Raindyland

Last week I was cleaning for my aunt, and some Jehovah’s witnesses showed up at her front door. The young girl in the front – the “spokesperson” of the group – asked if she could read my aunt a Bible verse and get her opinion on it. I was in the next room and couldn’t hear exactly what verse she used, but it was one from Revelation about the end of the world. When she finished reading, she asked my aunt, “Do you think that could even happen?” And essentially she was promoting salvation as a ticket out of eternal hell.

And that was her idea of “witnessing.”

I’m a child of God, and I found that unappealing. I can only imagine what a non-believer would think of that – being scared into becoming “saved” because you didn’t want to burn in hell forever.

I’ve been hunting for a “so now what” for year. I’ve been saved, I’ve been baptized (even if it was only to become a member at a church and work in their nursery), and I’ve been in and out of church for most of my life. I graduated in 2010 from a Christian school and went on to four-and-a-half years at a Christian college. I chose not to put it on my diploma because I felt it was forced on me (everybody at my college was required to get it), but I have a minor in Bible. Trust me, I’ve been inundated with “God stuff” for the last twenty-four years. But there are very few lessons I remember that answer, “So now what?” So I know I’m saved and I know I’m not going to hell…now what do I do? The messages always seemed to be the same: you get saved, then you enter some kind of ministry. Or the mission field – that was always a big one too. So as one who doesn’t feel called to Zimbabwe or to be a preacher’s wife (holy shit, can you imagine me as a preacher’s wife?), I was always a little confused about how I would then be of service to God. Maybe that’s why I chose to be a teacher, even though I really didn’t want to: I believed that being a good influence on teenagers would be more effective than my dream of being a writer. I have been given the gift of writing, though, so when I turned away from teaching I began to imagine that I would use my words to “win people to Christ.” (That’s the terminology, right?)

It’s only been in the last few days that I’ve realized the “so now what” of being a child of God. And like the actual becoming involved, it’s not as complicated as people like to think.

Joey and I are reading a book by A.W. Tozer called The Pursuit of God. And it meets us with the understanding that yes, we’re both saved. But Tozer takes us deeper and says that our job, then, is simply to get to know our God better.

Notice no asterisk, notice no addendum. That’s all.

Of course we’ve been commanded to love each other, which wraps up the whole list of the Old Testament’s Law into a simple package – that’s what Jesus meant when He said, “My burden is light”, because it doesn’t come with four hundred and ninety-eight rules you have to follow. And it’s not to earn salvation that we love each other: it’s because of the relationship that we have with God that we do what He says. I’m also learning that “children of God” are just that – His children – not servants who should fear that they’re displeasing Him. We are His children with whom He is madly in love, and we do as He says because we love Him and want to please Him. But love should be our motivation in everything, not fear that we might do something to piss Him off bad enough that He says, “I’m done with you.”

But we make the one commandment of Christ so simple that we forget the most important part of it: “Love others, and love the Lord your God.”

What do you do when you love someone? Not necessarily in the romantic type of love, but think of, say, your best friend. I have three best friends who knew me from different areas of my life, and though I don’t get to see them very often (I don’t live in the same state as two of them anymore) I go out of my way to make communication with them. I miss them when I don’t get to see them, and I get so excited when I know a visit is coming up. And I don’t want to do anything to hurt them because I love them and I cherish the bond that I have with them.

The same can be (and should be) said of our relationship with God. He is, after all, our Heavenly Father. And though I’m revisiting what His role is as a “father,” that relationship should be so intimate that we don’t worry about displeasing Him. We should crave the chance to talk to Him. We shouldn’t come before Him with fear that He might be angry with us. Yes, every now and then I do something that doesn’t exactly jive with what He’s commanded me to do, and He lets me deal with the consequences. But that’s not a punishment: it’s discipline. Because He disciplines those that He loves. Tozer uses the example of Abraham and the story of him taking Isaac to the mountain to kill him. That story gets presented with a “God will provide” moral, but Tozer explains that Abraham was on the verge of making Isaac an idol in his life. And our God is a jealous God – when He says “have no other gods before me,” he means none. Shocking though it may have been, God used this little scenario as a reminder to Abraham to get his priorities back in order. But again, this was not punishment, and He didn’t let Isaac die.

Because God isn’t angry with His children.

Remember what I said about wanting to please God simply because of our relationship? I read a book a few days ago called The Birthright that goes into greater detail about our identity as children of God rather than servants. And the author, John Sheasby, brings up the story of the prodigal son. Again, the story is used differently, as an illustration of how no one is so far gone that the Father won’t accept them as children again. But Sheasby points to the older son, who pitches a fit when he’s slaved for years for his father and didn’t even get a skinny goat so he could party with his friends. The father turns to him and says, “Everything that I have is yours.” That wasn’t a means of placating the son – he was pointing out that at the beginning of the story he had divided his fortune with both of his sons already, he didn’t just dole out what was due to the youngest son. Anything he would have used to celebrate the older son’s labor already belonged to the older son anyway because of his birthright: it was already owed to him (and given to him) merely for being a child of a wealthy and generous father. He didn’t have to work for it, he simply could have sat back and enjoyed it. The father couldn’t reward him for what he’d done because the son had already been blessed for who he was, but wasn’t taking advantage of it.

Take advantage of it, dear friends. Be encouraged today.

The Hills are Alive

I’ve been raiding my mom’s house for her copy of “The Sound of Music” for weeks, with no luck. Our family has a habit of mistreating DVDs, which means that some are downstairs on top of the basement DVD player, some are in a multi-disc stack in the family room, some are in my room in the wrong cases, some are in the three DVD folders throughout the house, some are in the back of the CD folder under the TV, I think “Grown Ups” might still be in the DVD player in the car. So the idea of hunting for and finding a single disc in our house in next to impossible.

I finally found it yesterday in a white paper sleeve in Chandler’s room, next to the “Adventures in Odyssey” tapes and her old phone with all the buttons. I couldn’t wait to get it back to my house.

I’ve had the urge to watch it since Chandler and I drove back from Minneapolis. Since we had nothing to do but listen to music for twelve hours, we listened to lots of musical soundtracks, since we know the words to nearly all of them. And “The Sound of Music” came on. We were both in a production of it in high school – me as Sister Berte, she as Liesl – so we had fun reminiscing over our version of it, put on over a decade ago. Then “Edelweiss” came on. And when Liesl sings harmony with Captain von Trappe, Chandler sang harmony with me. And I had to look out the window so she wouldn’t see the tears in my eyes.

That trip was melancholy for me. She was coming home for my wedding, the first time the five of us had been in that house together since Christmas and probably the last time all five of us will be in that house again. See, I try to be tough with this whole new phase my family is in, but it actually makes me sad. My family was supposed to be different. We’d all stay close, we’d all be together. And now there’s the story that everybody is sick of hearing about and Chandler’s moved away and she’ll probably never live close to me again and Austin’s going away to college and I’m married with my own house and my own life. And nothing will be the same.

So I watch “The Sound of Music.” I remember playing the wedding march on our ancient stereo and taking turns with Chandler walking down the stairs in this ugly grey dress we got from our grandmother, pretending that it was we who were getting married. I remember watching the movie on Sunday nights before school. I remember watching it at my grandparents’ house and thinking how jealous I was that those von Trappe kids got to hang out with Maria. I remember riding my bike around our neighborhood singing “Do Re Mi” like they did. I remember being part of my high school’s production and feeling like I was part of one big musical family.

I remember the Mother Abbess’s words as I head out to odd jobs to make money while I’m pursuing my dream of being a writer.

I asked my mom for my own copy of the movie for my birthday this year – my movie collection at my house won’t be complete without it. Not so much because it’s a great movie, though it is. But I need that nostalgia. It makes me think of when things were better. It makes me sing for a minute.

And then I don’t feel so bad.

Goose

Mother's Day was this past weekend, and at church that day the pastor asked for all the women to come up to the stage so we could honor them - not only as actual mothers, but as spiritual mentors, mother figures, etc. He said their kids could come stand with them if they were there. I, who still see myself as a "kid" even though I'm an almost-twenty-four-year-old married woman, went up to the stage with my mom as her daughter. The pastor asked for some kids to hand out little Bath and Body Works hand sanitizers to the moms in honor of the role they play in our lives. And for some God-forsaken reason, my mother told them to give me one. The hand sanitizer smells fantastic and I'm happy to have it in my car now, but I told her I wasn't a mother - I'm not even a mother figure to anyone - so I really didn't need it. She insisted, and I took one anyway.

After the service, I had several ladies come up to me and knowingly smile, "Maybe soon you'll be getting presents on Mother's Day."

First off, I've already gotten one - look at my new hand sanitizer.

Second, no.

I thought people were joking when they warned me about this, but almost immediately after we got back from the honeymoon, people started talking about our babies. And not to be rude or anything, but no. We have a game plan, guys. We want to spend some time with just us before that. Hell, we want to have a dog before that, and I told him I'd like to wait a year before we bring one into the picture.

Besides, we have an unkillable plant lying dead on our coffee table - how can we possibly take care of a baby?

In all seriousness, we do want kids someday. I want to try my hand at being a mom and I know he'll be an amazing dad. But we have some things to take care of first. Our goal has always been for me to be a stay-at-home mom: we were both raised by mothers in the home and we think that would be the best option for us. (Note that I said "best for us" - I neither suggested that it was the only option or best for everyone.) And at this point he doesn't have a job that would support a family of three.

WAITNOSTOPDON'TSAYWHATIKNOWYOU'REGOINGTOSAY- I know. "If you wait until you're financially stable, you'll never have kids." DON'T SAY THAT TO ME. Because that's not what I mean. I mean, we want to wait until he has a job where I can stay home and we won't be living paycheck to paycheck. Now nod your head and say, "How responsible of you."

I'm reading a book right now that talks about love (like, actual love - not that romantic-feeling love), and it mentioned how the most healthy of marriages flourish when the two people in it remember that they are two separate people - each with their own intricate network of hopes, dreams, goals, and projects. Those did not go away when we got married, and they should not be squelched by the other person. (Unless overtly dangerous or illegal.) And we have those dreams, guys. We nurture those dreams in each other. And we know that, if we decide to have kids before we reach those goals, we'll take over the role of responsible parents and put those dreams on the back burner - who knows when we'll get around to achieving them? And we're not ready for that kind of tie-down.

I want to be a writer. And I will have a book finished and published before I take over as a mother.

Now nod your head and say, "How driven of you."

What really irks me about the child debate are those well-meaning people who smile and say, "Oh, but..."

Now to be rude, but keep your "but."

Listen, this little life that we're creating is ours. It's full of possibilities and uncertainty and confusion and lessons to be learned, and we're excited to figure it out together. And it drives me crazy when people with the kindest of intentions try to tell me that the goals we have set are subject to change. We know that. But leave those changes to us. Don't tell me, "Oh, you'll have a baby within a year after you get married." We very well might. We're taking every precaution not to, because babies are gross and we don't need that headache right now. But do not presume to tell me how our life will play out. Allow us to make our choices, like you did. Let us experiment and plan and try and fail and figure it out - like you did.

Now nod your head and say, "OK."

Cheerios

If you’ve been following me long enough you know that I love to read, and typically I’ll keep two books going at any given time: a “for fun” book, and a devotional book. I’m treating it as a devotional book, though it’s not a Christian book. It’s not even really a religious book: it focuses on psychology but addresses love, change, and “spirituality,” though not in the God sense. I’m only about seventy pages into it, but it keeps me drawn in because of the truths that are comforting to hear as universal truths, whereas so many Christian books are geared toward like-minded evangelicals. The book starts with the declaration that life is full of pain – pain that we often put ourselves through in the psychological realm of change (“there’s something wrong in me that I must work to correct, but it hurts to do so”). But that change and subsequently that pain is necessary if we want to be truly wise.

I came across a line when I was reading this morning that caught me off guard. It says, “One measure – and perhaps the best measure – of a person’s greatness is the capacity for suffering. Yet the greatest are also joyful…Buddhists tend to ignore the Buddha’s suffering and Christians forget Christ’s joy” (76). And like I said, this book isn’t a religious one, though the author calls himself a Christian. But I found it interesting that this secular book could knock me sideways with such a truth.

You look at the most stalwart of “Christians” (I use that term in the human sense because people like this aren’t what true Christianity is all about), and they focus so heavily on the gloom and doom of their faith: the suffering of Christ, how undeserving of grace we are, the inability of humanity to measure up to the standards that we feel we are up against. They believe in working hard, denying the flesh, and focusing on being “outsiders” in a world that doesn’t understand them. And in their dedication they push others away from the faith that they proclaim gives life. And no wonder: who would voluntarily sign up for a lifetime of misery to gain an eternity of bliss?

They forget that being a child of God is a joyful experience. The apostle Paul himself, who was beaten, imprisoned, bitten by a snake, shipwrecked, and despised for his teachings, was an expert on what “suffering for Christ” looked like. Yet at the end of Romans he writes, “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit” (15.13). Not only does he encourage his audience to be hopeful and peaceful, but he declares that joy – not happiness, but true, hopeful joy that endures in any circumstance – comes directly from God. Even in the Old Testament, where rules and regulations plague the children of Israel, the authors encourage them to “sing for joy” to their great Father. Take a look at the psalms every now and then.

There’s such a heavy emphasis on “suffering for Jesus” that we forget what a truly joyful gift it is! That’s one of the tell-tales of a child of God, you’ll remember, from that “fruits of the Spirit” chapter: the child of heaven who knows exactly what he or she means to the God of the universe can’t help but exude joyfulness and praise. I didn’t see anywhere in that chapter, “You shall know them by their furrowed brow and declarations of what a terrible state the world is in.”

Shout to the Lord, all the earth. Worship the Lord with gladness. Come before Him with joyful song.

Counting

I got to spend the weekend before the wedding with my fantastic sister. She moved to Minneapolis last summer – the first of us to truly leave the nest – and I got to fly out to visit her for one day before we road-tripped home. Nearly twelve hours of driving, done in one day, sped along the way by musicals and Disney music. We were so proud.

That girl then took over as the best maid of honor a bride could ask for. She threw a ballin’ bachelorette party: she hired a limo, invited a few of my closest friends out for dinner at Soho (incredible Japanese restaurant, ask about the thick noodles and their blackberry sangria), then an evening at Escape the Room (they lock you in a themed room and you have to follow the clues to find your way out in an hour – so much fun). I knew I didn’t want the traditional dinner-at-the-Cheesecake-Factory routine, and she took it and ran with it. And everybody that went had a great time!

As our resident stage manager we charged her with setting up the main attraction for the ceremony: the pipe-and-drape background. And for the first time in a really long time the Theatre Twins were back in action, fighting with strands of white twinkle lights that are really fickle and don’t want to work unless you ask them nicely, hoisting metals poles twelve feet in the air and then bringing them back down because OH MY GOD THE LIGHTS DON’T REACH THE FLOOR. It brought me back to our theatre days at college when she’d run around with a binder and a coffee and I’d follow her in her stage-manager duties before our call time that evening. And it felt so good to be back working with her.

See, that’s what’s been so strange about her living so far away: we’ve never had that before. When we went to college I was only there by myself for a year, and even then it was only forty minutes away so I was home all the time on the weekends. Then when she finally got there we ran in some of the same circles, worked on the same shows, had countless dinner and let’s-say-we’re-going-to-the-gym-but-really-sit-and-watch-a-movie-in-your-dorm dates. We’ve really never been apart; our lives have been pretty similar.

It was so different to be in Minneapolis and to be introduced to the new life she’s built a thousand miles away from the familiar where I stayed. “This is my house that I live with people that were strangers a year ago, this is the apartment that I’m about to move into with the roommate that I found, this is the place where I work, this is where I’m starting a new job soon, let me take you to this great little bar I love.” (It was great – nothing like Blue Moon and deep-fried cheese curds to warm your heart on a cold April day.) She packed her stuff, drove there alone, and made herself a life that, for a twenty-two-year-old, is pretty put-together. Just because she wanted to. She’s a theatre major so she does a lot of short-term work with unpredictable hours and heavy workloads – and she’s great at it. She’s constantly hunting, applying, fighting for more work, because she knows that’s the only way she’ll achieve her dreams of going to New York someday and working in a coveted position on Broadway.

In her maid-of-honor speech she called me “brave” and I remember giving her this funny look. While she admires me for the choices I’ve made I sit back in amazement at the future she’s developing for herself. She’s not afraid to go wherever she needs to to make her dreams a reality, but she maintains that individuality that makes her my best friend. She knows what she thinks and she stands up for what she believes, regardless of who might disagree. She is kind to strangers and good with little kids but has the guts to tell someone that they’re not doing what they’re supposed to. She is loved and respected by the people who have taken over as her Minnesota family.

She’s always been the brave one, the one I’ve watched and tried to imitate for years. I focus more on being my own person now rather than her shadow, but I still watch in awe and respect as she becomes more and more successful, more and more happy, more and more independent. I am so proud of her, and I was beyond blessed to spend so much time with her this past month.

Also, I think another road trip should be in the works. Because that was a blast and a half.

Sand

As of tomorrow, we will have been married for two weeks. And what a two weeks it’s been. The honeymoon was awesome: three days up and down the Pigeon Forge/Sevierville/Gatlinburg parkways visiting wineries and distilleries, hiking in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park (saw my first black bear), eating delicious food (#AppleBarn), enjoying a mountain view from our balcony hot tub, laying in bed drinking beer and watching TV knowing that we had absolutely nothing else that we should be doing. Exactly what we needed.

And then we came home and both of us got a stomach virus. Nothing like “I threw up in the shower” to let you know the honeymoon’s over.

And so life goes on. He went back to work, I went back to work, we got groceries, I made pork in the crockpot on Wednesday. Nothing’s different.

Marriage is the most special of bonds. There is one person in the whole world who knows me the way Joey does, the same can be said of him. Your relationship must be nurtured daily for it to last, and it is hard, unnatural, dedicated work. We stood in front of our family and friends and vowed to stick this thing out, come hell or high water. And we know that keeping that sacred promise will take some effort.

But you know what? Marriage is also not that big a deal. It feels so far like living life, except the “home” I go back to every night is our own and I have a man in my bed when I wake up every morning. Bills still have to be paid, we still can’t agree on what to watch on TV at night, and that full hamper means you should probably do laundry.

I sound a little melancholy when I talk about it, but this is what I’ve been saying for months: at the end of the wedding, you’re left with a marriage. The planning is done, the frills have fallen away, we have our cake in the freezer; and life went back to normal. A somewhat slow normal, it seems like, since we don’t have a cataclysmic date marked on the calendar anymore.

Hey, I said I was waiting for the day when I could lay on the couch and know that I had nothing else that I should be doing.

My mom and I are honoring our Friday night tradition tonight since Joey’s out of town – ordering pizza and binging “Say Yes to the Dress” on TLC (Friday is bride day!) – but it doesn’t feel the same to watch it anymore. They don’t tell you that you’ll wear that special dress that was destined for you for about six hours, and then you’ll get on with your life again. It’s not the glamorous side of weddings, so of course they don’t mention it on a show bent toward the multi-million-dollar wedding industry. So I’m saying it now. To those of you who crave marriage as a filling of some void you feel, it won’t fix it. It’s like leaving your dishwasher full of dirty dishes and going on vacation: you feel great for the week that you sit on the beach, but your dishes are still there when you get home. Marriage is wonderful, yes; and I’m actually really happy that we had the ceremony, even after months of asking, “Are you ready to elope yet?” But it is not the end-all-be-all. Joey still has things that he wants to do: he didn’t become immediately fulfilled when he became a husband. And I still have dreams of being a published author: I didn’t put those on a shelf after I became a Mrs.

Marriage is a coming together of two individual people who should fight to maintain their individuality – marriage is not a call to become the mirror image of the person you married. You must continue to grow and develop as a person, and your spouse will do the same. The thing that makes it so special is that you will do this together, building each other up, changing against one another, with no expectation of “I’m not dealing with this anymore” if suddenly you wake up and realize that the person you married isn’t the person in bed next to you anymore. (I mean, unless your spouse turns into a serial killer, this might pose a problem.) Who else in all the world do you get to do that with?

You have a heavy responsibility in front of you if you’re contemplating a walk down the aisle. And it is a sacred vow that should not by any means be taken lightly. But there’s no need to take it so seriously. Unless you’re marrying a marriage expert (which, I’m pretty sure, don’t exist), you are not expected to have it all figured out. The first little bit will be rocky as you continue to work out each other’s roles and expectations – you can talk about it all you want before you tie the knot, but all that talk means nothing until you put it into practice. This is OK. Be open with each other about likes and dislikes, talk about what works and what doesn’t. That’s what makes it fun: you develop your marriage into your own, without having to look exactly like somebody else’s marriage. Your marriage is as unique as the two people who have created it – nurture it as such.

I posted a question on Facebook a few months about “keeping God at the center of your marriage” – everybody says that’s important but they never really explain what that means. And in her wedding card to us my roommate’s mom included the best explanation I’ve ever heard. She presented it like a line:

HUSBAND          GOD          WIFE

As I, woman, go closer to my God, I am simultaneously moving closer to my husband. This is why a growing relationship with God is crucial in a God-honoring marriage, and if your spouse is of the same mindset, he won’t mind playing second fiddle to God the Father (as you shouldn’t either). You also notice that, to see your spouse, you have to look through God, which means seeing your spouse – the inherently flawed person that he or she is – the way that God sees them. God overlooks their eccentricities and quirks and loves them regardless, choosing instead to see the treasure that they are, worthy of unconditional love whether they don’t mow the grass right when you ask or load the dishwasher differently than you. It makes those little things that get under your skin seem not so important, and not so detrimental to a flourishing relationship.

Dear friends, I’m not an expert by any means: like I said, we’ve only been married for two weeks. But this is what I’ve found so far in only two short weeks. And I cannot wait to see what the rest of our future has in store.

Five Things I Learned from Watching "Gilmore Girls"

I caught on to the "Gilmore Girls" trend about ten year after everybody else. With a Christmas Netflix subscription and my move to a house with glacial internet speed looming imminent, I had three months to get through seven long seasons. (It's been done before: my college roommate and I watched 30 hour-long episodes of "Once Upon a Time" in a week.) At first it seemed, like all Hallmark Channel dramas, cheesy and predictable. And I hated Alexis Bledel's voice: you're not five, honey - you don't need to talk like you are.

Then one season turned into two. Then three. And pretty soon I found myself looking for ways to cancel evening plans so I could curl up in my bed with a cup of Lorelai-approved coffee and find out "what happens next." I slowly fell in love with Luke (mostly because I'm marrying a man exactly like Luke), hated Taylor Doose with every fiber of my being, and prayed that Lorelai and Rory would make up after yet another fight that pushed one of them toward her detestable parents.

I'm a season and a half away from finishing it. And I'm tempted to repeat my performance at the end of "Friends": to not watch the last episode so it continues to live on in my mind.

A reboot of the beloved series is in the words, and I'm still debating whether or not to get hooked on it. ("Downton Abbey" is over, I need something else to binge.) But as I near the end of the original, I wanted to share some of the things I've taken away from my time in Stars Hollow.

1. Everybody loves a small-town story. The title characters are only part of this story: the mother and daughter exploits wouldn't be nearly as charming if not for the colorful cast of supporting characters. And somehow, every time I hunkered in for another episode, I felt like I was coming home, to people that I had grown up with in a town where I would always be welcome. There's something alluring about the idea of a place where everybody knows your name and where your gossip is common knowledge only minutes after it happens. While the archetypal character concepts flood anything about small-town life - the eccentric handyman, the badass woman who breaks the mold by doing a man's job, the grouchy but lovable uber-conservation, the straight-laced asshole who everybody hates but can't do without - the eccentricities of the Stars Hollow residents are just quirky enough to be refreshing and unique. And I want to move there.
2. Everybody craves a good old-fashioned love story. I was never that interested in Rory's love life - I didn't like any of the guys she dated. But oh my word, Lorelai and Luke's story? Arguably the best: they've known each other forever and everybody knows they're supposed to be together, but there's that agonizing tension of, "Will they? Won't they?"
   
   And you heave a sigh of relief when they finally do get together. It just makes sense! Even through Lorelai's experimentation with Christopher (who I never liked) and Max Medina, and Luke's marriage and the discovery of his long-lost child, they ended up together - just as it should be.
3. Time - and food - heals all. I have only seen one other person eat like the Gilmores, and he's a dairy farmer who works hard all day and earns his right to eat his body weight in peanut-butter-and-jelly-and-potato-chip sandwiches. Lord Almighty, the food that these women consume. And the mere fact that everyone from Dean to Luke to Babbette knows them by how much they eat. The consumption of food is cathartic, and no matter what travesty befalls them, they know that a night of pizza, Red Vines, Chinese food from Al's Pancake World, and classic movies will make it all better. And I've been with these girls through horrible boyfriends, omitted truths, moving out, parent troubles. And they always come back together. Because friendship - which I think more defines them than mother-and-daughter - is stronger than the little piddly fights that life throws their way.
4. The "game plan" isn't always the best plan. I watched this series in a post-college panic: after graduating with an English education degree, I decided that I wasn't quite right for the classroom and quit a full-time job at a grocery store to be a writer who cleans houses on the side. And I found comfort in Lorelai's got-pregnant-at-sixteen-ran-away-from-home-started-working-as-a-cleaning-lady-at-an-inn-and-eventually-opened-up-the-inn-of-her-dreams story. As the daughter of a wealthy insurance man and a Daughter of the American Revolution debutante, she had everything going for her. And rather than seeing her less-than-ideal situation as the death of a promising future, she got her butt in gear, worked hard, and made a life that made her happy - happier than she would have been in the center of her parents' social circle.
5. Family is the worst. And also the best. I cringed whenever the Gilmores slunk up to that front door for Friday night dinners. I pitied Lane in her one-sided arguments with Mrs. Kim. I hated the dynamic between Luke and his brother-in-law TJ. (I actually just hated TJ - where the hell did he come from?) Who drives you nuts like your family does? The mothers who know what's best for you but have a hell of a way of showing that this is simply how they love, the children who respond with rebellion and hateful words - it's the single most relate-able aspect of the whole show. And yet...you watch what these families do to each other, for each other. Mrs. Kim wants so deeply for Lane to be safe that she erects these strict codes that must be obeyed. But when Lane finally gets through to her that this life is nothing like the life she wants, her mother encourages her to go after what she wants - she will not quit being a drummer, because she is supposed to be a drummer. Emily and Richard are so concerned with their daughter and granddaughter being comfortable that they come across overbearing and offensive in their haste to be involved. And Lorelai herself wants her daughter's future to look nothing like her own: she pushes her toward Yale and the right boys so that she doesn't have to struggle like her mother did. Though they may not have the best way of showing it, these characters are fiercely devoted to their kin; and they will do whatever it takes to make sure they are taken care of.

Wales

Well, we've been waiting for a year, but we are now officially in the home stretch: we have less than forty days until the wedding. I was on the couch with Joey last night, watching TV and sharing a box of these pretentious truffle things my neighbor gave us that she promised would "blow us sideways" (he said she's a terrible person for giving them to us, the box was nearly empty by the time I left), and I couldn't help but think, "This will be our norm in a month...and I could really get used to this." I get excited all over again when I think that I get to be the wife of this incredible man; I will get to wake up next to him every day, to roll over and say, "Good morning, my husband." I still smile like an idiot every time I drive twenty minutes to see him instead of going months between visits and waiting at the airport for his flight that might get in now or might not be here for another four hours.

This whole thing just tickles the hell out of me.

When we started this wedding planning venture, I received a couple books to help the process be as painless as possible. And I promptly put them on a shelf in my room and let the process be painful because I like the most difficult scenario possible. But after arguments and compromise and thrown-out ideas and "oh my God, just pick something because I'm tired of talking about this," we've come out on the other side, a month away and basically done. We're sitting on "go," and hopefully that blessed day will be upon us with little stress and much, much enjoyment.

Dear friends, no amount of books or advice from brides who came before can really prepare you for the planning of your own wedding. Just as each couple is unique, each wedding comes with its own set of challenges. You watch "Say Yes to the Dress" and see the girls with perfectly-curled hair and the sample dresses that hug their bodies like they were specifically tailored to them and think, "Surely they didn't have these struggles." (Maybe because they can afford to drop $8,000 on a dress that they will wear once. Surely people who spend a lot of money don't have struggles, right?)

^Sarcasm.

Here are a handful of things that I learned during the planning of my own wedding. And like I said, this doesn't apply to everyone: you have an idea of how you want your wedding, and your idea doesn't look exactly like mine. But these are some blanket statements that I have discovered in the past almost-fourteen months of planning. (And this is mostly geared toward brides, as much of the wedding industry is these days. Sorry, guys.)

1) You are not marrying yourself. Remember that dude who asked you the question and put a ring on it? Yeah, he's part of your day too. I know he doesn't care about some of the things I have cared about, but Joe does have opinions. He has to wear the outfit that I have in mind, he has to eat the food at the reception, he has to say whether or not he wants a first dance. (Which, thank God he didn't - neither of us was blessed with grace.) There were some points when I had to ask him, "Do you really care, or are you just having an opinion to have an opinion?" But when your guy speaks up about something he'd like to have or not, listen to him. The bride may be the focus (which really irritates me), but there's another half to this blessed event.


2) It's OK not to care. I knew when my mom was asking me what socks I wanted the guys to wear that I was in way over my head. I genuinely did not care about what plates we had at the reception. I couldn't care less whether the guests throw birdseed or rice or sprinkles or green beans as we leave. (I did not know you're not supposed to throw rice anymore: good luck it may be, but birds eat it and it puffs up in their stomachs when they drink water. If you love the environment, you'll stick to something more bird-friendly.) The best decision I made was putting my mom in charge and learning to say, "I really don't care." Just because someone asks your opinion doesn't mean you have to have one. It's actually frustrating for everyone when you say "yes" just to say "yes" but don't really mean it. Establish early that honesty is more important than an argument about socks.

3) BE HONEST. Refer to the latter half of that last paragraph. Dear Lord, this is more important. If you don't want that, say it. If that's really important to you, say it. This is your day, no matter who's helping you plan it: ultimately your say is most important.

4) This day is not all about you. I learned this in a fairly hard way pretty early in the planning process. Neither Joey nor I really wanted a wedding in the first place: we were so focused on who we would marry that neither of us gave much thought to how we'd get married, and we would have been totally fine with eloping and having a party with all of our friends and family. (I think we've said about once a week, "Are you ready to elope yet?") In hindsight I'm glad we didn't: he moved here and we've spent more time together in the last ten months than we have in two years of knowing each other. We bought a house, we put it together, we both made job decisions - it was best for us to have a long engagement. But you must remember that this day is bigger than the two of you. This is the joining of two families with the union of one from each; this is the chance for your friends and family to celebrate a new future in the making. This is the chance for your parents to celebrate the ultimate sign of adulthood of their child. As much as the media makes about the bride, this is not just your day. Remembering how many other people are involved will steer you away from acting like a spoiled brat who must get her way in every aspect of the wedding. (This took me about six months to learn, I'll shamefully admit.)

5) You do not have to have your dress ready six months early. This was actually a surprise to me that I learned from the seamstress who altered my dress. The magazines tell you to have your dress finished months in advance, but they're not accounting for weight changes, growths, limbs that go missing. I'm still in possession of the four limbs I had before, but I'm about two sizes down than I was when I bought my dress last April. I called the seamstress in November and explained my alteration needs, and she told me to call back in February, when I'd be at about the same size as I would on my wedding day. I was shocked! But I'm glad I waited: my weight has even shifted since November, and now, a month out, my dress fits like a glove and is more likely to be perfect on the wedding day. The moral of this story: while you need to do some things in advance (like book your venues: do that immediately), you don't always have to follow the timeline that Wedding Wire suggests.

6) Bigger is not better. But less is not always more. Establish at the very beginning of your process what kind of wedding you want. I was a very practical bride and knew that our money was better suited toward what comes before and after the wedding - you know, student loans, mortgage payments, having enough propane in our tank to get us through the winter. I bought my dress on Amazon.com for $100 and have DIYed as much as possible. But maybe you want a big expensive wedding. Maybe you want a little cheap wedding. Either is perfectly fine. But just remember: a big wedding costs a lot of money, and a cheap wedding runs the risk of looking tacky. Get a clear picture in your head early of your wedding "vision." And stick to it.

7) DIY is not always the way to go. I am not a creative person. I have cute ideas on my Pinterest, but I am not good at making them happen. Another "best decision" I made was saying, "Is it really more cost-effective to make it myself, or would it be easier to pay someone else to do it who's better at this than I am?" We did a lot ourselves: Joey and I spent four days tying birdseed in tulle and ribbon, and my mother-in-law-to-be has done an amazing job with the flowers. But we have saved ourselves a huge headache by renting and ordering.

8) Take your time. I understand that you want to hurry up and be married. But the last thing you need to be is stressed. We started immediately after I got engaged, took a four-month break in the middle when shit went down with my parents, and hit the ground running again in January. Now we have a full month to sit back and tackle any last-minute hiccups that come up. Planning is done, preparation is complete, and we're sitting back just waiting for the week before 16 April. At first it was a pain: I am not a planner, and when my mom pressed me to make decisions the week after we got engaged, I struggled seeing the reasoning behind it: "We have a year!" But I'm so glad we did so much so early. If you can give yourself at least six months to plan, do that. If you can be patient enough to wait a year, do that instead. You and your stomach will thank you: nobody wants an ulcer on their wedding day.

9) Enjoy. A friend of mine recently got engaged and was asking me where I started with planning. While of course we got right on reserving locations and asking people to participate, I told her, "Enjoy being engaged." You're about to start on the most exciting adventure of your life with the partner of your dreams: enjoy that. Drink champagne. Grin like an idiot when you look at your ring. Kiss your S.O. often. Lie in bed at night and be happy with the journey on which you're about to embark. Take a little moment and be excited before you get stressed and wonder why you're doing this in the first place.

This, of course, is not the to-do list for wedding planning; they are merely things that I've learned in the last year. But remember that you're preparing for the rest of your life, to be kicked off by this single day. This is a celebration of that "forever." By making the planning process as painless as possible, you're more likely to see your wedding day as a celebration of your future, rather than a culmination of the past few stressful months.

Because nobody likes a grumpy bride.

Curds

I took a huge leap the other day.

I told you all about my game plan: to quit my job at Kroger for a cleaning job at Cedarville, with better hours, better pay, and more time in the afternoons for me to write. It sounded good, and I was excited to get started.

Until I actually got started. And I realized that it wasn't what I thought it would be.

I know there are growing pains with any jobs: I remember walking onto the back dock at Kroger on my third day nearly in tears because I really didn't want to do be in that place. It might not sound like it but there is a lot to learn with a custodial job, and after my first day I felt a little overwhelmed. But with lists from the girl that I was training with and helpful people left and right, I felt like I could handle it when I was turned loose to work by myself on the third day. And the work was never too hard: I always felt like I could do it. I was allowed to work at my own pace and listen to music and be left alone to get my responsibilities done. Nobody checked up on me, nobody babysat me, nobody nitpicked over something I had done. After four years of micromanagement and bullshit at Kroger, it was a welcome change.

And then I realized just how early 3.15am comes these days. I realized how long a forty-minute drive to and from really was. I realized that my old truck was burning a quarter-tank of gas every day, and that $70 a week in gas adds up after a while. I realized that, while the work was handle-able, it was constant for eight hours a day; and by the time I had driven up to the college, worked for eight hours a day, and driven forty minutes home, all I wanted to do was shower and crash on the couch.

And there's another thing that I didn't bargain for. They put me in the theatre where I spent so much of my time as a student. I remember my sister parading down the hallways with a binder and a coffee cup, ready to start another show and stage-manage somebody. I walked past the posters of shows I had been part of: "Hello Dolly," "Pride and Prejudice," "The 39 Steps" that no show to come will ever top. I saw the faces of the people I had grown up with. I was in and out of the dressing rooms where I crammed with thirty girls, each hula-hooped in crinoline and doused in hairspray.

I am nostalgic, dear friends. And I hid in the dressing room two days in a row and bawled: nothing felt the same, when I so expected it to feel like coming home.

So on Friday night, after a pretty impressive meltdown to Joey, I decided to send out some feelers: I loved the cleaning part of the job, and I messaged about twenty people asking if they needed someone to come clean their houses regularly. The responses were immediate, and I spent all the next day fielding messages and filling my agenda book. I didn't have quite enough regular customers to make a consistent income, so I said, "I'll wait until I get a few more answers before I do anything."

On Sunday morning I was laying in bed, thinking about this potential next step. And I swear to you, as clear as day, I heard something inside me say, "Quit your job."

There was no way I could commit to the people I had heard from until I was no longer attached to Cedarville. And so, on Sunday morning, with only my part-time job at the orthodontist's office and a handful of houses to clean, I called my boss at Cedarville and said I wouldn't be coming in on Monday.

I woke up on Monday morning unemployed. I woke up on this Monday morning still unemployed. I signed up for uncertainty week to week what hours I'll be working; I have no idea how much (or how little) money I will make. I have never, as a viable adult, not had a traditional, clock-in-clock-out job.

I have never been more certain that this is what I'm supposed to do.

Guys, I'm supposed to be a writer. After forcing myself into a teaching degree and hunting for receptionist jobs that I'm not even sure I'd be right for and running around like a maniac as I waited for some kind of answer, that has always been the underlying answer. And it's not traditional: it goes against everything that I am to say, "I'm a writer and I clean houses on the side." I'm looking at an average of fifteen to twenty hours of work every week, where my soon-to-be husband pulls forty or fifty; and I think, "I'm not pulling my weight, I'm living my dream while he's busting his ass." (He says I shouldn't think like that, but it's my biggest fear that I'm not helping us financially as much as I should.)

But this is bigger than following a dream. Guys, this is a leap of faith. It sounds really cheesy to say it, and I'm sorry if it sounds cheesy to hear it. But while I don't subscribe to the "I'll sit back and wait for God to bless me" mindset, I do believe that I'm doing what God has called me to do, and the money will take care of itself. I lay in my bed on Sunday night and say, "God, I've sent out the emails, I've sent out the texts. I trust that You will provide me work that pays. And in the mornings, I will write - because that is the talent You've blessed me with and that is the calling that I have." During my meltdown to Joey, I bawled, "I don't know what I'm supposed to do." And that amazing man I get to marry held me tight and said, "You're supposed to write. So that's what you'll do." And I believe that, if I do the work and show myself willing, that God will provide work. He will bless my work. And we will be fine.

I'm still trying to get myself to believe it: I still panic a little as I've come to Monday morning and I have two days of work lined up for this week. I constantly have in mind the dollar amount in mind I need to make every week for us to "get by." But I believe that my God is faithful. I believe that He will bless us because of my leap. I believe that we will be blessed beyond our belief because I'm doing what He has called me to do. I believe that my God is my source, not my paycheck.

And I believe I'm doing exactly what I'm supposed to do.

Immortalized

Today I walked out of the job that I've held down for four years. Five, in May. After saying "I'm looking for a new job" for the past year since I graduated from college, I finally revised my resume, sent out my applications, had the interview, and put in my two weeks' notice.

I tried, OK? I tried to find something that would be "worthy" of me. I have a degree, for God's sake. I spent four (and a half) long years studying and writing and cramming and presenting so I could be the proud owner of a piece of paper with "B.A." scrawled across the top and give that dopey grin from the commencement stage to let my parents know, "See? This will dig me from the depths of student loans! This is the answer to all my questions of purpose and fulfillment!"

And then I got into the real world and realized it, like nothing else, is that simple. The jobs I thought I'd somewhat enjoy thought I "wasn't quite right for the position," and the ones I really wanted required fifteen more years experience than one recent college grad could possibly provide.

So I became desperate. I changed my way of thinking. Instead of asking "what would be worthy," I thought, "What would I enjoy?"

Novel concept, I know.

In the next week or so I will start as part of the custodial team at Cedarville University, like I did during my senior year there. As one of my dear friends so tenderly put it, I'll be a janitor.

If you're quick to wrinkle your nose, let me stop you right there. Do you realize what it's like to be a new adult these days? Particularly a new adult who is knee-deep in planning (and helping pay for) a wedding, up to her eyeballs in student loan debt, a recent homebuyer, and the proud owner of a clunky pickup that likes to fall apart every few months (preferably right before road trips)? Nutshell: it's expensive. And while my other half makes a decent living, I need to make more than minimum wage to pull my weight. Oh, and need I mention insurance: it's a fine-able offense these days to be caught uninsured these days. While it would certainly be ideal to hold out until a good-paying job that requires my degree comes along, I don't have the luxury to wait for that. In short, I'll take what I can get.



For those of you who don't know, I graduated in 2014 with an English education license. I, my friend, am fully qualified to teach English/Language Arts anywhere from seventh grade to twelfth grade. So naturally it's easy for you to sit back and say, "Well, hell, why aren't you doing that then?" And for those of you who haven't kept up with my story for the past year or so, I'll cut you some slack. But let me also fill you in:

To be a teacher means so much more than standing in front of a classroom full of bright young things ready to sop up the knowledge you come to bestow. Sure, you get summers off. But your work months are grueling for shit pay, and unless you have years of experience under your belt and recycle the same material every year (which you really shouldn't do, you should be constantly tweaking your material), you can kiss a social life goodbye. While I was doing my student teaching, I would teach for eight hours a day, then come home and work for another four to five hours every night developing lesson plans, writing tests, reading the material I got to teach my kiddos (luckily for me I actually enjoy Beowulf - I got to teach it four times a day for three months straight), and grading papers. (I once assigned essays to all seven of my class periods to be turned in during the same week. That was the nearest I've ever come to suicide.) Oh, and I was working sixteen hours every weekend. I think I went three months without a day off.

Long story short: this workload requires nothing less than 110% dedication, or you run the risk of hating your job, negatively influencing the precious flowers you get to instruct, and/or dying with your head in an oven. And life is far too short (and simultaneously much too long) to waste your time doing something you hate.

Dear friends, I've learned much in the last year-and-a-half. And the greatest of these lessons (aside from "don't put powdered sugar and candles on a birthday cake") is to find what you enjoy and do the heck out of it. Do not let money be a factor. My sister is living on the bare minimum in a city far away working theatre jobs left and right for shit to no money, and she loves it. I met a lady on Wednesday who's been a seamstress for decades, and while she has to work a day job on the side, she continues to alter dresses in her 114-year-old house because that's what she's passionate about. Do what you need to in order to survive, but for the love of God, do something you enjoy. And I, dear friends, love to clean for people. I love the idea of doing the same thing every day at my own pace and seeing the product of my labor when I'm done: what once was filthy is now sparkling. After five years at a job where nothing is predictable and playing the politics game is just as important as slapping on the fake smile for customers, I know enough to say I don't play like that.

And there's something deeper. Deeper and much, much more important.

I chose this job because of the pay, but also because of the early hours: I start at 5am, which means I have to be up by 3.30 to be there on time, but I'm free to go at 2 in the afternoon. While my weekends won't line up with my fiance's anymore, I'll be home in the afternoons to be with him. And this also gives me time to write. Because of all the things I imagined I could be, the thing I keep coming back to - the thing that I was born to do - is be a writer. I'm working on a book right now, and the nature of the gig combined with the time off gives me the opportunity to leave my job at work and make my passion a discipline every single day, while also giving me the stability of an income at a job that I enjoy.

It'll be a different lifestyle: I'm so used to driving two minutes down the road to the grocery store and working unpredictable shifts with people who are miserable and management that seems unreasonable. But I'm ready. It's time for a change. It's been time for a change for a long time. It's time for me to do what makes me happy. It's finally time for me to do what's best for me. And that, my friends, is so, so important.

Elephant

I just mailed our wedding invitations.

Now it feels real.

A year ago tomorrow Joey asked me to marry him, and I thought that next year would drag by. We knew we wanted a long engagement, and looking back I'm glad we did so we could take our time with the planning. (Stressed B is not a happy B.) And in some respects, this year did drag. Yet here we are, a little over two months from the wedding that has consumed our last 365 days (except for that super fun four months in the middle of it when everybody was falling apart - which, while the reason was awful, was admittedly a nice break), with only a handful of details to work out.  And while it's been stressful and at times not very fun at all, our special day will be a beautiful culmination of careful planning and detailed orchestration, an elegant kickoff to the journey that will carry us for the rest of our lives, the coming together of a couple of kids who don't believe in fate but know that they're meant to be together.

Someone asked me at the shower on Saturday if I was getting cold feet yet. I guess this is normal: the bride or groom suddenly has second thoughts and the blissful union runs risk of being scrapped. But while we've kicked ourselves at least once a week for not eloping months ago, I have to admit I have yet to have that "Father of the Bride" moment when I get offended about something and demand that all the gifts be sent back tout suite.

Trust me, I know what uncertainty feels like. I'm well acquainted with that quiet nag in my gut of "oh my God, I can't do this." I'm pretty good at deciding between irrational fears and that God-given wariness that this might not be the right decision. And while I've felt those feelings in nearly every single area of my life in the past eighteen months (well, five years, really), I have never once had those doubts about my marriage to my gentle giant. Of all the things that I worry about, of this I am most certain. Naturally I worry that I won't be a good wife and that thirty years down the road it'll all come crashing down revealing the illusion that it's always been, but those are merely the imprints of someone else's reality that I lay on top of our story and call our truth.

I have this feeling in my gut that we will work. We are one of those old-fashioned stories of two people who fell in love and will fight to stay together for the sake of a promise, an active commitment to something larger than our petty arguments and trivial anxieties.

I don't imagine that agreement will make it easier. But I'm a firm believer that anything worth having is made so much sweeter by hard work. I am ready. I'm ready for this next phase as the one we've been in for the last year will reach fruition in just sixty-five days. I'm ready to enter a God-honoring union with the man whom my soul loves.

I don't think I've been more ready for anything.