Rev and I celebrated birthdays last week. We’ve reached the point in life where we are thankful for another year, but cringe just a little at adding one more number to the total. Whew!
We were born just four days apart and baptized on the same day. Since the day we met he’s been my best friend. He makes me laugh more than anyone else I know, and his love for the Lord and our family is evident in every decision he makes.
Which is why there was another date on the calendar last week that was even more precious than our birthdays.
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I was reading this blog post and it reminded me of my own pre-wedding trauma and I just had to write about it. It was 1998 and I was getting ready for one of the most exciting time in the pre-wedding planning — registering for all of the things that will ensure a great start to marriage which are blenders, towels, and silverware, right? I was just beginning to get excited about decorating our royal palace, which took the form of a 1960’s rental trailer for $350/month, when we began the registry process at WalMart. Now my fiancé and I were registering at a time before the cool little scanners existed.
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Life seems to be all about learning, implementing, revising, relearning…
Some of those lessons are ones I wish I just had to sit through once and, perhaps if I truly learned the message the first time through, that would be the case.
He’s been teaching me these past many months the art of letting go. Letting go of the old in order to embrace the new. Letting go of what is not working so that He can bring to me what will. Letting go of trying to fix it or work it out on my own, instead allowing Him to bring His perfect will and plans into my life.
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I stepped out of the clothing store with my bags and into the bright sunshine of the day. My hand shading my eyes, I scanned the parking lot for the car, because as usual I had forgotten where it was parked. The longer I stood there the more uncomfortable I was becoming. I knew that my husband was sitting out there somewhere among the hundreds of vehicles watching me and probably getting a pretty good chuckle out of it! How many times have I done this? I am directionally challenged and even need to be pointed in the right direction when I step out of a store in a mall!
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When he pulled that pepper shaker out of the bag I almost laughed out loud. 
Fourteen years earlier we stood on separate aisles of Target – me with crossed arms and him wondering if we would ever make it. With scanner gun in hand, I stared at the rows of salt and pepper shakers. Wooden? How could I possibly season my food with wooden salt and pepper shakers?
As Alan and I registered for our upcoming wedding, we hadn’t anticipated the sometimes-uneven start of zipping two lives together. After dating six years, we were more than ready to marry. I’d dreamed of this very event since our high school trigonometry class where we met and fell in love.
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Written on
October 20, 2011 by
Mary in
Blog
“What does ‘Trick or treat’ mean?” My five-year old is at the stage of asking the meaning behind cliches that most of us rattle off mindlessly.
“Well, it used to be that on Halloween people were saying, ‘Give me a treat or I’ll play a trick on you.’ It doesn’t really mean that anymore and people don’t really play tricks if someone doesn’t give them candy.”
A few days later he asked again, but he finished the story for me, “But people don’t really mean it, right?”
It made me realize how many times we say things without thinking about the real meaning behind them.
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I pray sometimes when I workout.
I know I must look funny, sitting there at the gym on the exercise bike with my eyes closed, but that time—with my body moving and my mind turning to God—is my lifeline some days. It’s my 60-minute-recharge.
As a busy mom, it’s hard to carve out time every day to pray–to talk to God and to listen to His voice. Some days, I get up and hit the floor running… making breakfast, packing lunches, helping everyone get ready, and then rushing (late) out the door to carpool kids to school. On those days especially, taking time to pray is exactly what I need.
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As the fourth of five children growing up, there was always a lot of competition to get a desired role or other things I wanted out of life. I wasn’t always placed on the “A team” as it was not easy contending for my way with three older siblings and a little sister. I often felt pushed aside, overlooked and forgotten.
Do any of you remember the TV show “Land of the Lost“? (I am really dating myself here!) As a child, I loved to pretend play this show with my brothers and sisters. I always wanted to be Judy, who was beautiful, or Penny, because she was smart.
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