Wedding Memories

Today I have been sitting around thinking about how I probably won't look that great in my wedding dress.  I've also felt totally lazy, bored, and tired of wedding planning.  I put the countdown on facebook as 20 days while simultaneously panicking about the time slipping away while so much remains to do.  Later this afternoon our flowergirl's mother posted on that countdown that her daughter, Scarlett, counts down the number of "sleeps" until the wedding.  This just melted my heart and I got all teary-eyed, because it seems like the little moments and memories full of squeaky clean excitement like these are what this whole celebration is about.  

A wedding is more than just one day, one night, one dress, one couple.  It's made up of all the days before, all the conversations with your mom about the ribbon colors and shoes and dress lengths, all the dresses I wore to go shopping for wedding favors and gifts, all the smiles and laughs shared at the showers.  It's made up of all the well wishes, and emotions along the way.  It's about all the old friendships that are rekindled, all the new friendships deepened.  It's about being thankful for people who drop classes and rearrange college schedules and miss soccer games and fly all the way from Australia and drive hours and hours and hours use up all their vacation days to get to come to the wedding. It's about the little kisses along the way, the printer malfunctions, sitting on the floor at Hobby Lobby analyzing paper.  It's about little cousins getting excited to be on the beach with all of their family for the first time, and the excited short conversations with cashiers who notice the ring.  It's about all the little car trips to the post office to mail more invitations, and feeling extra excited to mail one to Australia.  It's about eating the extra little icing from the cake after the shower, and watching Gilmore Girls while writing thank you notes.  It's made up of licking envelopes while moving into a new house, and hugs from your grandma recovering from hip surgery so quickly.  It's about the phone calls with people that ask the quirkiest questions, and little electronic chats about flowers and showers with your maid-of-honor in Ireland.  It's about dreaming big and sharing wide all along the way.   It's about soaking in all the marriage advice while knitting with other amazing Christian women.  It's about little siblings getting braces and cold watermelon on the hot summer days.  It's about the turkey and Christmas presents and Easter eggs and fireworks that got us to the big day.  It's about all the tiny little moments that you share with so many people along the way that slowly bring about the not just two people together, but family, friends, and sometimes even strangers.  It's not about how blonde, or toned, or tan I'll look in my dress.  It's about "counting the sleeps" like a precious little girl who can only imagine the day as perfect and lovely since she will be wearing, as she once told her father, "the most BEAUTIFULEST dress in the world!"

Thank you, Scarlett, for reminding me once again of all the wonderful blessings along the way!

Serendipity

I never knew a double birthday party for a 5 year old and her dad could be so refreshing.  Today we had a relaxing celebration with part of our "Houston family" as we like to call it.  I guess it is just nice to have people that you can just sit around and just be with.  It slows you down a little bit.  It reminds you of the bigger picture.  It's nice when you have moments like this where you are just able to truly be in the moment, but with a perspective of how that moment connects with so many others you've had and will have.  And then to look at all the faces of people in your life.  Sometimes people become just like furniture, background.  Then other times you get this sense of the souls behind those faces that are dancing in and out of your life because of a divine order. And when you really think about it, the serendipity behind every smile is overwhelming.  The word serendipity has such a pleasant connotation about it, reminding us of winding paths joining two people together in love or friendship, but we rarely think about it in the context of faith.  I think there is a tremendous amount of serendipity in the story of creation onward.  I guess the difference between serendipity and faith, however, is that the serendipity praises chance and faith praises God.

What a sweet sweet Sunday.  It's like I got a taste, a glimpse of the end of this Lenten season, the celebration of extravagant redemption in the resurrection!  Come Easter, come Jesus!

Passion

It feels good to be passionate about what I am learning how to do with my career/life.

I'm glad to be learning everything, and I enjoy thinking about how to take what I've learned and extrapolate new ideas or ways of implementing them.

I want to go camping.

Washing Feet

So, today I read John 13- the part where Jesus washes the disciples' feet.  This is an amazing story of our God coming down to serve us with a selfless love.  I also got to thinking about how symbolic it is of how Jesus washes away all of our mess-ups.  Even crazier to me is that when you think about washing someone's feet you don't always think about how the feet get dirty so quickly after being washed, kind of like we don't always think about how our sins are going to pop right back up in our lives after we ask for forgiveness.  

but Jesus knew the feet would get dirty again.  

and He washed them anyway, genuinely and completely, without expectation of them remaining clean.

A second thing I took away from the passage reinforced what God has taught me lately about forgiveness.  Jesus told the disciples: "You call Me Teacher and Lord, and truly, that is who I am. So if your Lord and Teacher washes your feet, then you should wash one another's feet."  What I got from this was Jesus saying, "I am your Lord- your perfect example.  I am showing you how I forgive people completely, without humiliating them or holding a grudge against them, but rather I forgive and meet them with love so they walk away cleaner and better.  If I am your perfect example, then you should do this too, to one another."

This doesn't really symbolize a distant forgiveness.  It's personal.  It's selfless.  It's whole.  It's love.  It's active.  It's bold.  It's without fear.  

Happy Valentine's Day!

Tim and I are really sick, but we are just glad to get to spend Valentine's with each other rather than 1000 miles apart. 

I love you, Tim!

Bicker-be-gone!

From The Voice translation:

From Paul to Timothy...

2 Timothy 2:23-25:

"Excuse yourself from any conversation that turns into a foolish and uniformed debate because you know they only provoke fights.  As the Lord's slave, you shouldn't exhaust yourself in bickering; instead, be gentle- no matter who you are dealing with- ready and able to teach, tolerant without resentment, gently instructing those who stand up against you.  Besides, the time may come when God grants them a change of heart so that they can arrive at the full knowledge of truth."

Can someone just ever so sweetly remind me of this every hour?  

I guess that's what Jesus meant when He said He is sending us a Helper (aka the Holy Spirit) after He is gone to help us remember His words.  Good thinking...  now if only the Holy Spirit had a volume dial...

Grace

I guess I will go ahead and congratulate my father and Terri on getting engaged, especially since I'm pretty sure they are the only ones who read my blog. Haha.  Anyway, congratulations. I think we should write a movie kind of playing off of the "Father of the Bride" and "Father of the Bride II" movie plots where the father of the bride is engaged at the same time as the daughter.  It's great.  Romantic comedy.  It will reach out to all of the "second-marriage" crowd as well as the newbies.  Plus, for the father of the bride role, you could have some man that is easily( and comically)  overwhelmed in juggling his career, his younger son, his own love life, and his daughter's wedding.  It's classic American.  This is not to say that it would be an accurate pic of my father.  However, it would be very modern media to de-emphasize the role of the man and caricature the inability of the man to lead and love his family properly while not getting too stressed.  Not to mention how all this is going on while depicting the women as perfectly beautiful yet demeaning, steamrolling organizing slave-drivers who have it all under control.  It's classic mixed messages.  

It is almost like the battle of the sexes lies in that God intended women to be the head and them men to be followers, but somewhere along the way it got switched up and that is why many women want to take control of everything and many men want to retreat from duty.  I do NOT actually postulate that that is what God intended, but sometimes that is how it feels.  Isn't that how it always goes though? Sin usually does feel like the easier option.

But no one taught us that being a controlling woman is sin.

But no one taught them that the men are to take care of the women and be gentle leaders.

Except the legalistic dating books.

But what if I can't always live up to that?  What will love look like for me then?  How will we find God then?  Is it still a good Christian marriage?

this is usually where we forget about GRACE.  God's blue-green ever-strong, pouring, flowing, freely given, redeeming grace.  Or rather red.  BLOOD red.

it is where we forget about HUMILITY. our weakness. His Power.

I think walking freely in Christ has less to do with whether or not you say the right prayers, have morning quiet time daily, and have "happiness" or "peace."  Maybe it has more to do with realizing how much grace you have been given and that you have don't have to have boundaries or limits in the ways that you care, the depths that you love, the times you forgive, or the quantity you give to people, because it will never be more than what's given to you.  It is funny how that word grace seems to sort of encompass this radical love and forgiveness and power, isn't it?  GRACE.  Maybe thats what they mean when they say you are alive in Christ and have no fear.  Maybe that's what that verse meant when it says you will walk and not grow weary, run and not faint.

And when you give others the space and the GRACE to live and to be, maybe you learn how to do the same for yourself.  Maybe that would be better than "finding myself," whatever that means anyway.  Maybe that would be what it would be like to be free.  Maybe that negates the concepts of limits, self-preservation, boundaries, defense.

Because is it really freedom, if you constantly have to defend it?

And yes that was a political statement.  And, yes, this post went from nuptial engagements to political statements about war.