don't even know and that is incredible. I hope to be able to meet you someday and if not, we will meet in heaven someday. That is so awesome.

To everyone we met on our missions trip to Holland, thank you for your prayers. It is so incredible to know there are people literally across the world keeping us in prayer and thinking of us. You are all so sweet and I am so glad God allowed us to meet. Ik ben zo dankbaar voor u! Heel hartelijk bedankt. :)

To my family, best friends, my church, coworkers, TeenPacters, heejunies, family friends, old friends, acquaintances, and friends and family of people we know, and anyone else I may have forgotten:

Your prayers have been felt. I am so grateful for each and every one of you. I am definitely blessed. 

I can't wait to see what the Lord does in this situation. And I can't wait for you all to see it too.

Thank you.

impatience.

I have NEVER been a patient person. 

I get excited about things easily and the time ticking down until them seems like an eternity, however long or short the length of time. 

I've always prayed for patience. Honesty time: I don't care to be a patient person, I just hate the waiting. So basically I've just prayed to not dread the waiting period. 

It's been said that if you ask God for patience, He won't give you patience - He will give you opportunities to grow that patience. 

My, how I regret those prayers for patience. 

Well, God saw fit to give me a whole year to practice this patience that I wanted to have - when my wedding got postponed and my fiancé admitted his addiction to drugs and then entered teen challenge. God has a sense of humor. 

I just get sooo impatient thinking about this next year. I know God will do incredible things beyond what I could even imagine. I know God is going to change John completely. I know God will change me completely through this. 

Relationships will be restored. Hearts will be healed. Forgiveness will be given. Dreams and plans will come about. Many, many changes to come. And they're all good. So good, it's killing me to know it'll be a year for those to come to completion. I just wish it was next year already so I could see the fruit of what God is doing! It's killing me to wait. 

A friend of mine posted this verse on Facebook today and I saw it right after I was talking to God about this whole patience thing. 

"Better is the end of a thing than the beginning of it, and the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit." (Ecclesiastes 7:8 AMP)

I know that the end of this story will be better than the beginning of it. And during this story, with the grace of God, I will become patient in spirit. That is my prayer. 

the smile that answered everything.

This is a long introduction, but it's necessary to make my point. 

My favorite thing about John is his smile. The look of his face when he does that little giggle of his gets me every time. 

But the thing about John is that he does not smile naturally in pictures. Ask anyone who knows him. We have to retake almost every picture because the first time, to be honest, he looks like he's pooping. 

When he first got saved and moved in with my aunt and uncle, there were a couple pictures taken of him where he had this radiant smile. I'm guessing it's from the joy of his life being dramatically changed. So when I first met John, he had a buzz cut and smiled in pictures. 

Somewhere along the line of our relationship and his job and just life as it went on, he became incapable of giving a real smile in pictures. I will never understand that. My mom took a photo op almost every moment of my life so I can't wrap my mind around people who can't smile naturally in pictures. (My apologies if that offends you). 

When I got home from church this Sunday, I was miserable. Not your usual reaction to church right? Well it's been a year since I've been at church without John there. It was lonely. I missed him bad. I sat on my couch without the will or energy to do anything except feel miserable. I talked to God: "I feel horrible and like this won't ever end. You have to send me some encouragement or peace or anything to make this feeling stop."

Not even five minutes later, my phone went off. I opened it up to a picture of John. You may be thinking "whoop de do". But here's the thing - in this picture, John was smiling. Not a laugh-smile that comes from you trying to get him to smile. Not that poop face smile. A natural smile. And his hair had been cut to a buzz cut. 

I was looking at the old John. The one I first fell in love with. The one with a contagious joy. I felt it just from seeing that picture of him. John was back. I got teary eyed and would have actually cried but I was to busy screaming for my mom to come look. 

This past week was torture. It was filled with not knowing. Not knowing what he was thinking, what he was struggling with. Wondering if he was changing or opening his heart. I didn't know if he was miserable from missing me. Fear and anxiety took me over. 

So many questions went unanswered. But that simple smile told me everything I needed to know. That picture, it was worth so much more than a thousand words. 

(Psalm 43:5 MSG)- ... He puts a smile on my face, he's my God.

Thank you, Lord for putting that smile on his face! And thank you, Lord for hearing my prayer!

"You did it: you changed wild lament into whirling dance; You ripped off my black mourning band and decked me with wildflowers. I’m about to burst with song; I can’t keep quiet about you. God, my God, I can’t thank you enough." (Psalm 30:11,12 MSG)

for those who have been asking...

This may come as a shock to you but not as much as it was to me. 

We found out last week that John has been addicted to drugs since may. If you know his story, you know that he was addicted to them before he got saved. A few months after he got saved he started seeing his family more (his brothers are on drugs) and a few more months after that they kept bugging him to do it with them and he just wasn't strong enough to say no. His mom even knew about his problem and even covered for him and gave him more money when he was low  and said that he lent her money for rent. For almost all of our engagement he has been on drugs and lying about so many things. He thought it was something he could over come on his own. At church you could tell his sincerity but I had no idea of the battle he was fighting. I don't know exactly what it was that made him come clean. It might have been the fact that we caught on to a few of his lies and he knew he couldn't cover them anymore. But he desperately wanted help and he has gone into teen challenge, a year long Christian rehab. (We are not allowed to share which location has been sent to.) During this time he can only have contact with immediate family and since his family is all on drugs, my uncle mark and aunt christine will take their place since he has been living with them for the past year. 

Since we are only engaged and not married, I can have no contact with him for a year. 12 months. 52 weeks. 365 days. The only way of contact is by my aunt and uncle relaying messages and even that is limited. That is where I need the most prayer. To have patience. To not become bitter.  To trust that God will truly change him and not allow john to turn back to that life again. To decide whether or not we should even still stay together (we have known each other just under a year and he will be gone for a year). To not miss his so much every day. To be able to trust again (whether it be him or a different relationship).

On top of all this, we need someone to take over our apartment lease so we don't get evicted and owe a TON of money that we do not have. Please pray that I will have peace. 

I am just a whirlwind of emotion. One minute I am at peace, the next feeling like I can't breathe from all this anxiety. I was and am completely blown away by how many of you have said you were praying for me and sent me encouraging messages and texts. There is no way to express how much that means to me. I bet you didn't know just how horrible this situation was did you? Haha. (I have learned to laugh at the situation at times because it's just so pitiful)

I believe that God is working in unexpected ways in this situation. And not just for me and John but for my family and other people involved. We all love john very much and though he has made countless terrible decisions, we know that the devil had been controlling him in his addiction. I am so grateful to my lord for working in his life even when he was on the drugs. He could have over dosed, got in a car accident, or a deal could have gone bad. I know my God has incredible plans for John, whether it be with or without me (even though I'm reaaaaaally hoping it's with me). 

This week, I read the book "You'll Get Through This" by Max Lucado. It looks into the story of Joseph. It has helped me tremendously this past week. When Joseph says "you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good", the word used for "meant" is a word that means "to weave". Satan weaves, God reweaves. I'm resting in that. 

What satan intended for evil, God intends for good.