Brand New Year!

Welcome to a new year!  I cannot believe it is 2012, and, even more, I cannot believe how our lives have turned out!  For the entire year of 2011, we spent an abundance of time praying, reading, praying, discussing, and praying some more.  We knew that God was doing something in our hearts and in our lives, but we were unsure as to where that would take us (if anywhere).

Well, up until the end of last year, we were fairly sure that God was taking us in one direction.  However, he is God, and his thoughts are higher than ours.  The one thing that we were 100% sure of was that we desperately wanted to be right where God wanted us, no matter how it looked.  And we trusted that he would lead us, and he did, as he always does.

He is leading us into 2012, and I'm overwhelmingly excited.  Billy is now working full-time at our church, and I am not working at all (except, you know, at making a baby).  In just 6 short weeks, we will be having a little boy entering our lives, and we couldn't be more thrilled about it.

Here's a picture from last week (33 weeks pregnant) -

I'm so very glad to be back to blogging on a more regular basis.  Waiting over 2011 taught me more than anything else could have, but it made me very quiet, very watchful of what I shared.  Now that some things are settled, I can share more of my heart with you all!

Legacy

Here is one of my best friends in life:

Jessie

We were destined to be friends.  Literally.  Our grandparents are best friends.  My grandfather pastors our church, and hers is his associate pastor, and has been for 30 years.  Our parents grew up together.  My dad took her mom to prom (it was her mom's mercy-date; she was a senior, and he was a freshman).  But more importantly, her mom and my aunt were best friends when they were little.  My dad's little sister (my aunt) had cancer, and Jessie's mom was her very best friend.  My dad's sister died when she was 8, and the friendship became something that only bonded our two families together more.  Through the years, they have become family, in the best sense of the word.  Well, when Jessie and I were little, our families stuck us together, and we've been friends ever since.  Growing up, we had our on and off times, but it's only made us closer.

Last thursday, Jessie's grandma died of a heart attack, and the funeral was today.

It was one of the hardest that I have ever attended.  Their family is our family, and the legacy was just more set in stone today while everyone looked back on all of the memories and ministry our families have been in together.  The funeral was beautiful because she had lived such a long, full, life and had such a broad influence in the world.  It was amazing to see every person she had touched turn up this weekend to help and show love.  It warmed my heart to be not only best friends with Jessie, but part of their family.  I hope when we have little girls, they will be best friends, too, no matter where we live.  I am so thankful to be in the third generation of this legacy.  I only hope we can continue to touch the world like those before us have, and that our funerals will be as amazing.

Sueño, part 1

In high school Spanish I had to do a project called "Sueño," which means dream. On a poster board, we had to list out some dreams we had in Spanish, of course. There must have been a certain amount of dreams that we had to list because I remember people including the most absurd things, places, celebrities, and activities on their boards. Needless to say, it was not really what anyone dreamed of, and we were all thinking of enough articles to place on our lists.

Well, this morning I was thinking and praying about my real dreams (in life, not in sleep) and I was reminded of that poster, and how if we had been asked to be truthful and serious, what I would have said. Honestly, the thought of putting my dreams out there scares me. I feel as if I either saying or writing them will do one of two things: one, that they would be plucked right out of my mouth and off of the page and taken away into some abyss forever and they will join all of the other proclaimed dreams that people have and never do - I take my dreams very seriously, and I think that if I share them, then you won't take them seriously; two, I think that if I put my dreams into word boxes and mark them somewhere, I will have to achieve them, and I'm terrified that I can't do them.

I always said that I didn't share all of myself with people because I was too deep thought of life in very strong, serious terms, and I could overwhelm them. And that is partially true. I remember a few times when I have sat down with a girlfriend and told her a dream that I had and she either glazes over, doesn't get it, or, just recently, I had someone say, "You know who would be really good at that?" and proceed to tell me who else would be better at accomplishing my own dream.

But, lately, I have had less and less of an excuse. For one, Billy has helped me tremendously. He takes me seriously and believes that everything God has placed on my heart can come to pass. I have also been meeting with an awesome girl that is a lot like me - very serious and 'overwhelming' at times, and she has really specific personal goals - and our commonalities have been inspiring because when I was younger, I truly felt as if I were the only person who took life this seriously, and that I needed to back down. Together, we are reading Beth Moore's So Long, Insecurity and that has been opening up my eyes to my own insecurities and how they have been holding me back from what I feel God wants me to do.

I can't help but think that I'm not the only one who feels this way. What are some of your dreams - the one's that you are scared to say out loud? or write down? or share with the www so that everyone might hold you accountable? I'd love to hear yours, because my next blog post will be mine. I'd like to be in good company.

Bliss and Busyness

Wow!  It's been a really long time since I've blogged.  However, I have been validly busy!  Since I last updated, I have gotten married (yay!), gone on a honeymoon, and been really busy with school.  I can't believe that over a month has passed, and it's almost Thanksgiving.  I guess I'll just give some updates that I can remember, and after this, start blogging regularly again!

• Being married is wonderful, and I love watching movies and eating dinner and shopping with Billy.  I keep getting asked what the best part about being married is, and I have a hard time putting my finger on anything specific.  I just love that we get to do everything together and just experience life.


• School is crazy and I just cannot wait to have this semester over with.  I have a huge paper to write for my American Writing class, and I am really dreading it, and I like to write.  I just think I've been so busy that I can't wait for a true break.


• Our friends, Paul and Amy, got married 4 weeks after us, and it was such a beautiful wedding.  We are glad to add the last wedding of the year, and I'm so glad that they're married now, too.


• The honeymoon was absolutely amazing.  We went to Riviera Maya, Mexico, and it was gorgeous.  Our resort was wonderful and we had so much fun relaxing.  One of the highlights was this contest that they had one night that was modeled after "American Idol."  It was a singing contest, and Billy entered, and he WON!  He won a bottle of Tequila, which we promptly gave away to one of Billy's newly-made fans (who ended up being a HUGE fan after the gift).


• Living in a small apartment is so fun.  I love being a wife, and I want to just clean all of the time (okay, well, that's dramatic, but still...)!  Really, though, I do love it, and I feel so blessed to be at this point in our lives.


• Couponing has gotten even better since we have been married.  I think I'm the only girl I've met so far who's husband helps her clip coupons!  Seriously, he's so awesome.  We actually go in two lines every Sunday night so that we can get two Mystery Penny items at Publix.  It's so fun!


• I am looking forward to Christmas break so that I can read cheesy Christian romance novels.  I can't wait to stop reading this literary fiction.  It's only qualified as "literary" if it has a bad ending.  I like happy, sloppy, romantic endings.

I think I should end this list, but thanks to anybody who stayed long enough to read this!  I'll update sooner, next time.

Oh, and here's a wedding picture.  I'll put more on later!

 

The way He sees it

So I'm reading this book called Metamorpha.  I've had it for a little while and I just now picked it up as life is starting to regulate itself again.

It's been pretty good so far, and it's already challenging me in some ways.  The first couple of chapters talk about worldviews and the way we should identify our worldview as Christians.  It's been different for me, and it's a new approach.  He focuses on the fact that as Christ followers, we are consistently renewed, and therefore our view of the world and of our God is going to be renewed also.  We are to "deconstruct" our view of church, ministry, culture, life, etc., so that we may allow God to constantly be working on our heart.  At first, this frustrated me a little, because I totally am grounded in my faith and what I know to be true.  How am I supposed to "open my mind" and "deconstruct" my vision every day?  I know what God says about me and about the world, and that's what I believe.  But the deeper I got into the book, the more I started to understand.  Those fundamental views will never change.  And that's not what Strobel (the author) is saying.  What he's trying to get across is the fact that we, as imperfect humans, should understand that our views are fleshy and, well, human.  God's ways are higher, and he is consistently writing a new story for our lives and leading us in new directions.  Sometimes, God might call us to do something a little differently than we thought ministry should be done.  Basically, we can't be afraid to walk out of our comfort zone and do life in a new way.  We can't shy away from having our theories for life and relationships challenged and reconstructed as God works on our hearts daily.  He uses this analogy about marriage, and how when a couple gets married, they have a preconceived notion of how this relationship is going to work out.  But the marriage will either fail or become stagnant if one or both of the people refuse to change their view of marriage and be willing to grow and change in order to love the other person more effectively.  This is how God intended our relationship to be.  When we enter into a relationship with him, we cannot expect to know just what he will ask of us or how he will work through us, though we might have some ideas because of what we want to happen or even some glimpse God has shown us.  But to be fully available for his use, we must be open to maybe realizing that our ways are not always correct or even the only way of doing things.

I actually have more that I've learned from this book, and maybe I'll blog about it tonight, but I have church, and right now, I'm exhausted, hungry, and ready to relax.  So I'll expound more later, but it's about not believing in prayer and other fundamental practices (hmm...).