just a simple reminder of God's provision..

I didn't work at all this week because the family I babysit for is on vacation. I was a little worried because I had a few unexpected expenses, and my checking account was getting pretty low. I get paid weekly, so I was going to have to go another week without a paycheck.

I just checked my account online, worried that I would see single digits (at best!)... and saw that my tax refund had been deposited yesterday--the day I would have been paid--in an amount significantly higher than my paycheck is normally. :)

If (read: when) I doubt God's ability and desire to provide for me again... remind me that He is there even in the mundane, in the instances that we forget to pray about because we think it's "no big deal".

What a wonderful gracious God we have!

today is pi day!

If my memory serves me correctly, three years ago today some of my dearest college friends and I celebrated Pi(e) Day. :)

A wonderful friend and I were leading a Bible Study, and it happened to land on 3.14 -- "Pi Day", which we decided to celebrate by taking our girls off campus for pie! What a delightful idea, we thought. We would give them a break in the middle of the week, enjoy some pie and fellowship. They would love it.

However, we did not anticipate the resistance we would encounter when we told the girls we had a "surprise" for them. We didn't take into account that we had gotten to the point in our bible study where our group was comfortable enough to come in sweatpants, no makeup, and pulled-back hair. Comfortable attire, but certainly not ready for a night out. By saying we had a "surprise", they were suddenly no longer comfortable with their attire... what if we were planning a surprise group date!

By the time we calmed their nerves, told them it was just us girls, and got to the restaurant, it was such a sweet time. Clearly, pie & great friends is a combination to fight for. :)

A gentle reminder on my facebook wall today that today is Pi Day reminded me of this story... I love this story. It is such a sweet memory. But it makes me nostalgic; it makes me miss college. The sweet relationships I formed, the fellowship and bonds formed over studying the Bible, the ease and spontaneity of both friendship and fellowship.

Growing up is good. I'm not sure I can emphasize that enough--God is good in bringing me out of college and into this new chapter of my life. Coming to seminary, entering a semi-adulthood, understanding what being part of a local church really looks like, the relationships I've formed, even getting engaged have happened since college. I'm grateful that I'm in a new part of my life. But at the same time, I miss college and all its goodness.

So I'm nostalgic for Pi(e) Day, and all that it means for me.

you know you're in seminary when...

you're only allowing yourself one day of not doing homework during spring break.... and you don't even have anything due the week you get back to school.

some tuesday grace

This afternoon I was driving and I realized that my mind was racing with wedding planning thoughts, I was anxious and didn't even realize it. So I stopped to pray. God was so gracious in that moment to meet me with some truth.

A few days ago I was chatting with a friend who encouraged me by telling me that something that she tried to remember while she was planning her wedding was that God even knew what the font on her invitations was going to be, He knew the details. When she first told me, it was a good reminder--so comforting to hear. And while I was praying today, the Lord brought that back to mind. He has already planned my wedding. He knows where it will be, who will come, what flowers we'll go with, etc. And it will all be to accomplish His purposes. It's not my job to choose the one option that is going to make the gospel apparent or not. He's already done it.

As hard as it is for me to believe, God is sovereign even in the tiny details of wedding planning. And I just need to seek Him in it, and everything will fall into place. Somehow, I'm planning a wedding that has already been planned. And praise God for that!

Finally... pictures of my ring. :)

Make sure to tell Brett what a wonderfully perfect job he did.

wedding & marriage planning.

Chocolate brown dresses + black tuxes = an unhappy bride.

This is the current dilemma in my wedding planning life... and with the amount of hours i have spent thinking about this (more than i'd like to admit!) it has migrated from the "wedding planning only" portion of my brain to a more prominent spot. Ugh.

Last week, it was something else. And next week, i'm sure, it will be something new. I spend hours and hours of my life planning tiny little--some may say petty--details about a wedding. a wedding--the means by which I get married.

I feel like I should be spending hours and hours of my life planning all the details of how I'm going to be married. That seems like a way bigger deal to me. Married?? How the heck do i do that? I don't know how to be a wife!

Ephesians 5:22-34 tells me:

Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives submit in everything to their husbands.

The passage continues talking about marriage, using the image of Christ and the Church. Whether the relationship of Christ and the Church is supposed to the example for how marriage should function, or if marriage should point to the relationship between Christ and the Church, (actually, it's probably both) all I know is that it's a pretty tall order.

And I feel like I should be spending wayyyy more time planning for that than I am the wedding. I want to focus my time planning to be married rather than to get married. And maybe the potential color clashing should be a significantly lower priority. :)