We're Married!!! :)

As of May 22, 2011 she will be known as Mrs. Laura Eley  :)

And Jesus said " Haven't you read that at the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female,' and said, 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united with his wife, and the two will become one flesh'?  So they are no longer two, but one.  Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate"   -Matthew 19:4-6


Pictures by our friend Jordan Mclaughlin at jmclaughlinphoto.com.

Thoughts from within a week

3 DAYS!!!  :)

Psalm 67 says:

May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face shine upon us, that your ways may be known on earth, your salvation among all nations.  May the peoples praise you, O God; may all the peoples praise you.  May the nations be glad and sing for joy, for you rule the peoples justly and guide the nations of the earth.  May the peoples praise you, O God; may all the peoples praise you.  Then the land will yield its harvest, and God, our God, will bless you.  God will bless us and all the ends of the earth will fear him.

This is our prayer for the wedding, that God would be gracious to us and bless us to that his ways would be known among those at the wedding.  As much as we want this occasion and celebration to be beautiful and fun we are praying that the Lord would grow an even stronger desire in our hearts for his glory and his fame.

We have been deeply affected by knowing that the depth of love that we have for one another is but a mere shadow of the love that God has for each of us individually.  We are praying that this knowledge would permeate fortified and calloused hearts, blind eyes and deaf ears all to his glory.  

Thanks to everybody who has been praying for us in this time, your prayers are certainly felt.  This week we have had enough of a to-do list to keep us busy but not enough to stress over.  We are so excited to see everybody this weekend and share this occasion with everybody that can come.

We got our marriage certificate :)

We are down to 17 days now.  School is coming to a close with starting a light load for finals today and finishing up the last few assignments before riding out the days to graduation.  Plans are coming along smoothly for the wedding and stress is almost nonexistent in the mix of it all.  God has continued to show himself gracious in this time and we are so grateful.

Newest exciting news is that we went to the court house in Lynchburg yesterday and got our marriage certificate.  It was fun to get excited about and see it through.  We even had to raise our right hand and swear we weren't lying on any of the information on the form.

"Will both of you raise your right hand?"
"Oh... uh... yea!" *snicker*  :)

Next we stood out on the famous steps downtown and took some pictures with passers-by smiling at us and enjoying our excitement.  It has been great to see others enjoy our excitement and seemingly reflecting back on their wedding day.

We are praying that this time would rekindle love and bring reconciliation and encouragement to couples around us through the whole process.  If Jesus can reconcile us to the Father then restoring a marriage can surely be done as well, and we pray this is faith.

We are back!

So suddenly 90 days has turned into 21 days!  Where does time go?! That I do not know but here is a little update on us.

We are Colorado bound in about 33 days!  It has been an interesting progression of events but the Lord continues to work.  I still have not heard from the internship that I applied for so I am taking that as a no... disappointing, yes, but I see the Lord's hand at work in it.  In the midst of job hunting I made up my mind to go to Physical Therapy school in the next couple years to get my Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT) and I do not think that I would have completely bought into this idea if I had gotten internship.  I probably would have pursued any possible option with them and ended up doing something that I really don't enjoy.  Laura is waiting to hear back about an HR job that would be PERFECT! :) She is made for that stuff and I know that once she gets to speak with an organization they will understand that she will be a huge asset for them.

The interesting thing about this whole process is that we are confident that the Lord has everything all mapped out for us and that he will lead us right into the things that he has for us be we have absolutely no idea what that is going to look like.  We are continuing to learn what it looks like to step out on faith and rest in the truth of the character of God.  He is benevolent, perfect love, the creator and sustainer of all creation, the rewarder of those who seek him, etc...  Our pastor mentioned Deuteronomy 29:29 this morning in his sermon, saying "the secret things belong to the Lord, but the things revealed belong to us and our children forever."  We cannot allow the details and the little questions foster an environment of doubt and anxiety.  We have the truth and the promises of God and that will sustain us when we do not know how to find true north.

Laura and I have thought back and talked about this engagement time, reflecting on things that we have experienced and learned.  People along the way, at different times, have encouraged us to continue to communicate in all of its various forms, topics and levels and this has proved to be one of the most valuable things through this time.  We have been able to talk about many different topics at different times and in varying degrees of details and sometimes this had led us to having to be selfless for a time and other times we just had to get on the same page but in the end all of these conversations have led us to function more and more as a unit.  I have continued to see how much I can trust Laura with my emotions and insecurities.  When we got engaged I would have had no hesitations in saying that Laura was my best friend and the same still stands today but now I also know that she is my companion and my helper.  She is a safe haven for me.

The remainder of our undergrad career is summed up in a short to-do list and our time as singles is now measured in days.  This is going to be a whirlwind but I can hardly wait to see what the Lord has in store for us next.