Author: debbie beal

We bought a house.

We can’t post a picture of our smiling mugs in front of our new house with a “SOLD” sign though.
We actually haven’t been in it yet, but we bought it. So there’s that.

It’s one of those big life things you usually do at some point after your married, as you dream about the future and the memories you might make in between those walls…

But, ours didn’t really go like that.
Let’s back up a month and some change. My husband has his birthday. I ask him the birthday questions. Question #2: “What’s one thing you want to accomplish in the next year of your life?”

I want to invest our money.
It wasn’t a new sentiment. It’s something we had been talking about since before we were married, but we hadn’t figured out the best way to do it. Little did I know how quickly this accomplishment would play out.

The following day, we placed a bid on a house in an online house auction in Missouri. It’s one of those things you let your husband do because it’s not actually going to turn into anything real. Although we hadn’t seen it, others (trusted others) had. It seemed like a good deal- you know, with all of my real estate knowledge that I don’t actually have. But, I went with it (my husband had done his research). Minutes later, through a few clicks of a button, we “won” a house that is 865 miles away.

Within a few hours I began to process through the entirety of everything that meant. A house. A house means mortgage. Utilities. Property tax. Refrigerators, washers and dryers. Things I’ve managed to escape for almost all of my adult life. A house means responsibility. And piles of paperwork I would sign my name to that I don’t actually understand. Naturally, I began to freak out. It’s one of those things you do and then suddenly the weight of it begins to sink in. My former debt-free life is now committed to paying off a 15-year loan. What were we thinking? Our dogs won’t even live that long.

We’ll probably never live in this house. But hopefully lots of other people will. My mom took us on a FaceTime tour of our new digs today… and I actually got pretty excited about it. We have a house. A cute, little house. A house that means a lot of things for us– but, above all, it’s this new journey my husband and I are on together. Now we can fight about mortgage payments and disagree about which brand of fridge to buy. Now we can be “real” adults with “real” life issues. I can hardly wait.

All joking aside, I’m looking forward to seeing what happens with this house. The people we’ll meet, the renters we’ll have. The things it may lead to. The ways it could impact our future. I’m excited about the things we’ll have to learn and what being a homeowner in a different state might entail. It’ll be something… that’s for sure!

So no, we ain’t pregnant (I know you’re wondering)- but we now own a house. And that’s pretty neat.

Let us know if you know anyone who wants to rent a house in Columbia, Missouri. Great school districts, great neighborhood (am I saying all the right things?).

I can’t even show you a picture of the front of the house because I don’t have one.
How’s that for crazy?

Here’s to new adventures in house ownership and landlord-ing!
Pray for us 🙂

It’s been a few months since I’ve written about pregnancy…

I’m sure some of you are just on the edge of your seat waiting for that exciting baby announcement. It’s not coming. Not soon, anyway.

There’s only so much I can write about it, but, in all honesty, I’ve stopped caring so much. Perhaps it’s the ramp up toward summer and the busyness of my life increasing, but I’m less concerned with having a baby. And, as time goes on, I think the apathy grows. Or I’m just at this point where I think, “Well, if it happens, it happens.”

I can’t decide if I’m attempting murder on the desire within me, or if the Lord is just actually giving me peace to be content with where I’m at. However, it feels pretty different from the times that I tried to pretend I was really okay with being single when I wasn’t (because, just when you are content with your singleness, that’s when Mr. Right comes along, right? *that’s not at all how it happened for me*).

I’m not trying to fool myself into thinking I’m okay without kids, I don’t think. My biggest hiccups and bouts of confusion only really arise when I picture myself old, gray-er, and wrinkly without any grandkids. Because, that’s not how it’s supposed to be.

You’d think by now I would have learned that life is never how it’s “supposed to be”, but I still keep expecting it to go a certain course. Marriage immediately following college didn’t happen- why would I assume that children would go as planned? Truthfully, there’s a part of me that did assume it would. My happy voice within assuring me: Since you had to wait so long to get married, surely having children will be a breeze!

Apparently I still have a lot to learn about patience, waiting, and the Lord’s timing.
There are some significant differences between waiting for Mr. Right to come along and waiting for my uterus to catch up to the plan, though.

this is NOT how I played with Barbies..

From the time I could play with Barbies, I knew I wanted a husband. It was a desire that I never, ever questioned and a desire that plagued me at times–because I could never shake it (even on the most hopeless of days). I never really cared much for babies and kids (or baby dolls) while growing up. I didn’t change a diaper until I was in my late twenties. Baby-sitting still horrifies me. I have a bad habit of trying to use sarcasm on 4-year-olds and am alarmed when they just don’t get it. I know they don’t stay little forever….. but….

I guess I’m saying that I never really believed that God’s plan for me was to be single my entire life. And while I would have managed, it didn’t seem to line up with who He is. And while I still think we might never have biological children, that’s not as alarming to me. I still think our futures will involve children in some capacity–and I’m pretty intrigued by what that’ll mean/look like.

Another huge difference to this waiting bout is that I’m not alone. The journey in singleness (as some of you can attest) is just what it sounds like: lonely. It’s easy to feel pathetic, desperate, and like the rest of the world is passing you by with new boyfriends and engagement parties. And while, yes, I can share some of those same thoughts with pregnancy announcements and baby pictures–I have this whole person who is journeying beside me down this same road. I’m not alone.
I’m not alone this time. And I only know that’s because the Lord is so, so good and gracious.

It’s really only been a little over year. This timeline pales in comparison to the 10+ years I felt like I waited to meet my husband. So… talk to me in 9 more years about fertility and I bet this blog post will look a little different.

All that to say…
Not pregnant.
Doing great (truly).
Continually learning that the Lord needs to shatter all my “supposed to” moments and remind me that it’s about Him, His timing and His plan.
And, being thankful that, right now, for whatever reason, I am honestly content right where I’m at.

I can’t believe it’s already May.

Too often time is a mysterious thing. 

I cringe a lot when I think about the past.

Did I really do that? Did I really say that?

I wish they were dreams (or nightmares), but… my past is always real. I used to think that if my house were ever burning down that one of the first things I’d grab would be my journals, but lately I’m wondering if I might purposely leave them behind.

If I read through them all today, I’d be reminded of the times that I stayed up way too late, waiting for the creaking door on AOL Instant Messenger to alert me that my freshman AND sophomore year crush had signed online (one guy that I just couldn’t seem to get over…). I always tried to let him initiate conversation, but after a few minutes of radio silence, I never had much self control. Or the [many] times that I allowed myself to enter into deep friendships with guys, always hoping that it might be something more. Always saying stupid things. Always getting my heart too involved. Or the time I sent money anonymously to a crush, hoping it would bless him (but probably also hoping he’d find out it was me and come running). Or the times I cried myself to sleep, feeling hopelessly single. Or the times that I sorta, basically told guys I wasn’t even dating that I liked them (or loved them?)…

Or just the fact that I probably wrote the same thing in my journal for almost a decade- I feel like today I might tell myself a lot of things. At least I’d want to, and I’d want myself to listen, to understand, to recognize that the here and now is never really as bad as it might seem.

Even if I rid myself of the journals, my past is still real. I’m still the girl who blogged about the despairs of single life in her late twenties and wrote a paper about the pains of it during my split second in seminary. I’m still the girl who dated the wrong guys for too long because it seemed better than being alone. The girl who was too forward and simultaneously too scared. The girl who confidently thought she knew what she wanted while also insecurely begged for validation and affirmation from the guys who ignorantly let her get close to them.

I’m not proud of my past.
I share the stories mostly in hopes that others might identify and there might be some reason or purpose to the madness. It’s really the reason I started the blog in the first place- admitting my craziness so that others might identify and know they’re not alone in the journey.

this is how I feel when I think about the past…

I’m not sure why, but lately I’ve been cringing about the past. And while I wish I could erase it, I have more of a desire to continue to remind any single ladies out there who are struggling with the singleness, the loneliness, the hopelessness (that too easily turns into craziness) that it shall pass. It gets better. It changes. You live and you learn. And, sometimes, you meet a guy who loves you despite all the craziness (I even cringe when I think about the beginnings of how my husband and I began..).

I do feel like the Lord extended grace to me throughout my twenties. While I made plenty of bad choices for myself, He never gave me the chance to make a choice that could negatively affect my entire future. He never let me say YES to the wrong guy (and, if we’re being honest, there’s a chance I might have). I feel pretty lucky, considering all the stupid things I did do.

It continually reminds me of the Lord’s faithfulness. And I wish I had seen it then. I wish I would have seen it exactly for what it was when I was in the midst of it. Instead I was angry, confused, and blaming Him for the existence of these intense desires without any hope of fulfilling them. But if I could have known… I probably would have tried to speed up the process.

I love how perfect His timing has been though.
I love how, in spite of all my crazy, I can look at the man next to me and thank the Lord for saving me from all of the other failed attempts in my life.

I don’t deserve any of this.
I’m a crazy lady, saved by grace AND, for no good reason, given the chance to be truly loved by a man on earth too.

How can it be?
I don’t know. I truly don’t get it.

Hang tight, single babes.
Spring was always the worst for me. Something about budding life and happy weather with summer on the horizon. It just always seemed like the perfect time to fall in love (but in reality, any time is great).

Don’t let your expectations, your dreams, your hopes, or your desires get crushed by the current story you’re in. Maybe the guy you’re into doesn’t like you back. Maybe you’re getting pretty weary of feeling like no one will ever look your way. Maybe you’re just in the cycle of getting your hopes up and constantly facing rejection. Maybe you just said something really stupid or bold to a cute guy (one time I boldly asked a crush via text: “So where do you see this going?” after only knowing him a few weeks).

We do dumb things.
We say dumb things.
We feel deeply… and sometimes it just hurts.
I get it. It’s okay. Okay to be sad, okay for it to suck, okay for it to feel hopeless.

I’m praying today that you can zoom out and trust the Lord with the unthinkable, the seemingly impossible. He’s got you. He’s got this.

My husband isn’t the fulfillment, but he points me to the One who is. And I hope you can get to that realization before I did.

I typically try to avoid merging business with personal, but, for those of you who work at a camp, it’s virtually impossible.

The two always collide at one point or another. We live where we work and we work where we live. My neighbors are my coworkers and my friends are my employees and my life is…camp. At the start of our marriage, my husband and I even shared an office for a few months. Oh, and I’m his boss (a fun fact he typically likes to share with people, and then they laugh at the typical husband/wife banter…and then he says, “no really, she’s actually my boss” and then I think they feel weird). It’s a funny world we live in. One that’s hard to explain unless you’ve actually done it.

In most ways, camp life is kind of all I know.

I never set out to be a camp director. All I had planned for myself, back in 2003, was to try to work at a camp that wasn’t in Missouri and wasn’t anywhere any of my brothers had ever been. As a freshman, I remember scrolling through the endless possibilities of summer camp options. I actually entertained the idea of working at a weight loss camp (a.k.a. Fat Camp). I think I thought being a counselor might help me also lose weight. These were the days before Google, and I’m pretty sure I landed on Camp Eagle through some unknown search engine after weeks of research.

Why not?
Why not apply to work at this camp that I’ve never heard of in the middle-of-nowhere Texas that does adventure-y things that I’ve never even wanted to try? Why not?  It met my only two requirements.
And so I applied. I applied to work at Camp Eagle and two other camps. Unfortunately for me, most camps were already done with hiring. Fortunately for me, Camp Eagle was not one of them.

It was mid-March when I got a phone call from a lady telling me that they had talked to my references and wanted me to come work for the summer. All summer. No interview, but a job offer. A three month long, in a land with no cell phone service or internet access job offer.

So, I went.
Why not?
What else was I going to do?

I wish I could accurately communicate to you all that summer meant for me and did for me…but I fear no words will do it justice. It was the summer I learned how not to wear make-up. It was the summer where I learned how to scrub showers with finesse. It was the summer where I learned that people liked me, just as I was. It was the summer where I made friends with people I would have never chosen to be friends with (lifelong friendships, at that). The summer where I got to be a part of a camper’s salvation story. The summer where I watched the Lord use even the most unlikely people to bring Himself glory. A summer where He used even me, in all of my imperfections, weaknesses, brokenness and shame. A summer of complete exhaustion, pouring out, giving of myself until I would recognize that it was never about what I could or couldn’t do.

It was a summer of changed lives.
A summer of investing in eternity.

It’s why I love camp.
It’s why I’m still here.
Not because I got “stuck”, but because it’s one of the most beautiful and humbling things to be a part of. God using us to transform lives. God using us, and gently reminding us, that it’s just not about us.

The Lord uses camp to change lives for eternity.
There’s something about the wilderness, the stars, the campfires, the crickets chirping, the songs that are sung, the s’mores that are eaten, the stories that are told…. the openness, the vulnerability, the honesty, the hope for something different. Something about all of that reminds us that there’s this greater life worth living.

I get to be a part of that. 
Every day.
Part of offering the reminder of second chances and this incredible mercy that’s new every morning.

I had no idea how much that summer 13 years ago would change me. I had no idea how much a second summer would continue the process or how much a third summer would challenge my pride and false identity. I had no idea how it would lead me down this journey of full-time camp ministry. To Him be the glory!  It’s messy and frustrating and crazy and consuming and constantly forcing me to look within while simultaneously causing me to get over myself.

The Lord knew what He was doing.

And so here’s where the personal turns business-y. We’re at a place in our organization where we need more staff than ever before. With a recent expansion of yet another campus, we’re on the hunt for college students to take a leap a faith and join us for the summer of a lifetime… a summer of investing in eternity.

I don’t actually know how many people read my blog or to what degree this post might accomplish anything, but, I wanted to see if you might be willing to help us. Might you consider doing the following:

• Apply to work here!! 
• Join me in praying that we might have more than enough summer staff for this upcoming summer. It’s been the cry of my heart these last few weeks. 
• Share this blog post – you never know who might be looking at your social media!
• Tell any college students you know about the opportunities that we have to serve out here- and then send them to: glorieta.org/apply
• Tell any high school students that they can come hang out with us, too! We have this sweet thing called Service Team that has everything to do with discipleship and servant leadership as they help us run camp by washing dishes. They can apply online, too: glorieta.org/apply
• We’re especially short on guys right now- urge any Christ-loving college-age men to consider the possibility of a summer out here! 

I couldn’t stop the tears from coming this time. 

“We’re calling about your results from your blood tests last week. The doctor would like you to come in to review your results in person. It’s nothing urgent or life-threatening. Nothing you should lose sleep over. But you probably should be warned that your uterus is shriveled and your eggs have all died…”

Okay, so that’s not exactly how the entire phone call went, but it was still a weird call to receive. I got it almost three weeks ago after finally going to the doctor for my annual (which is never actually annual) and to ask some questions about our current inability to conceive. Lots of blood came out of my arm that day.

First available appointment we could make was for today, January 4.
I hadn’t been overly concerned about it, but sitting in the doctor’s office, waiting for her to arrive, I couldn’t help but ask my husband, “What’s the worst thing she could tell us today?”

There’s always a trillion possibilities flying through my head.
What we got?
A few minutes about my vitamin deficiencies (apparently I’m lacking D3 which you often get from the sun but they don’t encourage sun exposure so D3 is a probably a great market to be in..), my slightly elevated levels of testosterone (which has never been a surprise from this hairy one), and the probability of a mild form of PCOS (poly-cystic ovary syndrome)… but nothing that really makes pregnancy an impossibility. No crazy hormonal imbalance that causes my uterine lining to cease to exist and no irregular pap smear.

A referral to a fertility specialist, if we should choose to go at a future date. A recommendation for a pelvic ultrasound and mammogram (mostly because of my family history)- but nothing she really was worried about. A question or two about whether or not urinating immediately after intercourse actually matters when trying to get pregnant (it doesn’t), and the encouragement to try charting temperatures or using ovulation predictor kits (yeah yeah, I’m on it already…).

And there we have it, folks.
No real answers.

I don’t know what I expected.
Well- I know what I expected. I expected her to tell me my testosterone levels were still the raging levels of a 16-year-old boy (because I got told that once…by a doctor, I promise) and in all my reliable webmd research, high testosterone made pregnancy very unlikely. So, I expected a shot in the butt with estrogen or progesterone or whatever female things I’m lacking and for all to be well. Or something. Something more than nothing.

Now we just have more questions than answers.
When I should I schedule a pelvic ultrasound…? Should we go see a fertility specialist? That seems a little extreme… and expensive. We haven’t technically even been trying for a year yet (at the end of this month it’s been a year though so maybe it’s time…?).

So, at this point I have vitamin D3 and B12 sitting in my amazon shopping cart (gotta compare with other prices first, of course). I have a referral to a fertility specialist and for a pelvic ultrasound. And apparently PCOS, which is supposedly very common– and not even a “severe” case of it. As we walked out her office, my doctor said, “I don’t think you guys will have a problem. I have a good feeling about it.”

Thanks lady.

I sound more bitter than I am- I don’t mean to. I actually like my doctor a lot.
We had more of a profound conversation with her about the miracle of life. She told us that the more she gets to see pregnancy up close and see all the things that go wrong and all the things that have to go just right for someone to get pregnant and then to carry a pregnancy to full-term… she said she’s humbled by it all. That so often people don’t appreciate how miraculous it is.

I think I might have been one of those people once upon a time.
I think I thought that I’d get married and feared getting pregnant immediately because I just knew I’d be a fertile myrtle. I think the process has already shown me how delicate, precious and miraculous human life is. It’s shown me over and over and over again how out of control I am. It’s given me a freedom to just be. To let God to be God. To live life.

It’s a beautiful, cold day today. Snow is still all over the ground. I’m at 8,908 steps with a volleyball game still to play tonight. I’ve got an incredible husband. A sweet job that I still am trying to figure out and am humbled to be in on a daily basis. A gentle giant of a dog that I absolutely adore. A great community that I’m learning to love more and more. An ever-growing, God-loving family. But, more than alllll of that, I have the creator of all life who loves me. Who chose me. Who reminds me constantly that my worth can only be found in Him. One who calls me to remember the bigger picture and that His plan might just continue to be different from my own. One who reminds me that His plan is truly always better. I’ve seen it firsthand.

I can’t wait to see what all this life entails. Baby or no baby, there’s still an unknown adventure ahead. A good adventure.
I’ll continue to keep you posted, because I promised I would.

Thanks for praying.
Thanks for asking.
Thanks for loving us well, for sharing your own stories with us, and for reminding me how good our God is.

It’s hard to imagine waking up tomorrow and being responsible for anything.

It’s like a jack-in-the-box… it’s slowly winding up and I’m cringing, waiting in dreadful anticipation for that scary clown to pop up. It’s inevitable. It’s coming. I can’t stop it, no matter what. 

I’ve missed writing.
It’s been a few months of not knowing exactly what I could or should write, though. At some point you get tired of saying, “Hey guys, don’t worry- we’re still not pregnant…” and at some point it’s just good for me to be still. At some point I can’t exactly publicize all the ins and outs of what’s going on in my life either, and usually that’s very okay.

But writing is an important way for me to process through all The Stuff and that’s something I’ve been neglecting.  It’s also a great way for me to remember.

So here I am.
This particular post isn’t really for anyone but myself. It’s public because somewhere out there it may benefit someone or might interest someone a bit. You just never know.

My husband and I just got back from a whirlwind trip to Europe. Whirlwind because in our 13 days of being gone, we hit up 5 different locations: Manchester, Edinburgh, London, Dublin and Lahinch/Cliffs of Moher. We averaged 8-12 miles per day of walking, spent way too much money, ate delicious food, and experienced some incredible things. We stayed in hotels, apartments, hostels, cottages and castles.

We walked through the National Football Museum and learned all the things about soccer and the history of it. We ate food in Chinatown. We got a tour of Etihad Stadium and then saw Manchester City get destroyed in a football match against Liverpool (and heard lots of crass and angry language in the process). We discovered that our plan to change seats halfway through (we were sitting in VERY different spots during the match) was foiled due to high security and a stadium that doesn’t allow the first floor to access the second or third. We mastered all types of public transportation. My husband got close to perfecting his Australian accent (yes, it’s just as confusing as it sounds). We found ourselves in Christmas markets all over town, buying international adapters, and eating our first round of fish and chips.

We rented a car where we drove on the left side of the road on the right side of the car all the way to Edinburgh. We pre-filled our tank which, we now realize, is always a bad decision. We saw sheep…lots of sheep. Blue and red spotted sheep. We saw the sun set behind a castle. We saw Susan Boyle sing Silent Night while we stood on the street in a crowd of thousands of people where fireworks soon followed. We saw a circus performance where a very strong woman did impressively strong things and a man wearing a bear suit held a lunchbox and then did tricks on a pole. We walked the Royal Mile, toured our way through Parliament and hiked up to check out Arthur’s Seat in the middle of Holyrood Park. We drank tea and ate waffles at the Elephant House, where Harry Potter was jotted down. We went on a ghost tour and barely escaped the claws of the Mackenzie Poltergeist. We were truly enchanted by Scotland and all it had to offer.

We trained our way to London and found ourselves suddenly thrown into the hustle and bustle of tourism at it’s finest. Inside the British Museum we saw mummies and really old human remains. We tried bartering with a man on a street for Lion King tickets, but opted out of ‘standing spots only’ and decided to check out The War Horse. The puppetry of the horse was incredible and I may have shed a tear (and missed our dog) as a result of the show. We watched the Changing of the Guards at Buckingham Palace and got to hear the band play a surprising amount of the score from Les Miserables. We marveled at the history inside of Westminster Abbey–and I think this was one of my favorite parts of the trip, still. We got two for the price of one so we decided to check out the London Dungeon…where I discovered that Sweeney Todd might just be real and had fake leeches crawl under my bum while the plague was dramatized before our eyes. We happily strolled through the Hyde Park Christmas markets and drooled at the crepes (but couldn’t buy because we had no cash and had forgotten our debit card).

A subway, train, and plane ride later, we headed into the heart of Dublin to join forces with friends for Thanksgiving night, thankfully making the switch from pounds to euros. While our connection wasn’t seamless, we finally found each other and our Thanksgiving consisted of an Irish pub with pumpkin pie and American football (the Irish were loudly cheering on the Panthers and the Cowboys presence was minimal, at best). The Guinness Tour and the Musical Pub Crawl were next on the docket. McDonalds was somewhere in there, too (don’t judge). The pub crawl had less pubs and more music, and we learned the ins and outs of a traditional “session”. We tapped our boots, listened intently and cheered, “You couldn’t have come at a better time” when prompted by our guides. We learned that thirty sounds a lot like ‘turdy’ and that three sounds much like ‘tree’ and if you’re ever the third wheel, you might just actually be the ‘turd’ wheel (sorry). Following our guide’s recommendation, we worked our way over to another pub and found ourselves in the midst of a real live traditional session. It was intimate, beautiful, and honest and I felt privileged to catch a glimpse of this remarkable musical talent. There were instruments of all types- the bodhran, the accordian, the fiddle, pipes and a couple extremely captivating vocalists. Old men. Young men. Irish history and culture on full display. Another favorite of mine.

My first night in a hostel involved 22 other folks, little sleep and fears of falling off the top bunk in wee hours of the morning. Despite the cold wind and the rain, we jumped on a charter bus the next morning to see the Wicklow mountains and Glendalough (oh, and the PS I Love You bridge, of course). While we started off drenched, the rain let up for the perfect amount of time so we might enjoy a bit of an exploratory walk before heading to, yet another, pub. Did you know Irish stew is fantastic? We found another Christmas market and the most tasty cheeseburger and I unhappily bobbed my head to some non-traditional Irish music. A second night in the hostel included my poor husband vomiting up the fish and chips he had eaten a few hours earlier (everyone can cringe now).

Another rental car, Papa Johns in our bellies, and three hours later took us across Ireland to a small coastal town called Lahinch. There has never been a windier place in all of my history of life. Beautiful views, a quick grocery stop and a night in a cottage with homemade scones and a sweet frontal Mary. We shared the things in this past year we were thankful for and made our way to another pub with high hopes of catching another traditional session. Instead we found burpees, arm wrestling and a juke box.

Prepared for the worst, wettest, windiest weather, we set out for the Cliffs of Moher the following morning. The Lord was so gracious with the weather and we were easily able to enjoy the great outdoors. Quite possibly one of the most continuously beautiful hikes I’ve ever been on. 8 kilometers along the coast, testing sketchy grounds and snapping hundreds of pictures. The most gigantic waves crashing 700 feet below us, getting scolded by my over-protective husband for getting too close to the edge, leaping over streams, trudging through mud, checking out a washed up whale or shark-type thing. And, of course, stopping every few minutes to hem and haw over how stunning the landscape was. Definitely at the top of the list: you must do this if you ever visit Ireland!

A final pub, a final cider (Orchard Thieves, anyone?) and the drive back to Dublin to stay in a marvelous castle for the night. Upgraded to a suite, we left with an Irish breakfast in our stomachs, the $1800 hold on our card for the rental car guaranteed to be released and 24 hours of travel to make it back home. We may have flown on the oldest plane still in motion, but we survived the 8 hours (even without televisions in the back of the seat in front of us). During our 6 hour lay over in Philadelphia we happened upon a group of men singing Christmas carols in our attempts to get more steps in for the day. We sang with them, filled with good cheer and Christmas spirit! Another 5 and a half hours on another ancient plane, a quick blip in Phoenix and we breathed a sigh of relief when we rolled into Albuquerque airport just before midnight. Time travel, at it’s finest.

We survived.
The dog survived (with only a few minimal incidents of an escaped kennel due to an intense battle with diarrhea and an escaped fence due to a bandit of a dog friend).

The world around us is in mayhem and I have a thousand deeper thoughts on all the things we actually experienced, but now we at least have a little bit of what we did documented.

Ultimately, we are thankful. Reminded, yet again, of how much bigger the world is and how small we are in the scope of time. It’s crazy humbling. Our eyes are bigger. The Lord is bigger. Pray we don’t forget it.

Cheers.

A year ago I was groomed, pampered, calm… ready.
I had just finished racing go-karts, trying my hand at the batting cages, and having the finishing touches of my wedding-face applied. White dress (with pockets!), red heels, champagne sash, five billion bobby pins and glossy lips… ready.

Today I’m a little pudgier, my nails are atrocious, my eyebrows are wacky… but I’m content.
I have just finished attending church, eating 10,000 calories of Mexican food, walking for an hour to try to compensate, and getting ready to spend an evening at backyard (where we were wed) bonfire with friends and family. T-shirt, bare feet, chapped lips, white little Zeus hairs all over my clothes… content.

A year ago I was inviting family and friends to my parent’s yard to witness a life-long commitment being made. Today I’m sitting on the couch in my parent’s house making sure our giant dog doesn’t destroy it, football streaming on the television, my dad picking apples outside, my mom cooking food, my husband on a coach– one eye on the tv and the other on his phone.

A year ago I was preparing for one for the biggest life-changes I’ll ever know.
Today life is pretty normal, but I’m still wondering when and what the next life-change will be (knowing that life is full of the unpredictable).

One year ago.
We’ve been reminiscing a lot this week. It helps that we’re back in the same place where our wedding went down. It helps that there are wedding remains all over: Aspen candle holders, giant logs, CAKE (which we’re excited to finally try, regardless of the commentary that cake a year later is disgusting).
It helps that it was all just one year ago.

We have survived.
And marriage is still awesome. You might even say that it’s been a piece of cake.
We’re less patient, less romantic, less careful with our words, less concerned about appearances and privacy. But we laugh a lot, dream a lot, talk a lot, sing a lot (I think I’m rubbing off on him).

We aren’t perfect, but it’s okay.
We could be kinder, more loving, more selfless, more aware, more Christ-centered, more prayerful.

But I don’t know if I could be more thankful.
Because one year ago, I stood before the Lord and a host of witnesses and was tied forever to a man who exceeded my wildest dreams. I’m still not sure how it happened. We were in a church worship service a week ago, music playing, people singing… and I thought to myself all over again, how did I get here? How is it possible that the Lord is so good and so faithful when I’m just not. I’m still in awe.

I’ve learned a lot.
I’ve learned a lot in the waiting, in the stillness, in the unknown. To trust. To live. To open up my mind to even the most unlikely things (long-haired younger men with sea turtle tattoos, in this instance), and to see what the Lord does with it. I think He’s continuing to reinforce those things into my heart.

Trust.
Live.
Be open-minded.
You never know what I have in store for you.

They’re necessary life lessons.
Can I continue to allow Him to surprise me? To allure me?
Can I respond to the bouts of waiting with grace and joy? Can I respond to the unknown with steadfast faithfulness?
Can I believe that He is good, no matter what?
Can I believe that He has a bigger plan in mind?

I think our anniversary will always serve as a reminder of the Lord’s faithfulness.
The Lord’s faithfulness–even when it means waiting a long time, even when I feel like I want to give up and that there’s no more hope to be had. The Lord knows. His timing is perfect. His plan is perfect.

And it’s always been about much more than Debbie finally finding love.
To me, it’s been a journey of finding out more about who Jesus is and what He has done… and what He continues to do. It’s truly life-changing.

How can I not love Him more?