I love Jesus! June 24, 2008

I just needed to share my enthusiasm over that today.  Hope you all enjoyed.   For those of you I never get to see face to face, I love you and miss you and I can’t wait until our next meeting.  For those of you I see all the time, I love you too, and I look forward to seeing you soon. Shalom to you all!

A very good weekend. June 10, 2008

So I always feel bad when I use this blog to talk about me, because I feel like most people don’t really want to hear about me and the typically boring life I lead. But for the sake of community and wanting to participate, I will update on this weekend’s events. And maybe this story will sound better typed out than I feel like it does when I tell it aloud…

Craig was in Indy all last week for rotations. He’s been staying with his grandmother while he’s down there, so I haven’t seen him for awhile. Which was sad, but we had VBS going on all last week so it kept my mind off things for the most part.

Finally Friday came and I got to see him again. I don’t really remember much about Friday with the exception that it included Krispy Kremes in celebration of National Doughnut Day. (Don’t judge me for being on KK’s email list.)

Saturday was a typical day. I woke up around 9, got my oil changed (don’t go to Pep Boys!!!! That’s a story for another time though…). Craig was working on some things for his rotation and we were going to meet up around 4 to go to dinner and a movie.

We watched the new Indiana Jones…which btw, I love. I keep hearing “but it’s so far-fetched!” Well, the last time I checked the plot to the first IJ was about the Ark of the Covenant melting the faces of a bunch of Nazis off, so what were you expecting?

And then we went to Outback Steakhouse. Craig and I go here about once a year. Afterward involves a lot of puking typically because I think we’re both allergic to something in their food, but we love it nonetheless. It was kind of a bummer this time though because we were sitting next to smoking and I hate the smell of cigarettes. Oh, and my meat was about 90% fat…but that’s ok, because I love the place anyway.

Walmart was the next stop on the trip. We walked around for about an hour or so. This is standard for a Craig and Courtney date. After Wally World we started driving around Lafayette. We drove down 6th street because I like the old homes there and past the ball park to see if Jay was umping. Then I started singing something from the Sound of Music, or maybe he did, I can’t remember. And I asked him if he wanted to go back to my apartment and watch it. “Not tonight….I’m not really in the mood for it I don’t think…”

“Okay, well then we can just rent a movie or watch The Office or something. It’s getting late and there’s no point in driving back to your place now since you picked me up tonight.”

“But I made us some dessert this afternoon. Jason’s home, so let’s just go back and eat some with him and watch a movie or something.”

“Oh, ok.”

So we drove around a little more, and got some cherry limeaides from Sonic. Then we started out toward his place, but we passed the street Craig typically turns on to go to his house.
“Where are we going?”
“I told you, to Jason’s”
“But you just passed the street”
“I’m taking the back way”
“But there’s construction.”
“Please stop ruining date night Courtney.”
“Oh.”

Silence, because I now have a little bit of an idea of where we may actually be going. But I’m trying really hard not to get too excited, because I’ve had false alarms before.

And as we drive past the last street that takes us to Jason’s, my heart skips a little beat. But I’m still telling myself that logically this night will not come for another couple of months, and I need not get too excited. Because let down sucks. I’m also having the scene from The Office when Jim ties his shoe laces running through my head and thinking about how funny Craig thought that moment was. It could also be a cruel joke, because he’s a little like that.

And we pull into the parking lot of Faith Baptist. They have a gym where I work out, and behind the gym is a beautiful pond with a walking path around it and old street lamps, and a quaint little gazebo where Katie Kline’s cousin wants to get married. Katie and I have jogged on this track several times and Craig and I have gone on walks together here before.

We start on the far side of the pond from the gazebo and there’s a frog in our path. I learned something new about Craig that night…he’s terrified of frogs.

“You were one of those people that could catch frogs at camp, weren’t you Courtney?”
“Are you kidding me…I don’t want one to pee on me.”

And the mention of camp breeds a discussion of how we met there and all of the good times we’ve had there since. It was nice and it kept me from noticing Craig’s piano and all the candles in the gazebo.

So we reach the gazebo and I realize what’s going on. I figured that he wouldn’t go to the trouble of moving his piano all the way out there for “just” a date night. So we sit at the piano bench like we’ve done a hundred times together, and he starts to play “The Luckiest” by Ben Folds. (If you want to listen…http://youtube.com/watch?v=Ca3L6UeVLJY). He plays the first measure and pauses, so I look over at him and (in Craig’s words) his eyes were “sweating.” So I sing, “I don’t get many things right…” And eventually my eyes start to sweat at well, but Craig is able to finish the rest of the song for me.

After he’s done singing we both stand up and hug, and I ask, “So what’s for dessert?” “Ugh, (rolls eyes) come here and just hold on a minute.”

And Craig lifts the lid to the piano bench his Aunt Myra bought him. And picks up the small black box sitting inside. And he lowers and opens the box.

I’m not sure what happened after that. I’m sure it involved him asking me to marry him. But the words got lost in the flood of my emotions. Craig wants me to remember it as a big long eloquent speech about how much he loves me, so maybe I will. And even if that speech wasn’t actually spoken, I know it was there anyway.

I said something completely ridiculous along the lines of “I’d marry you a thousand times if that’s what it took.” And we hugged and kissed and cried together. (I mean, our eyes sweat together.) And we attempted to eat some of the brownies he had made and drink some of the sparkling white grape juice from the pretty champaign glasses he had bought earlier that week, and I don’t know if it was the Outback talking or something else that night, because we were both pretty uninterested in dessert at that moment.

So that’s the beginning of our story. In just ten months we’ll get the chance to make that covenant with God and with each other and begin our lives together. I can’t wait. For a long time I’ve had a song stuck in my head that goes, “Waiting, for my real life to begin.” And now I feel like it finally has.

And just to deviate from the actual story telling, I keep getting asked these questions a lot and so I thought I’d answer them…

The wedding will be in Jeff at Nside.
I do not have the reception hall booked, but we’re leaning toward Culbertson West.
The tentative date is April 4, 2009 (Craig’s bday.)
I do not know who all will be in the wedding or who will officiate.

Hope you enjoyed the story

Skidaddling For Jesus June 4, 2008

I know it’s been over a month now since a real post, but in my defense I’ve been enjoying Hawaii, which I’m sure I’ll post about eventually, but today something different.

 

I want to talk about one of the girls in my Bible class, who for the sake of privacy I will not name and hopefully if her parents happen to stumble on this blog will be ok with me telling this.  She’s in the first grade (will be going into second grade soon).  Sunday night her mom pulled me aside and asked me if I had used the phrase “Skidaddle after Jesus” that morning in class.  I had not.  The reason she asked me this is because her daughter had talked to her that morning during church and explained that she wanted to “skidaddle after Jesus” and that she felt as though “Jesus was up here (placing her hands in the air),” and she was “down here (placing her hands down at her waist).”  But she told her mom she didn’t want to be baptized because she felt like that was something left for when you were older and didn’t have stage fright like she does. 

 

My first thought is that this is absolutely adorable and it left me very close to tears like I always get when I feel like one of “my kiddos” has reached a new place in their relationship with Jesus.    

 

But given time to mull it over I was brought full circle back to my never ending contemplation of what it is like to have the heart of a child when it comes to Christ following.  I don’t know what “skidaddling after Jesus” looks like to this little girl, but for me it brings up several emotions.  Mostly a sense of urgency.  It makes me think about all of the hours and opportunities I let slip by me every day that could be used to spread Jesus around me.  When I was a child things could never come soon enough.  I couldn’t wait to turn 8, and when I was 8 I couldn’t wait to turn 9.  I wonder if in her mind she “can’t wait” to be more like Jesus.  I wish I felt more that way.

 

And with that there comes a sense of excitement and anticipation.  What great things will the next step hold?  Will I be different when I’m 9?  What will I look like when I’m older?  I remember asking all kinds of questions about the future when I was little.  And maybe I should ask those things more in regards to my walk with Christ.  Not in an anxious sort of way, but in the little kid excited sort of way.  Where is He leading me this week?  What exciting things does He have in store for His kingdom, and how to I get to help with that?  I think being in the kingdom would reach all new heights of exciting if I was looking through the glasses of a child.

 

So my challenge for myself and for all of you is to find ways that you can start “skidaddling after Jesus.”