my wonderful husband

Well we had a really great weekend just relaxing at home and a really wonderful Valentines day. We both kind of considered it our first valentines day in a way. You see, before we got married our "anniversary" was on Feb. 6. So we always kind of combined our celebration and gift-giving of valentines day and our anniversary. This year we will be celebrating our new anniversary on June 27 so it left Valentines day to be celebrated all on it's own on Feb. 14!

In the morning while getting ready to go to church Blake presented me first with a beautiful card that included a super sweet message to me. He talked about in the message how he is so blessed and happy that we are now a family, just me and him, our own little family. It was so sweet and thoughtful and of course brought lots of tears to me eyes. He then gave me a beautiful necklace that is a sterling silver chain with a round pendant that has a tree in the middle with each branch ending in a little heart. A little card was attached to the necklace that described how the tree represented family and around the edge of the pendant it says, "A family's love is natures masterpiece." It is sooooo cool!

I was of course blown away by his thoughtfulness and carefully thought out gift. What an amazing man I am married to! And as if that wasn't enough he also got me a super cute green zipper/hoodie jacket! He did awesome! My gift to him was not as exciting, but given with as much love! :) I got him a new leather Fossil wallet! Something that was much needed since his old one was ripping.

So after gift giving we headed off to church and then stopped off at Panera for lunch, which was soooo yummy! Then we just hung around the apartment, watched the Olympics and relaxed all afternoon until the evening when we went to Texas Roadhouse for a super yummy dinner!! All in all it was a wonderful day! Although I have to admit that every day with my Blake is a wonderful day! :)

jump starting a car

So our lives hadn't been too crazy here lately until this last Tuesday night. I went to the mall at about 6pm to get a Valentines day gift for Blake. All day my car had been acting kind of funny every time I tried to turn it on so I wasn't super surprised when leaving the mall I discovered that the battery of my car was completely dead. So of course, what did I do? I called Blake. Unfortunately, neither he or I had jumper cables (lesson learned: need to buy some and keep them in our cars). So he had to call a law school buddy to borrow some.

About 20 minutes after I called him he arrives at the mall. It's about 7 pm at this time. We get our hoods open and find my battery very easily and then begin looking for his. Apparently, PT Cruiser's are built differently than every other car out there. And we could not find anything that even resembled a battery. We finally discovered something in the back right hand corner that said something about the positive connnection for jump starting a car. But it was pointing to a regular looking bolt that was sticking up out of something else. Here's a little picture of an engine to give you an idea:

See what I mean? So after trying to figure it out for about 15-20 minutes (It's now 7:20 and getting dangerously close to the start of the new LOST episode) we decide that we just are going to have to get another friend to bring their car. Meanwhile I am on the phone with my Dad trying to get his advice. Thanks Dad for being so patient! :)

So we call our friend Mallory, we absolutely love, and she comes with her car. We knew it'd take her about 15 mins. to get there so we go into the mall to get some food for dinner. Cause it is like 7:30 at this point. So while waiting for our food Mallory calls to say she is there so Blake goes out to meet her while I wait for our food. Thinking that they were well on their way to getting my car started I go out to meet them only to find that Mallory's battery is just as complicated. It had absolutely zero labels as to which part on the battery was positive and which was negative.

Of course, what do I do? I call my Dad again. I explain to him that the only discernable difference is that there is a cover on my battery over the positive and she has a cover over one of her's. So my Dad says that we should just assume that a cover means positive and take a risk. He was correct!! We got my car started!

So now it's about 8 (forget getting home in time for LOST) and my Dad recommends that we park my car in front of a car repair place so that we don't have to re-jump it the next day to get my battery checked out. Our food is getting cold so I want to hurry and the only place I could think of was Pep Boys. Now I loved the Pep Boys in Abilene, but the one here is AWFUL!!! I had my oil changed by them a few months back and promised I would never go back. However, I couldn't think of anywhere else and I just wanted to get home so to Pep Boys we went.

When we pulled up we discovered that they were still open so I sat in my car while Blake ran in to see if they could take a look at my car. Luckly they could so I pulled into the garage. Now you think at about 8:15 at night when NO ONE is there it wouldn't take more than 30 mins. to look at a battery, change a battery and pay for a battery. But no....the guy there checked our battery pretty quick, but from then until the time we were finished was about an hour. The guy at the counter was not very good at organization or multi-tasking and seriously lacked in customer service skills. All a very bad combination.

So needless to say and without further explination we got home around 9:30-9:45 with a new battery, but cold food and zero patience. We ate our dinner and then went to bed because we were so exhausted. At least we have a good story to tell and while at times we were a little frusterated with each other we made it through our first big frusteration as a married couple. And praise the Lord we had just gotten our tax return money deposited so the battery expenses weren't too big of a heartache. I guess there always is a little blessing despite all the frusterations. :)

On Function, Worship, and Heaven

Been a while since I've posted (read 6 months). Thought I'd share something I've been working on. Work in progress:

Heaven will be a place where we are perpetually fulfilling our function. We will be full. Like a cup fulfilling its function, we will be full. Here, we experience fleeting moments where we truly feel like we are fulfilling our functions. We will have just finished a speech where we felt we provoked real thought in our audience; we will have had an intimate conversation with a friend that leaves us with a buzzing of happiness and purpose; or, we will have finished a large project that has been looming over our heads and be able to look at our completed masterpiece with complete satisfaction. Or, maybe we’re walking along the street and just look into the sky. We’re moved by its beauty and, in this moment of reverential awe, we feel a tremendous gratification. I intentionally give relatively mundane examples to illustrate how this fulfillment of function can exist outside of spiritual heights. God has made us to take supreme satisfaction in work well done — be it our own, others’, or His.

Worship is fulfillment of function. It is not exclusive to singing or praying or tithing or any number of other things traditionally defined as worship. God created us with a longing to feel function. We desire nothing more than a validation of our existence. This is why we are constantly seeking the approval of our peers. This is why we are so obsessed with success. This is why we need something to believe in and some ideal with which to identify ourselves. At the end of the day, we want to believe that we are important. We need religion because we desperately want to find something larger than ourselves that we can graft ourselves onto in an attempt to escape our own perceived insignificance.

Lewis referred to the fleeting moments of incomparable satisfaction as joy. In his autobiography, he credits these precise moments as the gateway to his salvation. These are flickers of divinity escaping the trap of apathy we’ve been cursed with.

Heaven will be made up of nothing but these moments. While they are elusive and fleeting here, heaven will be nothing but these moments stacked one on top of the other. And it will never end. Right when we would normally feel this wondrous feeling flee, it will make way for an even more exhilarating one. It will never end. Like a gushing geyser, our function will be positively replete with fulfillment to the point of exudation.

- BLAKE

sure and certain

A status of my Mom's on Facebook prompted me to revisit the verse we have all heard from Hebrews 1 about faith. "Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see." As I read this verse again two words truly jump out to me when I think of the things in life that I have chosen to have faith in, sure and certain. Most of the time in life it seems like being sure or certain in anything is very hard. When someone tells us something that we don't think could be right we always ask, "Are you sure? Are you certain?".

When you really think about it, there are very few things in life that we can say we are sure and certain about, simply because of human nature. So often we make promises that we can not keep which leads those around us to question our certainty. My mom's status talked about "curve balls" that we experience in life. When I begin to think back on curve balls in my life and those around me, I see that time after time that is when our faith is most tested. And in those times when we choose to have faith in God's will, we experience the greatest blessings in our life. We may have to go through pain or be uncomfortable for a little while, but in the end we look back and see the blessings to come from it.

The one thing in my life that I am completely sure and certain of is my faith in the Lord. I know with full certainty that Jesus died on the cross and rose again to save the world from death, a death that separates us from eternal life in him. When the things of my life begin to become uncertain I turn back to my sure and certain Savior.