78 Days-Romance

So, James is uber-sweet. Today he surprised me by showing up at 5:00 just as I was getting off work and taking me to get Graeter's ice cream-yummy! In addition, he handed me a very creative card he made himself-the perfect combination of romance, kindness and well cheesiness-I LOVED IT! James is very romantic and always takes extra time to do special things for me to make me feel loved.

It is my hope and prayer as we look forward to being married in 78 days that I too will be proactive in being romantic towards him. Here are some snippets from Love that Lasts, chapter seven on the purpose of romance in marriage:

"Romance is to be continually practiced, like an art. The basic tools that you asa budding artist must bring to your bring to your craft include a heart of humility, a spirit of servanthood, a biblical understanding of marriage, and a fervent desire to know and love your spouse as consistently and creatively as possible."

"The goal of marriage is to train your attractions, affections, and desires to fit only one person."

"Romance to us simply means communicating - in as many consistent creativeways as we can - that our spouse is the most important, precious, desirable person we will ever know."

"God's ultimate purpose for romance is the same as his purpose for marriage:to bring himself glory, and to bring us blessing, and to demonstrate theremarkable relationship between Christ and the Church."

Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it.

Song of Solomon 8:7

Sable

Sable is the best dog in the world-I can't wait to see her this weekend when I go home. Here's the story of Sable.

Sable showed up with two male bird dogs at church on Sunday. Nope, not there to worship Jesus (though I'm sure if human Sable would be among the elect). Apparently someone dropped them off which happens quite frequently since the church is out in the country. Anyway she and the three boys lived at church for close to a month-eating what they could find, sleeping under the porch, and participating in all kinds of tail-wagging and licking on Wednesdays and Sundays when people were present. After some time, one of the deacons who shall remain nameless was overhead saying he was going to call the pound because obviously the dogs were not going to leave on their own. That's when Marvin, Kay and I sprung into action.

After taking all the kids home from church-we went back to the church and put the dogs in the church van. Sounds easy enough, but what I'm not mentioning is that the three (remember they're fully grown) dogs weren't exactly excited about being shoved into a church van..but alas those of us with aposeable thumbs won. We drove them three doors down and put them in the fenced-in backyard of Marvin & Kay. All should be well, right? Well, we silly humans underestimated our new doggie-friends. The next morning they were gone-back down at church. Seems they jumped the fence-all three of them. After three rounds of playing shove the dogs in the church van-they finally gave up and starting to stay in the fence-I feel the stead supply of Doggie Chow had something to do with it.

We found a good home for the male bird-dogs (who turned out to be lousy hunters-probably why they were dropped off) and Sable's been our's ever since-edging in on about 5 years now. We think she's about 9 years old now and probably a flat-haired retriever. She's literally the best dog in the world-obeys, patient with the little white dogs, loveable, would do anything for a cookie, and fierce towards strangers.

81 days-Two become One

So, I've been thinking about marriage a lot recently-figures since I'll be married in 81 days!

Aside from all the excitement, I do find myself mysteriously sad at times. Talk of changing my name, merging bank accounts, adding him to my Verizon service, possibly changing to his church, etc...I've had times when I've thought 'I'm losing me!' It's like once you get married you're no longer yourself-you're this new person who's now connected/part of this other person. While I love James dearly, I find that often my depraved selfish side rises up and wants to remain independent, do my own thing, spend my own money, be me and only me-disconnected from anyone.

God continues to graciously calm these independent streaked moments with the reminder that yes-marriage means giving up yourself and being eternally connected to someone else. In fact, in God's eyes it's a brand new being- the two become one in his sight. God won't see Melissa attached to James or James now attached to Melissa-but a brand new thing-mysterious!

This is such a mirror of the gospel. Once God graciously saves us, Scriptures tells us we're new creatures. We're now connected to Christ, indwelled by the Holy Spirit--forever. Preparing for marriage and dealing with the fact that in a few months I will be the same Melissa yet also a very different, brand new Melissa has given me a new appreciation for the fact that 22 years ago I truly became a new Melissa, though the same old Melissa is still in there, I'm a very different Melissa-a new creature in Christ's salvation.

shout out

Check out this link to Paul Tripp Ministries. Currently, he's working through the Psalms verse by verse--hugely encouraging.

http://paultrippministries.blogspot.com/

Picnics, Dead Poets Society, Viruses, & Mean Girls

Happy Valentines' Day!

So, this was my first real Valentines Day with a loved one. Well actually, I did have one Valentines Day with a boyfriend in High School but I like to block out that period of my life!

Picnics:
James and I didn't get to spend a lot of time together on Valentines Day itself as I worked all day and he had class until 10:00pm. However, he did come to my office at lunch and we had a indoor picnic! He is so sweet-bringing me flowers, candy and fun Valentines' socks (I LOVE fun socks). He was supposed to call me after his class got out, but instead surprised me by showing up at the apartment. And in his sweet nature, brought small flower bouquets for my roomies as well!

Dead Poets:
Friday night after ESL, James & I had our first double date. We ate dinner and watched a movie, Dead Poets Society with Megan & Jay. In actuality, we were more like chaperones as Megan is only 17 and her bf not much older. But all in all, we had a blast hanging with this sweet couple. We spent 2 hours trying to teach ESL to our sweet cubans, then stuffed ourselves silly on rolls and potato soup at O'Charley's before going back to the Posey's basement to watch a movie. In traditional Melissa-fashion, I was asleep within ten minutes of the movie starting and woke up at the credits.

Viruses
My name is Melissa and I am a bad computer owner. First, I let my Anti-Virus expire. Now, I have a trojan. Thankfully, my roomie Sarah is quite the Tech-girl and has been working tirelessly fixing my PC.

Mean Girls
Lastly, on Sunday I took my Middle School girls out for their annual Valentines Day Celebration. The plan was: church, lunch, and movie. The day went as planned but God used it as an opportunity to show me a lot about the character of my girls. In the car on the way to lunch, my girls had a yearbook out and were basically blasting everyone in the yearbook as either ugly, stupid, weird, etc...I had to stop the car at one point, tell them in my best teacher/parent voice to put away the yearbook and inform them that pretty is as pretty does and that presently they were all pretty ugly. Man was I frustrated with these girls! I remember doing the same thing and am trying to remember what God did to teach me this important lesson so I can pass that on to my girls. Please pray for me and them.

Psalm 56:3

When I am afriad I will put my trust in you.

Growing up, I was a fearful child--afraid of the dark, afraid of bugs (yeah, still got that one), afraid of the woods behind my house, basically I was one scaredy cat! This hymn is one I learned at church as a small girl that always seemed to help me when I was afraid-I still find myself humming it today when I am anxious or fearful. May it encourage you as well:

'Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus,
Just to take Him at His word.
Just to rest upon His promise,
Just to know, Thus saith the Lord.

How I love to trust in Jesus,
Just to trust His cleansing blood.
Just in simple faith to plunge me
'Neath the healing cleansing flood!

Yes, it's sweet to trust in Jesus,
And from sin and self to cease.
Now from Jesus simply taking
Life and rest and joy and peace.

I'm so glad I'm learning to trust Him,
Precious Jesus, Savior, Friend,
And I know that He is with me,
He'll be with me to the end.

Chorus:
Jesus, Jesus, how I trust Him!
How I've proved Him o'er and o'er!
Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus!
Of for grace to trust Him more!

Words by Louisa Stead, 1882, after witnessing her husband's drowning.

One More Time...

So I've tried this blogging thing before and was never really any good at keeping up with it. But I've decided to try again--so here we go...