Wedding Pinterest Day!

This is my favorite!!!!!! Chalkboard middle, with burlap and wire for pics!

My dear friend and Crafty Wedding Coordinator, Meg "Ms. Egg" Mattingly, made a special trip up to stay with me for the sole purpose of helping me craft, sand, paint, staple, dance, and craft more!

The plan is to use these things for wedding decor and then put them up in our new home, but that may not go as planned. I am not sure what I will actually get to use for the wedding, just because of practical things like we're not allowed to hang things on the wall of our reception center. .. and I'm sure our home will not be big enough to put all of this in there. But all of it WILL be put to good use!

Yes, many of these ideas are from Pinterest, but some are from Ms. Egg herself and some are from other people I picked up along the way. Pretty sure NONE of these were creative ideas of my own. =) My special gift is that I'm good at discovering others' creative ideas and finding people to help me make the ideas happen. =)

Check it out!!

One of Adam and I's favorite songs ever. =)

The crafty genius herself!

Workin hard with all her burlap!

This has wires across it to hang pics. Love the worn look. =)

Yay chalkboard!

Meg did an incredible job with these doors!! Incredible I say!

Chicken wire inside to hang pictures on!

This one is not complete but at least its painted fun!

Burlap frame with wire across to hang pictures!!
Probably my second favorite!
This was totally Meg's awesome idea!

This Man

This is the man I am marrying on January 21st, 2012.

This man is a man's man.

This man loves me deeply.

This man is a taaaaaalker.

This man is goofy and hilarious.

This man is a farmer at heart.

This man has pursued me well.

This man came out of no-where in my life.

This man is very analytical and he is deeper than the ocean.

This man digs into my emotions, my intellect, and my spirit.

This man likes to teach me how to dance. =)

This man fights for me. Really fights for me.

This man shares his thoughts and emotions with me reaaaally well.

This man just straight up communicates really well.

This man knows how to be fun, silly, and crazy.

This man knows how to be deep, thoughtful, and serious.

This man loves Jesus a lot.

This man loves me a lot.

This man is perfect for me and I simply can not wait to spend the rest of my life with him!

I've just had the urge to write this all down and share it with the world. . . .

Cups

(This was just a "thought/vision" that came to my mind yesterday)

I'm in a large, large room filled with tables
On these tables are many, many cups.

Its a room
filled
with
cups.

And the cups are filled with liquid.
Completely full to the brim.
I'm surrounded by these cups.

Most of these cups are filled with Anxiety and Stress.
I'm searching desperately for the cup of Peace.

It has to be in here.
I just know it.
In a room FILLED with cups, there has to be at least one cup of peace!
I'm frantically searching. But only with my eyes.
I'm not moving around much in fear that I may hit one of the tables and make all those cups of anxiety spill. It would take just ONE little nudge for that to happen.

I'm trying not to be frantic as I search for the cup of Peace, as that seems contradictory.
How will I find the cup of peace if I am anxious?

But how can I NOT be filled with anxiety when I am literally surrounded by millions of cups, brimming full, of Anxiety and it seems nearly impossible to spot the cup of Peace, especially when I've never been good at puzzles or any games that require you to spot something that is hidden amidst lots of craziness???

But I spot it.
It actually wasn't across the room from me.
It was at a table very near to me!
I didn't have to take but one step to reach it--right in the middle of a table surrounded by Anxiety.
I pick it up with shaking hands being as careful as possible NOT to nudge the others.
The thought of Anxiety spilling over in this room is overwhelmingly frightening.

I put the cup to my lips and begin to drink the cup of Peace with eyes closed.
Oh how refreshing.
How sweet!
How fulfilling.

My body relaxes.
My eyes are gently closed.

And then it happens.

An earthquake.

The room trembles.
The ground shakes.

My eyes pop open to see the planks of liquid across the tops of the cups ripple out to the edges.
A room full of cups of Anxiety--trembling.

I keep the cup of Peace to my lips.
Continuing to drink deeply.
I know I mustn't put it down for an instant.

The earthquake gets stronger.
A few cups spill over the edge.
A few more cups are actually knocked over!

My body begins to tense up, but I do not put down the cup at my lips.
And as I gulp, my body eases and I remember what I am drinking.
The cups are spilling over--a room full of Anxiety spilling over--and my body remains relaxed.
My breathes remain deep.
My eyes gently shut again.

As long as that cup is against my lips and the liquid continues to flow into my mouth and down into my body, I am safe.

I am secure.

I am relaxed.
I am filled with Peace.
And it is sweet.

And the cup never runs empty.
No matter how much I tilt it up.
It continues to flow.

I must only keep it to my lips and never put it back down.
And no matter how much anxiety spills around me, washes my feet, fills the room, tries to drown me--it will not succeed as long as the cup of Peace is held to my lips, flowing into my body.

I must cling to the cup of Peace.

Broken and Faithful

Tuxedo in the closet, gold band in a box
Two days from the altar she went and called the whole thing off
What he thought he wanted, what he got instead
Leaves him broken and grateful

I passed understanding a long, long time ago
And the simple home of systems and answers we all know

I keep wanting you to be fair
But that's not what you said
I want certain answers to these prayers
But that's not what you said

When I get to heaven I'm gonna go find Job
I want to ask a few hard questions, I want to know what he knows
About what it is he wanted and what he got instead
How to be broken and faithful

Staring in the water like Esops foolish dog
I can't help but reflect on what it was I almost lost
What I thought I wanted
And what I got instead

I want to be broken, peaceful, faithful, grateful

These are lyrics from quite possibly my favorite song writer ever, Sara Groves.

How true these words are. How they are the cry, the anthem of my heart!

I truly have "passed understanding" a long time ago. I still have the instinct in me that tries so desperately to understand why things happen the way they do. I still want things to make sense in their neat little boxes. I want explanations. I want a+b=c.

But in my short life, it has become quite apparent to me--that search will be in vain.

We are in a teaching series at church right now about this whole idea.
Believing in a God who is "in the space after the question marks."

About how we tell God, "Fix this! Fix this! But if you're not gonna fix it, at least make sense of it."
And so often, he simply does make sense of it.

What if learned to be more like this song implies?
Broken, yet faithful.
Broken, yet grateful.
Broken, yet peaceful.

Our brokenness does not have to go away.
We do not have to fake it.
I am broken.

The truth is, when we don't get what we wanted and when we don't get what we thought was really good and we really thought it was from God-- well then, we are broken.

But is there a way to be faithful, grateful, and peaceful inside that brokenness?

Is there a way to look at "what we got instead" of what we wanted and be grateful with that? Be peaceful about that?

I believe there is a way.

Reteach a Thing its Loveliness

The bud
stands for all things,
even for those things that don't flower,
for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;
though sometimes it is necessary
to reteach a thing its loveliness,
to put a hand on its brow
of the flower
and retell it in words and in touch
it is lovely
until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing;
as Saint Francis
put his hand on the creased forehead
of the sow, and told her in words and in touch
blessings of earth on the sow,
and the sow began remembering all down her thick length,
from the earthen snout all the way
through the fodder and slops to the spiritual curl of the tail,
from the hard spininess spiked out from the spine
down through the great broken heart
to the sheer blue milken dreaminess spurting and shuddering
from the fourteen teats into the fourteen mouths sucking and blowing beneath them:
the long, perfect loveliness of sow.

--Galway Kinnell
"Saint Francis and the Sow"

Lemonade

I've been attempting to "make lemonade" recently.

It's really quite strange how that cliche line has been playing through my head so frequently these days.

I found myself telling people, or telling myself, "Oh you know, just trying to make lemonade out of the lemons."

Foolish. Silly. Cliche. Lame.

That's what I think after I say that, whether audibly or inaudibly.

Nonetheless, it is true.

I am making lemonade.

Some days it is sweeter than others.

Some days its plain sour as heck.

Some days it has that perfect taste of sweetness with a touch of sour at the end that leaves no doubt that this lemonade was made from fresh, REAL lemons.

And is there a better kind of lemonade than the one made with fresh, real lemons?

I think not.

If there is one thing I have learned in my short existence on this earth, it's that we can always, always make lemonade out of lemons.

In fact, there is nothing else we can do with those lemons except make lemonade.

Well, there is the option of squeezing it on your salmon, brocoli, salad dressing, or a plethora of other delicious uses for lemons in cooking that simply makes your food 100 times more incredible.

Point is: lemons by themselves--not so good. Lemons mixed with other things--DELICIOUS.

Sometimes, you get really hard lemons.

They are incredibly difficult to squeeze.

It takes two hands.

It takes rolling it around on the counter for a while.

It takes a lot of work.

But does that dismiss the fact that lemonade is still possible?

I think not.

Sometimes--ok, many times-- I don't want to make lemonade.

Many times, I just want to suck on the lemon itself.

Screw lemonade.

Forget the sugar.

Give me the frickin lemon and watch me make faces.
I don't want sweet.
I'm mad and I just want a lemon!

Sometimes that's okay.

But after a couple of days, your mouth can only take so much and you just need to bite the bullet and make some frickin lemonade.

And you enjoy it.

And you savor it.

And it is splendid.

"Seperation"

Your absence goes through me
Like thread through a needle.
Everything I do is stitched with its color.

--W.S. Merwin,
"Separation"

As I read
these words pierced my heart
again and again
as I read and reread
again and again.

How humorous it is when we stumble upon the most apropos of words at certain moments that have never before been brought to our eyes.