Lessons Learned....

I love it when I have that sort of "Ah ha" moment.  The moment when some things that I didn't quite get fall into place.  A few weeks ago I was asked to lead worship at church while our associate pastor was away.  Today was the day that happened.  Now it might seem a bit strange that on a blog regarding my bride-to-be status and wedding that I rather randomly throw in this, but this has been a pretty amazing experience.  You see...  When I went to church to meet Dustin over a year and a half ago I had no idea the events that God was setting in place.  In some ways meeting Dustin was this entirely new beginning to my life.  There were things that happened and people that had become a huge part of my life prior to that, but somehow God used Dustin as this catalyst to take all of those moments that had happened over the course of my life and make them start to come together to make sense.  Somehow from the moment I stepped into a church for the sole purpose of meeting this friend of a friend my life changed.  In other posts I've mentioned the impact of that first message from the man that would become my pastor that day.  I've mentioned Kirby and Jaimy and just a few of the lessons God has taught me through them.  Today I find myself thinking about the impact that our associate pastor has had on me.  Jeremy was one of those people that when I first started going to Mooresville Church of God that because of the nature of his involvement in and surrounding the service I really didn't interact with a lot in that first month or so.  The interesting thing about my "big brother" Kirby is that you don't stay uninvolved when you adopt him as a brother and the church needs choir members for Easter....  Yes, I was volunteered...  A month and a half of attending church and I found myself in the choir for Easter.  That was how God brought Jeremy into my life in a totally different way.  Choir involvement led to filling in over the summer on the worship team which ended up turning into long term involvement in the worship team.  I think it's amazing how God brings people into your life at just the moment you need that relationship to develop so it's at the exact place it needs to be for a certain moment of time.  Somehow the last couple of weeks have made me realize exactly how much Jeremy has affected my life in this subtle way that I hadn't totally realized.  In tackling the challenge of leading worship something that in all honesty scared me to death at times and having come through it with the realization that it wasn't perfect, sure I could stand to build some confidence where leading is concerned, but with Jeremy's help, encouragement and faith in me and most definitely a large dose of God's intervention I did something that even a year ago I would never have been able to even think about taking on without having a full blown panic attack.  You see I love music.  I love to sing, play and listen.  I love the moments when music makes me feel close to God on some level.  I also have a tendency to fear failure.  To worry about the fact that I might hit a wrong note or mess up the word to a song and then (in my mind at least) that's the only thing anyone is going to remember.  I will have looked bad and failed.  Those are the fears I have struggled with.  In some way that I'm not sure I even understand completely God has used Jeremy in a nearly indiscernible way at times to teach me ways to deal with and turn those fears over to God.  Through Jeremy I've learned how to worship God in song.  I've truly learned that God doesn't want us to act like we're sucking sour pickles while singing Holy, Holy, Holy or How Great is Our God.  He wants us to experience his Spirit in our song.  Now believe it or not I truly do feel that these lessons I've learned from Jeremy do blend with the overall theme of my blog.  You see, these subtle lessons that God has been teaching me through Jeremy help me discover and learn more about who God wants me to be.  There is truly no way to describe the freedom I felt today after the church service was complete.  The best way I can describe it is that there was a sense of victory in being able to walk away and realize it wasn't perfect, I need some practice, but with God's help I did something that I never dreamed I could do.  I was able to give my fear and apprehension to God for him to show me exactly what He's capable of doing in my life if I will let him use me.  He will give me the courage to face the fears I have and in taking the first of many steps in learning that lesson it impacts my relationship with Dustin.  My life isn't divided into separate compartments.  What I do in one area impacts all of the areas of my life so when I can learn a lesson in worship from Jeremy, directly or indirectly it impacts my relationship with Dustin.  It's a pretty amazing thing when you think about it! 

And in the Middle of Planning a Wedding....

So it's been a while since I've posted, but it's been crazy!  Of course we've managed to get a lot of things accomplished and it feels like things are starting to come together and it feels like we have a solid direction.  It's kind of nice getting so many big things out of the way early on.  It's nice to get to relax in regards to the wedding arrangements.  I think God must realize once in a while that need a distraction in another area.  The last couple of weeks that has come in the form of God pushing me out of my comfort zone.  It's funny that for all of my intense focus on wedding planning when I was asked to undertake something new at church all of the sudden wedding planning took back seat to this new thing to undertake.  I'm not entirely sure what I'm suppose to get out of that change in events that shifted my focus.  I mean it hasn't entirely distracted me.  I still had this excitement like a little kid on Christmas morning when it came to opening the box my unity cross was in and of course Dustin and myself had to put it together right away to see what it looked like.  I've still taken an interest in cake testing, gathering information on flowers and the other little things that need to be handled, but maybe the piece I'm suppose to be learning right now is to not become overly obsessed with the details.  To not pour my entire energy into one thing, but to keep a healthy balance.  I'm still working on what the particular lesson is, but I'm sure I'll figure it out eventuatlly!

Fine or Fabulous.

This week has been very encouraging and productive!  My to do list is growing smaller and it begins to feel like things are under control.  The tuxes have been selected.  My wedding dress is ordered.  Gift registries are set up as is the wedding website.  Save the Dates were mailed today after we had our engagement photos taken.  The church is spoken for.  The reception venue reserved.  Invitations and RSVP cards are nearly ready for printing and my bridesmaids dress are all purchased.  I have shoes and the wedding bands are ordered.  Yes, I'm very happy with the way things are coming along.  It's very exciting to see God working things out in a way I never dreamed I would experience!  I'm not sure what exactly I thought wedding preparations would be like, but it wasn't anything like this.  I don't think I ever expected them to literally become an act of faith.  I had my way I wanted things to work, but they were all things I could control and make happen.   Last Saturday I attended a Beth Moore simulcast.  The thought I walked away unable to lose over the last week is this.  God didn't call us to "fine".  He called us to faith.  The idea being that a life that is fine can be explained by human reasoning.  A life of faith defies explanation,  It helped change my approach to this wedding.  All of the sudden I found that piece of me that could depend on God that what he has in store for my and Dustin's wedding is beyond explanation.  That it is far more than just fine.  It's fabulous!  It seems that after that moment I started to realize the little things that are falling together and find myself in awe every time we try to rework the budget!

To Inconvenience or Not Inconvenience....

You know, I'm not sure that I make a very good bride...  I tend to think maybe I might have been better suited to a ceremony in our pastor's office with two witnesses.  Don't get me wrong, I truly want that special day and that experience, but I often feel that I'm inconveniencing people with any plans I make or dreams I have of what I'd like my wedding to be like.  I really struggle with believing that it's suppose to be a day that is about me in any way shape or form.  In fact I think I've come to realize why I want and in many ways need Dustin so involved in every aspect of this wedding that he's willing to step into.  If it were for just me I'd probably give up on the idea of a wedding settle on whatever would work with as little inconvenience to as few people as possible and try to not think about what I was missing and what I really wanted.  So you might be wondering exactly how that translates into Dustin being involved in wedding plans.  You see in a way just as important as that vision of all things princess that little Lauren, my flower girl inspires, Dustin makes me believe that it's important for me to experience that moment.  Wedding plans, budgets and wedding stress pretty much seem more than I'd be able to take on if Dustin were a hands off groom.  If left to myself I'd be one of those brides that you hear horror stories about.  I'd be cooking and cleaning in my wedding dress because I couldn't think to inconvenience anyone by asking for help.  In fact asking for help has been one of my biggest challenges in this whole wedding process.  Not because I'm a control freak, but because I struggle with the feeling that people have to have more important things to do than mess with helping me.  Now granted up to this point most of what we are doing has of necessity been done by only the two of us, but I've realized that many of my panic moments stem to that feeling that comes from the habit I've developed after being on my own for so long of "just doing it myself".  I truly believe that God gave me the perfect man in the form of Dustin.  Not that he's perfect without fault, but he's perfect for me in that he pushes and encourages in ways that help me grow or become stronger.   He helps me realize that people genuinely do want to help.  That they consider it an honor to be intimately involved in such a special moment in our lives.  I'm truly hoping that God leaves us together for 50 or 60 years since I'm pretty sure it will take that long for me to get this particular lesson that he's using Dustin to teach me...

Priorities and Steps of Faith....

I have a feeling of accomplishment tonight.  It feels like we're actually getting somewhere in the planning process.  Save the Date cards have been ordered and have arrived, my wedding dress is ordered, tux style selected and today the wedding rings chosen in a rather unexpected trip to the jeweler.  Somehow the selection of the rings makes everything seem real.  Sometimes it's easy to feel like I'm just a little girl playing wedding.  To feel that even when I'm planning certain things or choosing certain things that it's not really me or for me that I'm just planning a party of sorts.  The rings somehow make it seem real.  I think it's maybe because ultimately the rings are the physical symbol of the purpose of the entire day.  Oddly enough to the point that me the one who spent the first 2 months of our engagement freaking out and ending up with headaches every time the budget was mentioned or the cost of things had to be discussed without a moments hesitation found myself stepping up and telling the jeweler we'd take the ring that I could tell Dustin really wanted when he started to settle for his second choice.  This from the girl who in the fist month of our engagement slashed through the wedding budget like it was an expendable extra in a horror movie cutting every conceivable extra expense.  Yep!  I'm the one who made the call to go over our budgeted amount on rings.  You see there are some things that I find to be non-negotiable in the big picture.  The wedding rings are one of them.  Everything else from that one day pretty much goes away.  The tux goes back to the store, my dress gets put away in a box, the decorations go away to be re-purposed, but the rings... Well, since neither of us plan to make a habit of repeating this event every few years the rings become the one thing that remains when the day is over.  The Gift of the Magi is a story that while it always struck me as cute and sweet is one that with Dustin in my life I've come to appreciate in a way that I haven't before.  I understand why the couple in the story were able to part with their most prized possessions.  It meant that it made the one they loved more than anything happy.  I find that is a large part of the reason that I love having Dustin involved in every area of planning the wedding.  I love to hear what he likes, what's important to him and if it's something that I realize I don't have the passionate connection to that he does I find it easy to turn over that part to him to turn his dream into reality.  Some of my happiest moments in wedding planning happen when I stumble on an idea that gets him excited because by listening I found a way to incorporate an element that makes that day even more ours in its uniqueness.  I realized the moment I could look at the one doll I consider the prized doll of my collection, the one that I've always said is the last one I will ever part with and say that if making a certain part of a dream Dustin has come true means I need to sell it that I would part with that prize possession that at one time I never thought I'd be able to let go I realized that the value of things has changed.  I've found the one earthly thing that is more important than that beautiful little doll.  It's the way that a certain smile lights up Dustin's entire face when I do something that makes him happy.  It's the way that smile leads to excitement that nearly has him bouncing like a little boy on Christmas morning.  Thankfully, while I've definitely indicated to God that I am willing to part with that little doll if necessary he seems to be planning on letting me keep it for the moment as he continues to expand the potential budget in a way that Dustin and I can't quite make sense of...  Every time we make a decision that is made with the thought we do this and we'll look at the list of things we could cut and we'll cut something else God seems to send the money to cover the step of faith moment in a way that causes us to take the next step of faith just a little easier the next time...

Struggles...

I had a revelation this week.  Actually I had several of them which kind of culminated yesterday.  I've been struggling horribly the last few weeks.  I've had this feeling of oppression that I really couldn't shake no matter how many "good" things seemed to be happening.  Honestly, it's a little hard to deal with in the middle of the moment you've spent nearly your entire life looking forward to.  Somehow as a young girl you think that the moment of planning your wedding is the moment that your life should be perfect, right?  I really don't think I'm alone in that feeling.  Oh maybe you expect the few minor skirmishes over guest lists, wedding party, dinner or no dinner, cake or cupcakes, but somehow I expected the challenges to be extremely minor.  Now before going on to the feelings of the last few weeks I feel the need to explain that nothing about my relationship with Dustin has really been normal.  In a lot of ways we've faced challenges as early as our first couple months of dating that when I look at them right now I don't know who exactly it was that handled them in the mature, understanding way I seem to have handled them considering we've made it to this moment of wedding planning since I'm pretty sure it's not the Tonya I've lived with the last 30+ years that made those choices and decisions that were the right ones to make for us.  I know her... She's the one who reads the end of the book if the beginning or middle gets too frustrating.  She's not the one who waits patiently because God tells her to...  I'm not sure who that changeling was...  I think maybe I fell into the trap of thinking that I'd arrived in some way and the insecurities and struggles of my past would just miraculously fall away.  Right!!  Think again!!  They just find a new way to present themselves...  Where to even begin...  I have a secret...  I'm a pretty good faker...  I'm not even sure how I manage it sometimes, but the mask that I mentioned several weeks ago is something I've become pretty good at utilizing when the need arises....  The last few weeks I've found myself pulling it out to hid my true feelings on certain things.  Now don't get me wrong...  I had a wonderful time with my Mom and aunt trying on wedding dresses, walking through JoAnn's with my Mom looking for inspiration for projects without a complete vision at the moment, but just like when I was younger scouring the shelves with mom searching for that one inspiring object, I'm by no means saying that those moments aren't special.  They are memories I know I will cherish when I think of my wedding (Ok, especially getting locked in JoAnn's at 9 pm on a Friday night with Mom because we decided to go shopping when  a severe thunderstorm was on it's way...lol).  I think the fact that those special moments seemed to be shortly followed by this heavy, depressive spirit that I couldn't shake no matter what I tried or how I prayed is what has made the last few weeks such a struggle.  There's something indescribably sad about experiencing this feeling in the middle of a period of time that should be the most special and joyous celebration in a girl's life.  It's funny though because even in the middle of all of the inner turmoil I've found myself begging God to show me the lesson I'm suppose to be learning so I can be happy at this moment in my life that will only happen once.  I've spent the last few weeks when people ask about how excited I am, what plans I'm making, what dress I'm getting, etc pulling out my mask with it's proper little wedding smile and "excitedly" telling about "my plans".  The truth... Inside I'm screaming if only you knew how I really feel....  There are some moments that my little flower girl with her vision of sparkly dresses and shoes is the only thing that pushes me to the next item on my list to be done.  You see, there's a reason I chose little Lauren as my flower girl...  In her uninhibited excitement for sparkly shoes and princess dresses I see the me I don't want to lose sight of.  I look at Lauren and see my favorite picture of myself at her age...  I've needed that a lot over the last couple of weeks.  I've needed that little face that walks up and very seriously starts to inform me what her sparkly dress and shoes will look like for my wedding and how her younger sister will need them also...  I really hadn't given much thought as to why having Lauren as my flower girl was so important to me, but this weekend I realized exactly why I need her...  Through Lauren I stay in touch with the "princess" focus of that special day.  There's a very sweet, adorable innocence (although I'm sure her parents would beg to differ...) in her belief that she is a princess and it's not really a matter for question or debate.  You see... I'm an adult...  I somehow fell into the trap of believing that when Paul says to "put away childish things"  it meant I had to grow out of my princess moment...  I had to forget about it and move on to the adult world of reality which is I will never be good enough, I'll never be as pretty as some other girl, that I'll always fall short and be lacking.  Sadly, I believed that enough that I find myself struggling with those insecurities and doubts that I'll ever be able to make the "right decision" (whatever that is suppose to be) and for some reason it becomes the lie I struggle with right now.  It's a lie that makes me live in fear.  Rather than being a confident princess, I find myself trying to become the model maid, who says yes sir and no ma'am exactly when I'm suppose to.   I had my moment on Saturday where I realized the fear that had begun to overtake me and what role exactly it was playing in removing the joy from this moment of my life.  It leaves me with a rather interesting perspective on the last few weeks.  I find myself with a greater appreciation for Joseph's insight when he told his brother's "you meant it for evil against me, but God meant it for good".  You see this oppression drove me not only to God in prayer, but it drew Dustin and I closer as we both tried to make sense of it, but even more importantly it became instrumental in bringing me closer to my pastor and his wife as I struggled to make sense out of the senseless.  Could God have chosen to take what has been at times a soul wrenching anguish away?  Of course he could have, but I do also realize that in his doing so I would have missed some very significant moments.  I choose to believe that because of where certain moments fell that were a positive experience such as the shared moment of discovering the perfect dress, the excitement over actually wearing my dream shoes, that those moments will be that much sweeter and stand out that much more when remembered later maybe even because of the sorrow that surrounded them.  Rather than one discovery in the middle of many they become little oasis's of happiness in the middle of struggle.  Moments of promise and little glimpses of a joyous future God has planned.  Whatever his bigger plan I truly do believe that as Paul says "all things work together for good".  I chose to believe that even in the moment of distress that at times seems unending that God does have a larger plan that I can't even begin to imagine.  

Interesting Observations....

I've found myself thinking a lot the last week.  Which actually accounts for the fact I haven't posted.  Well, that along with being busy with wedding details.  I've found myself thinking a lot as details involving a wedding demand to be dealt with and the question begins to be asked what is it that you want your wedding to be like?  It's funny because had anyone asked that question prior to my meeting Dustin I could have told you in detail from the invitations to the bridesmaid dresses to my own gown.  Now people ask and I find myself stuck...  The important thing...  The thing that truly means something to me is marrying the man I love.  The other things are details that aren't that important to me anymore.  Not to say I don't want a nice wedding or that there aren't things that won't make it special, but I have found there is a difference in thinking about one's wedding in abstracts and actually planning it as a couple.  Especially when you're part of a couple which consists of an architect.... For me it tends to mean that one's groom is not exactly uninvolved....lol.  I've discovered something though...  I like having a groom who takes an active role in wedding planning.  I feel like it gives me a small taste of what marriage is like.  I sometimes think maybe it's in part that I've been alone for so long that I appreciate being part of a couple.  To me it means the more I let myself believe the truth, the more I realize that I'm not alone in this endeavour that feels huge at times.  Not to say that I'm not surrounded with friends and family wanting to help, but in Dustin I somehow find my balance.  In the middle of all of the planning and arranging and busyness of wedding preparation I find that God has provided me with someone who makes me believe in the middle of insanity that everything is going to turn out better than either of us could ever dream.  I find I'm definitely not a traditional bride as I truly want his input and opinion. I find that I'm quite alright with handing over responsibilities and letting him take the lead on the parts that are important to him.  The interesting thing is that in the end it seems to be becoming the trend that the finished product is shared effort and ideas.