Easter Weekend

Though it has been a while since I have made time to place a new entry on this site, it has nothing to do with the amount of great things that have been happening in our lives. As I was having lunch with friends the other day, we talked about how Leslie and my stories “are a lot like cotton candy. You know that if you have too much of it, it’s gonna make you sick, but you just can’t resist because it taste so good”. (Jeff)

Easter weekend was fantastic! Leslie had the opportunity to come down to Texas for a long weekend and we took advantage of the time and spent it with parts of my family. Thursday was a great opportunity for us just to feel married. We traveled to Abilene for and stayed the night with the parents. I got to share Leslie with my grandmother as we reminisced over her life growing up on the plains of west Texas from the 1920’s to the 1970’s. Leslie got to laugh a lot at what I looked like as a pudgy little kid through Memom’s pictures. All in all, it was a celebration of merging the past with the present.

The next morning Leslie and I finally went for our first run together. We have visited each other half a dozen time and every time we talked about it, we found something that we wanted to do instead. Though my knees will never afford me the chance to do the extended runs that she likes to take, it was a gift none the less.



After a quick breakfast with dad, Leslie and I were off to Lubbock to spend the weekend with my sister, her husband, and my niece and nephew! I was so excited I could hardly stand it. I don’t get to make it out to Lubbock too much, but when I do, it always brings joy to my heart. We spent the weekend laughing and playing with Scout and Will. I got to see my future wife playing games and loving on those that are important to me. And all the while, it felt as if I were home again.
We spent Easter with the Carter’s enjoying all the kido’s and finding out what the future as husband and wife may truly look like. Oh, what a joy that it will be. I can hardly wait till the day where all will know and see, first hand, the love and joy that I have for Leslie. I hope and pray that all would be so blessed to find a partner to join with them in this battle called life.

Texas? Really?

If you had told me last year that I would be marrying a Young Life area director and moving to Texas, I would have looked at you as if you had told me that Stephen Spielberg wanted me to star in his next movie- thrilled that a dream was coming true mixed in with a bit of shock. Marrying a YL area director? That I would have believed. YL has been such a huge part of my life for so long that it seemed sort of inevitable that my married life would be wrapped up in it in some form or fashion. But Texas? Really? That I hadn't counted on.

However, our God is one who loves surprises, this I have learned. And so it was that on June 15, 2005, I was handed the biggest surprise of all when I met the man I would marry. I now find myself preparing to move to a state that I know nothing about, yet have come to love already in just a few short visits. Fabulous sunsets, wide open spaces, blue bonnets in the spring, and a climate resembling a perpetual summer. And before you say it, yes, I know it's going to be hot. Very hot. And I will become tan. Very tan.

Still, it is a daunting thing- this moving, this joining of my life to someone else's, this becoming part of another family. I'm finding that there's a whole other process smack beside the process of planning a wedding and it's one that I didn't count on. Leaving my home, my church, my friends, my family has prompted a grieving process that has caught me by surprise. Surprise because I am so ridiculously happy and eager to marry Jason, plan our wedding, look forward to a new adventure, move to a new place, embrace a new family (an amazing one, by the way). I didn't expect for there to be sadness on top of it! But I am told that this is normal. Wise ones assure me that this comes with the territory of being engaged because I am leaving one season and moving into another.

So I'm okay with it. And lucky for me, I have an amazing fiance that's ok with it as well. Jason has lovingly supported me as I've called him in tears, lamenting something else that I'll miss. He's laughed with me at the things that I won't miss. And he understands that during basketball season we'll either have to invest in an amazing sports channel or spend serious amounts of time at a sports bar so that I can still watch my Tarheels play. And when I get to marry a man like that, it makes me say, "Texas? Really? Sign me up!"

The Joys of Communication

For months now, I have seen my relationship with my fiancée from virtually one major perspective… a phone attached to my ear. It is interesting the things that you learn about others when communication is all that you have for the majority of the time. I have always tried to be a very intentional person, one who invests in others and takes the time to get to know others, but we are on a whole other playing field when you think about spending thousands of hours on the phone with the same person. What do you talk about after that much time? I love conversations every day with my bride to be, but I am afraid that I do not do a good enough job of being creative in our conversations.

I am pretty sure that Leslie and I are going to have a great deal of culture shock when she and I get to be in the same town with one another for longer than a week at a time, and I can’t wait to be shocked. So many people have told me that it is going to be hard to change my ways, after all I have lived out on my own for 11 years now, and by myself for the past 4. I think that I am going to have an interesting time at first shaping and molding my life to accommodate someone living life with me. I am so excited about the challenges that it is going to provide, but scared to death about my short comings as well. Just today, I was talking to a dear friend about what the Lord is going to do in my life through marriage, and he told me that I will never know sanctification the same way as I will as a husband and father. I am so excited about that, but the pressure of giving a %110 all the time, is so intimidating. I hope and pray that that my selfishness and dependency on myself will become more fluid and that as a couple, we will find flexibility and compassion for those things that we bring into the marriage.