Afterglow

So yeah, your face really does glow after that first kiss.

On May 23, 2008, I wedded the love of my life, Lana Marie.  Tonight we have completed the first of (Lord willing) many years together.  I praise my God for the love He has lavished on me and my wife.  Thank You, Father, for this good and perfect gift!

To my Lana, I say:

The springtime's arriving, the blossoms appear
The rain's gone away, and our love song is here
So come with me, darling, my beautiful one
'Cause the winter is over, and we've just begun

I love you.

Married life

First off, got to go to AARON and MEGAN's wedding today!!! Kudos to the new Mr. and Mrs. A-Luv! Just watching his face throughout the ceremony was a fun experience; he looked, as my dad put it later, like a little kid on Christmas morning. He and Megan are such a blessing; it's been so neat to watch them come into our church, pray to receive Christ, grow in the Lord, fall in love, and now start a new life together as husband and wife.

We're kinda just chillin at home right now; Lana's lying on the bed reading Calvin and Hobbes (we got the complete three-volume collection as a wedding present from wonderful Uncle John and Aunt Angie!) while I post. She made the most awesome stuff for dinner tonight. I just asked her what it's called and she bravely made up the title of "Creamy...Rice and...Chicken Bake". Sounds good to me, love. Anyways, it is fantastic; all you cook-type people have got to get the recipe from her. She told me it's an old family recipe, dating back to about 5:00 this afternoon.

Married life is quite fun. I don't want to pretend that it's always easy; things like overflowing garbage and wrinkled pants and black bean soup that didn't turn out just right, do pop up from time to time. But we are so happy; God has blessed us so much, and it is so cool to be together as husband and wife.

So, my final verdict on courtship, now that I have forever left it? I am more convinced than ever that it is absolutely worth it. Wait on the Lord, wait, wait, wait, and He will bless you a hundredfold for it. It may not seem like such a big deal to dabble with that special someone now, to dip your toes in the whirlpool of romance and swirl them around. But I can tell you, after holding back and finally being freed to give my everything to my bride, that doing things God's way is infinitely better than doing what excites us at the time. Do not awaken love until its appropriate time, the Bible says. Do not, DO NOT, DO NOT!! There, I'm done preaching...for now.

As for the wedding, yes, I hope to post some pics at some point. I'm sure you've seen Lana's blog (if not, go check it out, for pete's sake!); she's got a lot of photos there. For now, all I'll say about the wedding is:
"Since the invention of the kiss, there have been five kisses that were rated the most passionate, the most pure. This one left them all behind."

God bless ya'll, and I hope to post again sooner (and who knows, maybe I'll have some news on that elusive most anticipated film of the year!).

Just over a day left...

I'm writing this post from my and Lana's apartment. Sitting on the black couch, listening to the hum of the air conditioner (well, along with Michael W. Smith on my lappytop). It's the home God has provided for us. What an incredible blessing; thank You, Lord!

Just chillin' here (and getting a few things done while I chill, I should add) before I head over to the rehearsal. Ahh...

I love my house. It's not really a house, I know, but I won't be able to stop calling it that. It's just...so crazy, to sit on the couch and see all the stuff we've brought in thus far. And to know that a week from tomorrow, Lana and I will be settling down here -- to live together.

And by that time, we'll have been married for a week -- AHHHHHH!!!!

I want to quote my song, man I do, but I can't, I'm saving it back. The world premiere for it is tomorrow night at 7 pm, if anyone wants to attend.

Wow, I'm getting married in about twenty-seven hours. And I still haven't really gotten nervous yet. I figured I would, I'm still expecting it to hit me at any minute. But so far it's just like, wow, wow, it's really happening and the greatest day of my life really is tomorrow. Wow. Praise God, praise God, praise God.

Thank you all for praying for me and Lana, and please don't stop now. Pray especially for the wedding, not for us (although we'd appreciate it) so much as for those who attend. I believe God wants our wedding to be a powerful testimony of His grace and love. Not everyone who will be there knows Jesus.

A thought just hit me. We do an Easter program every year in our church, and at times I've wondered what it would be like to play Jesus. I so respect Jason, the guy who currently does it; he takes it so seriously and lets God work through him.

But, um, wow, get this, this just occurred to me: Tomorrow night, I'm playing Jesus. Our wedding is a picture, an acting out of the Great Romance between Christ and His people. Lana represents the Church. And as the groom, I will be standing in the place of my Savior. What a thought!

OK, so now I'm a little bit nervous.

I'll try to post tomorrow, but in case I don't have time, God bless you guys, and thanks for the prayers!

HE POSTS

Hello chums, just a quick word from this side of the universe.

Sorry I haven't posted in a long long time. These days, usually the only time I have to write about what's going on in my life is when I'm penning e-mails to my beloved Lana. And, you can ask her, even those don't come everyday.

Busy busy busy...

But it is now one week until the biggest day of my and Lana's lives. Hard to believe; just another blink and we'll be married.

Unfortunately this blink still seems rather lengthy to me...

Working on doing my part for the ceremony (which certainly isn't much at all, compared to what my bride and her mother are doing) and planning the honeymoon, which is fairly delightful. And, oh yeah, I have a job now (PRAISE THE LORD!); hopefully you've read about it on Lana's blog. Christian bookstores are the bomb, I love the atmosphere and the people and all the cool stuff that's lying all around the store.

Tonight Lana and I are going to a blessing party, just for us, put together by some dear friends of our families. Just having the party alone is a blessing to us, but they have invited our parents and a few other couples that we know, and they are going to bless us verbally. How awesome is that? Praise the Lord; it should be a wonderful evening!

Well, I'm going to go to bed now, then get up and go to work, then off to the blessing party and getting to be with my beautiful fiancee.

Shalom out, my Hebrew homies. See you next Friday (at least, I might see you before SHE enters the room).

Where I am right now

I really haven't posted in a long time, have I?


Going to Lana's church tomorrow. I'm looking forward to it; should be a pretty different style of service than what I'm used to, and that's a good thing. And of course, I'm just excited about getting to be with Lana and her family.

Then, that afternoon at her church, we have the second of our wedding showers! Yippee great and glorious joy! The one last Sunday, at my church, was a blast, and now we get to do another one! Pretty cool to think about getting presents from a bunch of people most of whom I've never met.

Heading into the home stretch with school; three weeks of class left. It's strange, the way semesters go by. You get situated in your new classes, then you get used to them and they just become a part of regular life, then before you know it they're wrapping up. Cannot wait to bid this semester farewell and head into what promises to be the greatest summer of my life.

Forty days left till marriage. Sounds very surreal, yet for some reason it isn't, to me. It just feels right, to know that I'm spending my last few days in my family's house, that I will soon leave it and not come back (except to visit, of course), that I will begin to live with Lana and continue living with her for the rest of my life.

As I prepare for that, I'm still looking for one key component -- my job. The company that I have been working for had to downsize this year and I probably won't be working for them again in the foreseeable future. So I'm exploring options and trying to find a job. My personal goal is to have a job by the end of this coming week, so please pray that God will guide my search and lead me to the job He has for me, in His time.

That's all for now. Sorry for the length of time between posts; hopefully I'll be able to post more frequently in the future. God bless all of you.

The Slow March of Time

Wanted to write one more post while it's still March. Especially while it's still March 31. Because as my lover wrote for a school assignment due today, "March 31 only comes once a year - celebrate it!"

Right now I am glad to be finished with March, mostly because it allows me to move on to April, and after April comes - well, you know. All sorts of people are now telling me how quickly May 23 will come. And well, yeah, it is - and I kinda feel bad that it's coming quickly for my dear future mom-in-law, because she has so much to do to get ready, and even though it's a special day for her, she's not the one getting married. I don't guess I've thanked you for all your work, Mrs. T - Thank you so much! It overwhelms me how hard you're working to make my and Lana's day even more special.

But I'm not the mother-in-law, I'm the groom, and May 23 seems so far away still. I miss Lana so badly. I even miss her when I'm with her now - not because her presence is lacking in some way; I'm missing something else, that we've never had and won't have until the wedding day. It hurts to not be able to hold her hand or kiss her or wrap my arms around her. But I know, however much of an eternity it may seem, the end is very near.

I wrote an article for the upcoming CtB (which is, BTW, the last one, if you hadn't heard that yet) about waiting for my wedding and how it must parallel Jesus' waiting for His own wedding. Definitely something I'd never thought about before.

Well, I'm gonna go to bed now. Please be in prayer for me and Lana, especially Lana in the next few days; she has a lot of school assignments to do and not much time to do them. And also, we've been going through some...well, spiritual warfare, is the way she put it today, and I think that's right. So pray that God will focus our hearts on Him and that we will trust Him with everything.

BTW, I apologize for the title of this post. It's terrible, I know. I just couldn't resist...

People

Just a quick post for now as I need to hit the hay pretty soon.

My birthday on Thursday was flippin' awesome. Hope to have more about that in the next day or two...

It is absolutely unreal to be well into the double digits of the countdown to my wedding. Today it's been two months since I dropped to my knee and gave my girl a ring and could officially call myself her fiance. In another three months, we'll already be married. Wow...

I praise God for the life He has given me. It's often a struggle, often painful, but it's just so...abundant, I guess, is a good word. Most often I see how abundant it is in the people God has put in my life. I have my darling fiancee, my immediate family, her immediate family, church family, homeschoolers...it's just so cool.

God is starting to pound into my head that people are what matter most on this earth. The people I love dearly, the people I walk past at school, the people I see in church when I'm leading worship. Every one of them is made in the image of God, every one has a story, every one has a purpose. Jesus died to save every one of them. He knows the plans He has for them, plans to prosper them and not to harm them, plans to give them a future and a hope.

People like James T. from church and Bob my former Theater prof and Austin from Riverwalk and Gary who lives across the street and Ryan my cousin and Andria my supervisor at work. They all matter so much to the heart of God. And my life has made an impact on each of theirs, in radically different ways, in ways that I'll never comprehend. And I've impacted thousands of others.

And I continue to have influence, I continue to make a difference, for better or for worse, in the lives of so many people around me -- the ones who mean the most to me, and the ones I'll never meet.

But I don't want to focus on that; talk about the pressure that would ensue! My focus should all be on the one who created this universe and this tiny earth and all the eternal souls that dwell therein. And then He came into His creation, coming not to be served but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.

He's the One pulling the strings; He commands the breadth of my influence. All good comes from Him, and thus it is not merely immoral but useless to point my focus anywhere else. He will change the hearts of people. He emptied Himself for them, suffered the ultimate sacrifice that they might be set free.

May the same mind be in me that was also in Him.

School starts tomorrow...

Tomorrow it's:
History and Development of the English Language 10:00-10:50
History of the United States 1900-1945 11:00-11:50
Editing for Usage, Style, and Clarity 1:00-2:15

Then on Thursday I have:
Imaginative Writing 9:30-10:45
Advanced Nonfiction Writing 12:30-1:45

Right now I'm actually almost excited about the semester. Well, maybe it would be more accurate to say that I'm not dreading it (which is still pretty good). Mr. Cooper, a wonderful instructor who taught two of my classes last semester, returns as my Editing prof. And I've got my all-time (thus far) favorite instructor, Ann Winters, for Imaginative Writing.

And I've got my all-time favorite classmate for four of my five classes, so that's, like, pretty much the greatest thing about this semester. No, it really is. That and the fact that it's my last semester as a bachelor.

It's pretty cool because every week, I can be counting down to not just summer break, but the most anticipated day of my life too. Wait, did I say pretty cool? Yeah, that's amazing stacey.

Printing CtB on Friday, Lord willing. Thank you to all who subscribe to this magazine and help it in any way. We've been doing it for over two years now!

And let me just take this opportunity to say that I love my fiancee and she is the most incredible person in the world! Lana, my darling, you're so godly and beautiful and smart and thoughtful and Christ-like and loving and sensitive, and I cannot wait to wed you nineteen weeks from this Friday!

A day draws near

"A day draws near that I have looked for in all the years of my manhood, and when it comes I would have my friends beside me." - Aragorn, The Return of the King

I remember driving home in near-total ecstasy on the night of Thursday, August 23, unable to believe what God had just allowed me to experience with the love of my life. Since I am, of course, a Lord of the Rings nerd, the above quote popped into my brain, and I resolved to post it on my blog.

Except, I quickly realized, it wasn't really that appropriate for the onset of my and Lana's courtship. It would find more apt use in the announcement of our wedding date. Accordingly, I give it now.

It gives me great pleasure to announce to the breathless ears of cyberspace, that if the Lord wills, Lana Marie and I will be united in holy matrimony on Friday, May 23. Please mark your calendars and make your plans accordingly.

As for where the wedding and reception will take place and what time, we'll let you know when we get a little closer to May 23.

Shalom out, my Hebrew homies.