Goodness...

My Husband is a good, no actually a truly great man, hindered only by sin (which it turns out is kind of a big deal). Yet he continues to be a wonderful and loving man despite this heavy burden. His patience with me this past weekend, and genuine love has made me realize even more how blessed I am to have him. He has been becoming such a good friend to me lately, sometimes in marriage it is so easy to be distracted by "living married" and all that this means to the extreme of forgetting WHO you're married to, and why you're even in this relationship. Because of him I am learning so much about who I am to be in Christ, and the type of relationship that I should be fostering in Christ. It is so good.
My Sister is a blessing to me. I did not choose her, in fact for years I despised the fact that she had been born to be my shadow, and yet she has been one of the best influencers of my life. Who she is challenges me to be a better version of myself. She loves me unconditionally and always has, even when I did not even care about her. Because of her I have seen love in action as no one else can show it to me. I got to spend some time with her this week and as always was blessed by her gentle and quiet spirit, it was good.
My Friend is a woman who has three children, and a busy life but always squeezes me in when I'm around. I am always simply swallowed into her life when I'm with her. On every level she is vulnerable, and open emotionally, spiritually, relationally and I love it. I sense that she is never any less herself with any person, and in fact she encourages them to be more themselves as Christ intends them to be. It is such an encouragement to watch her with her equally mature Christian husband as they interact with their children, and others in a way that you know Christ must be pleased. Because of her I aspire to be more than I ever would have thought possible, not only because of who she is, but because of who she really believes that I am and can be.
There are so many other people who have influenced, and changed me. People who have been like 'iron sharpening iron' to me, but these three are probably the most influential of all time in my life, and I spent time with them all this week... which ultimately means that this was a good week... a blessed time, and I'm grateful.

Is this real??

I will be gone in just about a week... and I'm in a quandry over how to respond when people ask if I'm excited... because of course I'm excited, but I don't know how to make you understand that I'm scared out of my mind that I will fail, or be stupid, or shame my husband, or worst of all that I will hate it and never want to do this thing again. I guess if everything was about me like this blog then that would matter in the grand scheme of things, but if I'm honest with myself I know this is not about me, so the success of it is not about me either... now if I could only convince myself that this is the real truth...

Memories

This month Jake and I have been focusing a lot on making memories with family and friends. I know some of you think that can't possibly be true because you've barely seen anything of us. That is simply a result of how many friends we do have, we've been so blessed. So we have been spending as much time with people as we can, and soaking them up (hoping that leaving won't be as hard, I guess). We've been to weddings, and traveled a lot. We've had dinner out at nice places, we've done new, exciting, and adventurous things, and celebrated many events with those we love. And after all of it I still don't feel like it will be enough to get me through three months in another country. I'm going to miss everyone so much.

These memories are going to mean a lot to me come August. Thank you.

visas

They came

We're going

For real

Wow

Actions

deleting my emails in my work account
sending update letters to all of our friends and family
hanging out with friends
planning to hold a baby on Thursday
boating (maybe)
hoping for the last door to open for this trip
writing lists of things to get done before we leave
spending time with people
waiting...

Pass or Fail

You know how occasionally a professor will give you a test that is simply pass/fail. It's easy right? I mean the stress to perfom is a bit higher, but in the end you either did it or you didn't. That's how I look at life all the time, there aren't levels of success only success or failure. There are aspects where this is good because it means that I am driven to excellence, however there are a lot of gray areas in real life that get overlooked because of this perspective.
Honestly it's kind of a poor way of viewing things because I can never rejoice in any small betterment, and I'm often critical of those who are experiencing failure of any kind. In my mind the presence of failure is the absence of success. I hate it.
Life the way I see it is pass/fail and I'm failing. And I don't know how to change my view so that life is more rewarding.

my body

Ok, so I'm fat, maybe not the lady who can't walk or do anything because she's fat, but I am fat. I'm obsessed with it even more than babies (and just ask my husband that's quite the obsession). I may not need surgical intervention, but basic redirection is definitely in order. How did I get here? I used to be so good, I ate right, I was active, and I was not obsessive. It was the good life, and I looked good too. Is it just age, and the shifting metabolism? Or is my focus the thing that's shifted? I want to be healthy again, but I'm afraid after focusin on weightloss, and trying for over two years that it's never going to happen. I'm on the fast track to diabetes, and heart failure because for my height I am dangerously obese. And even if every single health test on the internet didn't tell me so, I would know something is wrong because I can feel it in the core of my being. So is this just the fallen world finally catching up with me, or is this still something I'm meant to fight, even possibly win?