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The Luckiest

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Fireproof

Kevin and I watched the movie Fireproof this Valentine’s weekend.  It has been out for a while but we always wait until we can watch stuff on dvd.  What an amazing movie!  I had heard so many good things about it, and it definitely lived up to its reputation.  If you haven’t seen it here’s the basic plot: a couple Caleb and Catherine have been married for 7 years and they are fighting all the time and on the brink of divorce.  Caleb’s dad challenges him to hold off on signing divorce papers for 40 days so that he can try something called the “Love Dare”.  Each day he has to try doing a new challenge for his spouse- in hopes of restoring their marriage.  I won’t ruin all the details, but the movie definitely gives you a lot to think about.

On top of this, we had a discussion yesterday in community group about the Love passage from 1 Corinthians 13.  Both of these elements put together and all the talk from this weekend have drawn me to one conclusion: God is amazing.  Did I not think this before?  Well yes I did, but it’s so neat to see even more tangible examples of His love.

One of the best scenes in Fireproof is the “salvation scene” where Caleb’s father is explaining to him why it is so important that he keep pressing on and trying to love his wife even in spite of her anger and rejection.  Caleb asks his dad “How can I keep loving someone who constantly rejects me and spits in my face?”  His dad answers “Because that’s how God loves us.”

Now once again, I already knew this to be true about God.  But I have been even more aware of it lately.  So it got me thinking…what if someone had been able to stand up on your wedding day and read you a list or a story of all the things that were going to happen between you and your spouse in the future.  All the mean words that would be spoken, all the difficult situations you woud have to endure, all the surprises you would find out about each other.  And then if you were given the choice, would you still marry that person knowing all those things?  Obviously we can’t have that kind of foreseen knowledge.  But God does.  He knows every move we are ever going to make, both good and bad.  He knows how we are going to reject Him, and how many times we are going to hurt Him.  And He still chooses to love us, even to pursue us!  What an amazing Father we have; thank you Lord for Your love.

Life Lately

Okay I know, I am a horrible blogger.  And I know life is usually busy but this month has been extra busy, I promise!  This weekend I am so excited that we have nothing to do.  Well except for lots of school work but at least no where to go.  SO since I only wrote one post in all of January, let me try to catch you up on life.

We went to Georgia for another weekend with our married friends, plus got to meet baby Jake for the first time!

What a cutie!

This is only like our second “group” picture ever, which is surprising considering how many times we’ve gotten together to visit.

Maggie had a great time with her friend Cooper.

Last weekend we went to Pigeon Forge with our Community Group and it was lots of fun.  Kevin and I also ran into our pastor Tim while driving the church van, haha.  (We had to take the “late bus” and drove the luggage with us.)  He thought we were just out cruising on a Friday night

Here’s us with a few of the couples from our group.  Love you all!

Me and Kevin in Pigeon Forge. We spent most of the day walking around in town.  Kevin was sad he wasn’t able to get his giant 1000 calorie corndog because we never carry any cash.  I guess we have learned our lesson.  I was, however, able to chow down on a caramel candy apple which was soo yummy!

Now we are back in Birmingham, life as usual.  It’s funny to think about what “usual” means for us now that we have a dog.  Last night was date night (like every Thursday) but we don’t necessarily have to go out on date night.  Often we just stay in and cook, but we focus on spending the whole evening together + Maggie.  After our romantic dinner we embarked on about 20 minutes of both of us chasing her around the dining room table.  She is just the happiest dog ever.  Here’s the proof:

She’s hiding under the table thinking “Haha!  I won!”

I plan to spend a later post talking about how great our dog is (her birthday is in two weeks).  But for now let me just say how fun she is, and how much we laugh because of her.

The two loves in my life =)

2 Years and counting

This past Tuesday, the 6th, Kevin and I celebrated our 2nd wedding anniversary.  I really haven’t decided what “two years” feels like.  I mean on one hand it doesn’t seem like we’ve been married that long, but on the other hand I think that our wedding was ages ago.  Ah well, either way it is wonderful!  I guess you could say we’ve been ‘dating’ for almost 6 years now so that is a long time to us (a whole quarter of my life!)

Here is just a short list of the things I love so far about marriage:

• I get to be with my best friend all the time.  And it’s not like when you’re a little kid and you hang out with your friend for too long and you both start to get sick of each other.  No in this case, the more time I spend with him the more time I want to spend with him.
• There is someone who knows me SO well.  And I’m sure in two years we have only tapped the surface (I can’t imagine what we’ll know in 50 years.)  But it goes back to the best friend thing.  There are probably at least 5-10 times a day when something funny happens and we both laugh at an inside joke without having to even finish a sentence.
• Our home is a haven.  I truly mean this- I love coming home at the end of the day, and I don’t use the word love lightly.  It’s not because I think we have a nice house, although we are blessed with one.  Physical surroundings have nothing to do with it.  No matter what has gone on during the day, good or bad, I get to come home to someone who loves me and just be myself.  No pretending, no trying to please other people.  I simply get to relax with my husband…that is when he’s not at school and when the dog is not chewing on us
• I don’t have worries or doubts.  Well maybe that doesn’t apply to everything, I do get stressed.  But not about our marriage.  With God’s help that is one of the solid things I know I can depend on.
• I love being in love.  Sorry if you are finding this all too mushy but hey it’s my blog so I can say it   I mean I know relationships aren’t for everyone and it is completely fine to be single.  But let’s face it- being married is so much better than not being married (for us anyway).  Someone at school this week said to me “you must be celebrating a first or second anniversary because you still have that look.”  I hope they still say that when I’m 70 hehe.

Well that’s all for the ooey gooey stuff I suppose.  I wish I had a cute picture to post from this annviersary, but alas Kevin and I don’t take enough pictures lately!  If you’ve noticed the new picture at the top of our blog is actually from last January 6th when we had our ‘photo shoot’.  That one will do for now.