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!).

The Return to Narnia (or wherever)

Just a quickie for now as my lovely wife and I are about to depart and (finally) watch The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian.

I want to thank you guys so much for praying for us and encouraging us through the months of our courtship. It seemed like forever, but now the waiting is over, and we've just begun.

I'll try to provide a more detailed post about the wedding in the next couple of days, because of course I want to talk about it. No pictures yet, sorry, the only one I've seen is on my wonderful mother-in-law's blog (pursuingjoy.blogspot.com). If you have pictures, please please please send them to me (or post them on your blog); my wife and I (and quite a few other people) really want to see them!

Man, there's so much to talk about, but no time now, Narnia is calling us back!

God bless you all; no, we aren't abandoning our blogs; and yes, in case you're wondering (and I'm sure you are), MARRIED LIFE ROCKS MY FACE OFF!!!

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).

The Birthday of My Bride!

Today was Lana Marie's birthday!!!

And it was wonderful and I got to be with her all day and give her presents and buy her lunch and take her to the park and other stuff.

Yay for birthdays and for my Lana! I love you! And I was so glad to be with you and make your 20th birthday even more special!

Eric O'Brien is running from his past...still...

Check out the first theatrical trailer for the most anticipated movie of the year! And let me know, in the comments section, if you find any theaters that are interested in playing it. ;-p

I'll post more later as I have time. But for right now, I'll just say that man, God is good! It's been yet another crazy week, full of highs and lows, but He loves me so much and He shows me so much grace. I love you, Father!

And I praise Him for the woman He has given me for life. There's definitely a double meaning there; not only will I have her for the rest of my life (unless the Lord takes her home), but she keeps my life going. My Lana Marie, I love you so much, and I can't believe we're now LESS than four weeks from lawfully wedding! ("Wedding" is a verb in the previous sentence, in case the rest of you readers are wondering.)

Life is good, because God is good!

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...