Moving On Up!

Nathan made 1st Lieutenant today!!! He graduated from OTS on

September 24, 2008--exactly two years ago.

I am so proud of him : )

Tour de TX, LA & MS

Saturday morning starts an incredibly fun nine days! I am driving to Dallas (Grand Prairie, specifically) for Sarah's Welcome Home Party, where I will get to see my closest college friends. Then Sunday it's off to San Antonio to hang out a little with the fam and help my mom with some things around the house. Wednesday/Thursday I will make the almost 10 hour drive to Biloxi to see my handsome man and hang out with him until Sunday. Can't wait!!

Nest Interior Design

I.am.in.love.

http://nestdallasdesign.com/projects

I tried posting some pictures of my favorite rooms, but it wasn't working. So browse. The outside of the Wiese-Alexander house is gorgeous. Also the bathroom.

I cannot wait until Nathan and I own a house. I know I have posted about this before, but seriously... I cannot wait! Between wanting to be a teacher in elementary school and deciding to become a teacher in 10th grade, I wanted to be an interior decorator. Something about beautiful homes makes me swoon. Until we stop moving across the world and have space in our budget for home furnishings, I will dream : )

Restless

Every now and then I get in a mood. A mood that makes me crave a little bit of change. I bounce around in my head everything from getting a completely new 'do to overhauling my entire wardrobe to painting my nails a color other than pink to rearranging something in the house. Usually nothing really comes of it. I am not an impulsive decision maker in the least. Just ask Nathan. But I am in that mood right now. I want something a little new or different. But nothing that is extremely permanent. Notice my list above. I'm not talking a tattoo or anything. We'll see if anything comes of it this time... I feel pretty determined. At least right now.

"Every goodbye makes the next hello closer."

Nathan just left. Ugh. I hate it. Two months in Mississippi for a training class. Hopefully we will get to see each other every couple of weeks since I am closer than I was last time, so I am telling myself two weeks instead of two months. It's still hard. More than anything, I hate being alone. Sure, I have friends and family, but they can't replace Nathan. I can fill my time reading books and watching movies and surfing the Internet and getting things ready for our move, but it's not the same as having a real companion to talk to and do things with. Some of the pettier things I am dreading: sleeping alone, cooking for just one, having to take out the trash, and being responsible for paying the bills. I know we will get to the other side of this and say it wasn't that big of a deal, just like when he was at OTS and when he was in MS last time. I just hate the first day so much.

Changing subjects... Nathan has been taking pictures of the hummingbirds that have been coming to the feeder in the past few weeks and one that he took yesterday was great.

Wise Words

In the last few days I have been finishing up my Bible study on Ruth and reading C.S. Lewis' The Four Loves (for the second time). A few things I read in both struck me.

--In looking at the verses before Ruth goes to Boaz at the threshing floor, the author of the Bible study was explaining that Naomi told Ruth to put on her best clothes, aka take off the clothes she had been wearing to mourn her husband. I then had to find and read this verse: "The Lord said to Samuel, 'How long will you mourn for Saul, since I have rejected him as king over Israel?'" {1 Samuel 16:1} God took Israel from Saul's hands and was ready to send Samuel to anoint David, but Samuel was still mourning Saul's fall. I took this as a warning about our move to Germany. I have come a long way in the last few years in not holding onto the past, but instead embracing whatever God has for me next. It is always good and I am not sad for what I left behind for too long, and yet every time a change is about to happen in my life, I catch myself thinking that this, what I have right now, is IT. How could anything be better? Like right now. I love my job and everyone I work with, I have really good friends--the kind I haven't had in a while, Nathan and I have a nice place to live and we enjoy being here in Shreveport. Sometimes I want to tell God, "Hey, you know I've got a good thing going here and I know it's from You, so why are you going to take it away now? Couldn't we have at least been here a little while longer??" How ridiculous is that? I have to keep being reminded that my life is not my own. My checklist is not on God's agenda. However, He has taught me to trust Him with my life, all of the details, and He hasn't failed me yet. So how long will I mourn? Not another second. Ok. I might cry a little later on... but with a heart that is yearning for God's plans for me, not my plans for everything to remain the same.

--"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket - safe, dark, motionless, airless - it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable... We shall draw nearer to God, not by trying to avoid the sufferings inherent in all loves, but by accepting them and offering them to Him; throwing away all defensive armour. If our hearts need to be broken, and if He chooses this as the way in which they should break, so be it." {The Four Loves pg 121-122} I don't think there's anything to add to that. It's just true and very piercing.

--"It remains certainly true that all natural loves can be inordinate. Inordinate does not mean "insufficiently cautious." Not does it mean "too big." It is not a quantitative term. It is probably impossible to love any human being "too much." We may love him too much in proportion to our love for God; but it is the smallness of our love for God, not the greatness of our love for the man, that constitutes the inordinacy... which (when the alternative comes) do you serve, or choose, or put first? To which does your will, in the last resort, yield?" {The Four Loves pg 122-123} I hear people use the line "I just love him/her too much" in order to justify their actions/inactions towards someone, almost always which are selfish and wrong. Most common example: parents not disciplining their children because they "love them too much." The truth is they don't want to deal with disciplining them, so they don't. Another good one: Not letting go of people when it's necessary. Holding on to people is not an act of love. It is an act of selfishness. Doesn't it seem a tad bit absurd to put a limit on how much you love someone? And yet, that is what the statement "I love them too much" assumes. God calls us to and loves us with a perfect love. A complete love. Not a love that is "not too much." Sometimes it is hard to get our priorities straight with God and people. I am in constant need of the reminder that my loyalty lies first and foremost with God, then with Nathan, then with our (future) children, then with everyone else. People are always wanting to be first in your life, even if they aren't in the top three list, and it is hard to remind them that they do not come first. Or second or even third. Jesus said in Luke 14:26, "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters - yes, even his own life - he cannot be my disciple." Lewis says the word "hate" in that verse, and many others, does not mean the opposite of love, but "to reject." If you cannot and do not replace your family and your life with God and obedience to Him, you cannot follow Him. What a challenge! Many times I barely let myself think about what I would do if something were to happen to Nathan, and my usual conclusion is that I couldn't go on. I wouldn't go on. But that is immature. The only thing I could lose that would be of true detriment is God. Of course, I know I can't lose Him... But my concern should not lie in holding onto Nathan, or any other person in my life for that matter. Not only because I can't hold onto him, but because he should not be my world in the first place.

Our New Ride

We bought a car last weekend and O.M.G. we LOVE it! It's a whole heck of a lot nicer than anything we thought we might get. Thanks, Dad, for all of your help!

2006 Honda Accord. Silver. Leather. Sunroof. Navigation System (which will work in Germany!). Voice Command Control. 3 months free XM Radio.