looking back and looking forward.

It's been a while since I've written anything about Kyra. 

(For those of you who don't know, Kyra was my supervisor's wife while I lived in Rome for two years who died in a car accident a few months before I returned to the States. It feels like such a big part of my story that it's a little crazy to me that many people I've only met in the last few years don't know about that chapter at all. But if you want to read more about her, look back at posts around August 2015 and the following year.)

I've been thinking about her more recently than I have in a while. Partly because I finally finished watching every episode of "Call the Midwife" that is currently on Netflix (It was her favorite show...the one we would get together and watch while sipping tea from her Polish Pottery mugs and that we [but mostly she] all were excited to watch the next season of when she and her family returned from the U.S. for the summer, which is where/when she passed away. I mostly just liked it because she liked it so much then, but now, during pregnancy, it's been even more meaningful and emotional). It's also partly because some friends from Rome recently brought back a painting I'd done there of said Polish Pottery mugs (which I had almost forgotten about after six years and seems funny to see again now on a daily basis). 

This morning--I'm not sure why--I spent some time scrolling through her Instagram (which I'm so glad still exists and probably always will, since it was probably connected to her phone). She only had it for about a year (one of the years I was there), so it all just looks so familiar and nostalgic and real. Nothing was posed or filtered. She posted about things like her kitchen sink and the fact that we should all cherish dishwashers if we have them, her favorite seat on the bus, the graffiti-peppered playground near their apartment, her daughters' crazy bedhead and silly faces, and all the charming but dysfunctional things about Rome (like the fact that their elevator broke all the time, Reid's bike kept getting stolen, and everything closed due to things like heavy rain). 

Kyra only ever had 90 followers. And she'll only ever have 90 followers, since I'm pretty sure her Instagram account was private. She wasn't famous or particularly exceptional in any of the ways our culture may deem someone noteworthy. But she will always be one of the most special and influential people I've ever met. 

The main reason I've been thinking about her more lately is because of how much I wish I could talk to her. I so desperately wish I could ask her advice about so many things. About pregnancy and motherhood. About moving our family overseas and seeking to serve the Lord in that context. She taught me so much about both...before I even knew for sure whether or not my story would include either. 

And now, at the brink of bringing a baby into this world (something that intimidates me more than maybe anything every has) and as we look ahead to (Lord willing) moving overseas soon afterward, I find myself thinking back on the many things I learned from her. 

She was such a great mom. She loved her little girls in a way that was fierce and fun and free of frustration or ever complaining about her kids. 

She was also one of the most hospitable people I've ever known. And it wasn't the showy, Pinterest-worthy brand of hospitality. It was a come-as-you-are, we're-scrounging-for-dinner-but-we-have-plenty-to-share, my-house-is-a-mess, welcome-to-our-reality type of hospitality. She didn't have to welcome two single girls living there for two years into her family. But she did. She didn't have to regularly have people over for their birthdays or holidays or just for no special reason at all. But she did. That was one of the main ways she loved people and shared Christ's love with them...by welcoming them into her home. 

She was living proof that hospitality and evangelism go hand in hand, which is the theme of books like Rosaria Butterfield's The Gospel Comes with a House Key. Glenn and I have also recently been reading Elliot Clark's Evangelism as Exiles, and he has a chapter about how essential hospitality is in pointing people to Christ:

People who would never cross the threshold of a church will still walk through your front door. People who are indifferent to religion or disinclined to Christianity will still appreciate a friendly dinner invitation. They’ll gladly accept a free meal and, in the process, may just listen to you rejoice in free forgiveness.

In his Gospel account, Matthew records twice in short succession that Jesus reclined at table with sinners—this after promising that many would join at his table in the kingdom of heaven (Matt. 9:10; 8:11). It’s as if Matthew understood the two actions to be connected. One way sinners enter the kingdom is by first entering our kitchen. Some will only come to the table of the Lord after first coming to our dinner table.

A little further on in the same chapter, he goes on to say:

We might show generous hospitality, but only to people like us—never to those of a different race or background, a different belief or persuasion, or a different social class. We welcome others into our home, but generally those who don’t even need it. Our hospitality is only lateral and transactional. We host peers in a system that expects reciprocity, not one that displays free grace.

But real hospitality...doesn’t require limitless resources or a luxury kitchen with an open floor plan. The only requirement of hospitality is love. Love that serves others rather than serving ourselves. Love that seeks to use our home and our resources, like Matthew, to introduce people to Jesus. But sadly what we often label as hospitality is merely entertaining—it’s just more of that old Southern hospitality, dignified and genteel, but knowing nothing of sacrifice or incongruity.

Kyra's hospitality was not "lateral or transactional." Her small Roman apartment certainly didn't have a "luxury kitchen with an open floor plan." She just reached out and invited in. She just loved. 

I know there is one family who is now part of the family of God because of her hospitality and love. Not long after she died, a friend in Italy she had shared with and prayed for for years became a believer, and now she and her husband and son have been baptized and are part of a new church plant in their (and our old) neighborhood in Rome.

"Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit." -John 12:24

So why did Kyra live this way? Why did her husband and daughters (and now, years later, his new wife and their son) stay in Rome? Why are Glenn and I planning to move overseas with a six-month-old (something plenty of people have thought us crazy for doing)?

Love. 

"We love because he first loved us" (1 John 4:19).

Hope.

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ" (1 Peter 1:3-6).

We want people to know the love God has for them...this holy yet personal God who created them and died in their place so that they could have a relationship with him and be with him forever. We want people to know true hope...in a world of fleeting pleasures and constant changes that offers nothing of true, lasting hope. 

And we feel the urgency of doing that in a place that doesn't have a church on every street corner or where the majority of people either know or have at least heard of Christ's saving grace. As Scottish missionary, Ion Keith-Falconer, once said:

"I have but one candle of life to burn, and I would rather burn it out in a land filled with darkness than in a land flooded with light."

I hope I can burn out my life's candle like that. And I only hope I can be half the mother and minister of the gospel that Kyra was. Thank you, dear friend, for your example. 

maternity musings.

Guess I haven't written anything on here since September's waterfall incident.

Well. A LOT has happened since then.

In September, we had our belated wedding reception (we still don't know what to call it) following our 10-person COVID-restriction-compliant actual wedding in May. (Side note on that: From May to September, I honestly wondered if I'd always regret not being able to have a "real" wedding like so many others have had and will have. But after getting to experience the [albeit small-scale] party we had in September--which, while wonderful, came with the stress of making sure everything ran smoothly and everyone was happy and taken care of--I am even more thankful for the sweet, simple, unique, stress-free, perfect-for-us wedding that God, in his wisdom, saw fit to give us...a day in which we got to focus on each other, be together and make preparations together all day, go get our marriage licensed signed in T-shirts and gym shorts, and just enjoy the perfect weather and the support of loved ones physically present and "present" via Facebook Live).

In December, we got to go on our belated honeymoon--seven months after our actual little mini-honeymoon in the mountains and in a totally different country than we originally planned. (Side note on that: Taking a "honeymoon" seven months into marriage was, I would dare to guess, even more fun than jumping on a plane after what probably felt like a marathon day before and dealing with the stressors than international travel can sometimes bring, all amidst the usual jitters of getting to know each other in a more intimate way and adjusting to marriage).

In January, we found out we'd had a little stowaway on our belated honeymoon. 

That's right: We are expecting a baby boy in September! :)

This journey of pregnancy so far has been challenging, emotional, and such beautiful evidence of God's faithfulness. There have been fear-filled tears and tears of joy. I've felt an even deeper love and gratitude for my husband. My heart has felt full to bursting when I've seen our little guy moving around during our ultrasound visits and, now, as I'm starting to feel his little flutters below my bellybutton. 

Given that this in my current (and completely new-to-me) reality, I've been thinking a lot (A LOT) about pregnancy and childbirth and parenthood and the grace of God. Here are some of the things I'm learning so far:

1. Moms (and moms-to-be) are my new heroes. 

I really don't think I gave any of this much thought before, but now whenever I see a pregnant woman (especially if she is simultaneously chasing around other littles), I see such a beautiful strength. I mean, seriously...Do you have any idea how hard it is growing a human for 40 weeks then pushing it out of your body and feeding it (while it's inside, with very little conscious effort, and then continuing to keep in alive while it's outside)??

Well let me just tell you: I don't experientially know a lot about the whole pushing-it-out process quite yet, but even pregnancy itself is NO JOKE. I felt pretty much perpetually carsick for the first couple of months and wanted little more than to stay in bed all day (which was impossible, what with working full time and all those trips to the bathroom and the necessity of eating SOMETHING what felt like constantly to keep said carsickness at bay). And did you know that allergies can be worse during pregnancy? And did you know that the pregnant body is pumping a full FOUR POUNDS of extra blood through it, which can lead to nosebleeds and low blood pressure/lightheadedness? And then there's tenderness in places that are pretty tender to begin with, not to mention round ligament pain (every heard of that?). Then there's the heartburn and indigestion and (pardon my honesty) gas that are characteristic of pregnancy, because there's just not enough room in there or energy for your digestive system to function quite as smoothly as it used to. And then, of course, there's learning to dress and balance and generally get used to this new body shape/size/weight you're sporting. 

Someone said to me recently that if pregnancy were a disease, it would be one of the worst because it effects every part (EVERY PART) of your body. 

I have, of course, heard from those moms who said they'd never felt better than when they were pregnant. More power to those ladies whose pregnancies were flawless and fun, but I'm betting that's more of the "mommy amnesia" that sets in afterwards than anything else (which is a blessing, of course, or most women would probably say, "Ehh...one's enough."). To the rest of you for whom human-growing has felt more like a trial than a joy, I salute you and I stand with you (even if it may take me a second or two longer to do so these days). And it really (usually) does get better in the second trimester. 

2. Children are a blessing from the Lord.

I'm going to be honest with you: If you had told me before marriage that I would be carrying a child within my first year of marriage, I probably would have laughed in your face and said, "Please, God, no." However, as he just keeps reminding me, God's ways are not always my ways but they are always higher and better (Isaiah 55:8-9). 

Over the summer, Glenn and I both felt the Spirit's urging to surrender the timing of starting a family over to him (as if it were not already in his control to begin with). We talked and prayed about it a lot ("What if we get pregnant right away? What if we can't get pregnant at all? Have we had enough time, just the two of us? What if, even by the slightest chance, birth control pills have prevented the implantation and growth of a fertilized egg already? Are we really ready to be parents?"). Though it didn't come without its fair share of trepidation, we choose to be obedient to what we felt the Lord was asking of us. And when we had that positive pregnancy test staring back at us a few months later, we felt even more sure that we'd heard him correctly. Not only that, but the timing was so sweet and God-ordained in that we found out we were pregnant about four days before my grandfather (William, better known as "Poppy") passed away, and it's even more special that the child we are expecting is a boy and we get to name him William (and call him "Liam"). 

Psalm 127 has been one I've thought about a lot in the past few months: 

Unless the Lord builds the house,
    those who build it labor in vain.
Unless the Lord watches over the city,
    the watchman stays awake in vain.
2 It is in vain that you rise up early
    and go late to rest,
eating the bread of anxious toil;
    for he gives to his beloved sleep.

3 Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord,
    the fruit of the womb a reward.
4 Like arrows in the hand of a warrior
    are the children of one's youth.
5 Blessed is the man
    who fills his quiver with them!
He shall not be put to shame
    when he speaks with his enemies in the gate.

A few thoughts of this psalm: 

First of all, there's really been very little that I have consciously done or over which I have had control to create this tiny one and keep him alive. In fact, there's quite a bit I did wrong before I knew there was a baby in there, including eating sushi, soaking in a hot tub, and drinking on our honeymoon, and who even knows how many times I took ibuprofen before I knew he existed. It makes me even more thankful that "in HIS hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind" (Job 12:10). 

And so, secondly, pregnancy and parenthood are (yet another) exercise in trusting the Lord. That's definitely something I am still learning daily, as I have worried about everything from miscarriage to birth defects to how having a baby will affect our marriage to the every-scary SIDS. So, I have a choice: I could "eat the bread of anxious toil" or I could lie down and rest, knowing God's got this and whatever happens will be for our ultimate good and for his ultimate glory (Romans 8:28).

Lastly, anyone else think we need to be a little more careful about how we talk about children? "Enjoy your life/freedom/sleep/fun while you can." It was basically the same way before we got married. That it was going to somehow be this miserable, limiting state of existence. Well, I know I'm only a year into this thing, but marriage is wonderful. Challenging sometimes? Sure. It's two imperfect people trying to communicate and make decisions and forgive and actively love. But it's the most beautiful, joyful thing I've experience in my life so far, and I love having a lover, ministry partner, and best friend to do life with! So I have to believe that if God's Word says that children are a "heritage" (or, in some translations, "gift") from the Lord, we should see them as such and not as yet another ball and chain.

Don't get me wrong: I did my fair share of "grieving" (especially during the first trimester, when I felt awful)..."Why do people to this? Do I even want this? Is this worth it? Will I ever have fun again? I'm way too selfish for this!!!" But someone told me recently that having children just means you have one arm full. I'm choosing to look at it that way. Yes, life will be different. There will be "limitations." But I hope we have still serve and live and love and do things. One of us will just have a kid strapped to our chest. And I hear the snuggles and giggles and general baby love are pretty great as well.

3. Pregnancy and birth reflect the Christian life and yearning for the new creation.

As we already discussed, pregnancy and birth are no picnic. There's struggle and exhaustion and pain. You have to die to self to offer life to another as the baby growing inside takes all it's nourishment from your body and all your body's strength to bring it into this world. It's a kind of suffering. But it is pain intermingled with joy: "When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world" (John 16:21).

And, as Gloria Furman says in her book, Labor with Hope, we need to "take our eyes off of ourselves and look through the shadows to the substance, who is Christ. Brith is not about us, but about God."

In essense, we are mirroring this reality described in Romans 8:

18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. 19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. 20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.22 For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. 23 And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? 25 But if we hope for what we do not see, wewait for it with patience.

As Furman goes on to say, "A mother in the throes of labor helps us understand that our suffering in this life is far outweighed by the joy we will experience in the resurrection. Everything in the realm of the 'seen'--the sweat, tears, uncertainty, anticipation, pain, groaning--gives way to the yet 'unseen'--the profound relief and joy you feel when everyone hears the sound of a wailing baby. Whether or not she is aware of it, a mom in labor is a picture of eschatological hope. She perseveres through contraction after contraction with endurance because of what happens after labor is over: delivery." 

That is our hope as believers: a day with no more tears or pain or suffering or waiting or death (Revelation 21:4). To borrow and paraphrase a quote from Tolkien, it'll be a day when all sad things come untrue. 

I'll end with one last quote from Labor with Hope: "All our groaning will end when we finally see what we've been hoping for, as the consummation of God's promised restoration bursts forth in full. Until that day we tremble in hopeful anticipation."

I hope you know the hope she's talking about and, in childbearing and life in general, you are able to labor with hope and joyful expectation. 

 

the good samaritan.

From day one, my relationship with Glenn has been an adventure. 

When we started dating, I had just started the process of trying to move overseas. We got engaged in a foreign country. We got married during a pandemic. Within the first few months of marriage, we have been to the ER in the middle of the night (kidney stones), had to have (expensive) repairs done on both of our cars, realized that my eyes are basically allergic to contacts now (so I finally decided to actually go through with the Lasik surgery I'd been considering for years), and experienced the normal ups and downs and lessons in communication that come with the territory of marriage.

And I've never been so happy in my entire life.

And I thought I couldn't love my husband any more than when he took such good, sweet, tender care me after my eye surgery, amidst all the pain and anxiety I felt that first night. He made me feel so safe.

But then I felt an even more profound and deep love for him as I watched someone else's blood trickle down his hand and crust over the wedding ring I had put on his finger a few months before, all because he got involved when he didn't have to.

I'm still amazed at the things that happened over Labor Day weekend. We went up to visit my brother and sister-in-law in the mountains of Virginia, a trip we almost decided to postpone because we've barely had a weekend at home over the past couple of months and were starting to feel weary from all the weekend trips. But we figured the rest of the fall wasn't going to be any less busy, so a holiday weekend would be the best time to go. We also almost weren't on that particular hiking trail at that exact time; our original plan was to do that hike first but we ended up hiking another trail in the morning and doing the waterfall hike in the afternoon. 

It was just an ordinary, fun weekend with family-who-are-also-friends, really. Until it wasn't. 

The short trail we were hiking ended in a beautiful, multi-tiered waterfall. We joined the masses in taking advantage of the photo op. As we were taking pictures at the bottom of the falls, Glenn said he thought he heard a scream. I didn't hear anything, so I told him I was sure it was nothing. But, sure enough, we saw other people looking towards the very top level of the waterfall and some people climbing up in that direction. Glenn told me to watch his backpack and immediate started scaling the rocky terrain to see what was going on.

I, not exactly being the wait-with-the-bags type, followed after he didn't come back after a few minutes and I couldn't see him anymore. When I got to the top, I saw two twenty-or-so-year-olds with bloody faces, one with a knot the size of a softball on her forehead and one with a gash on her knee down to the bone and her hand dangling 90 degrees from her bone-completely-sticking-out-of-the-skin snapped wrist. Apparently they had been standing on the rocks at the top of the waterfall taking pictures and had slipped and fallen face-first about two stories to the level below.

And then I saw my husband...holding the most badly bashed up girl's uninjured hand and praying with her.

She had been panicking before that...saying she wanted to die because the pain was so bad...and then asking anxiously if she was actually going to die. But she never screamed and cried again through the whole ordeal and kept asking Glenn to pray. Because she had hit her head, she couldn't always tell us her name or what day of the week it was, but she could tell us who was there with her, protecting her and taking care of her ("Jesus") and what he had done for her ("He died for me").

I've never been so proud of my husband as I watching him calm this frightened girl down (who, to add to everything else, was a study abroad student from Mexico and was worried what her family would think), by just keeping her talking and laughing as the EMT crew finally arrived (someone had to run all the way to the trail head just to get service to call 911) and pumped pain meds into her system and checked for other injuries. 

And I'll never be able to fully express how full my heart felt when he walked towards me, looking all windblown and battle-weary, after being part of the team that carried her stretcher into the middle of the waterfall and tied it to the helicopter so she could be airlifted out. 

I tell this story not to make much of my husband (even though he is pretty wonderful). I share it to magnify my Father. I cannot tell you how palpable his presence was in those intense hours...or how providential was his provision, from the fact that it didn't happen on a day when no one was around to help to the amazing fact that one of the first people on the scene was an off-duty EMT who was right there when it happened and knew they had to get the girls out of the cold water so they wouldn't go into shock and orchestrated carrying them across the river and down rocky edge of the falls to more level ground (when, surely, no one but a trained professional would have dared to more them with head injuries like that). 

And this story has such a happy ending...We called the hospital that we heard they were taking them to, just to see if they would be willing to let us know if they had made it there and if they were alive. Much to our surprise, they actually let us talk to the young woman that Glenn had been most directly involved in helping!

She told Glenn that he (and the others involved) had saved her life. She also said, "I told my family that I saw God yesterday. And it was you."

If that doesn't knock the wind out of you, I don't know what will. My prayer is that God uses her testimony of how He quite literally saved her life to draw many people to Himself. 

Several things were heavy on my heart as we processed through all this. 

First, I am blown away that I get to be married to such a compassionate person who loves others so much that he is willing to put himself in, at the very least, inconvenient and at most, hazardous situations to help them. 

Secondly, I was so convicted...If I didn't have such a husband, would I have ever even gotten involved at all? Would I have turned away, saying, "Those poor girls...I hope they're okay..." Would I have been like the "religious" people in the Good Samaritan story (Luke 10:25-37) who walked right by the man who had been robbed and beaten and left for dead...not wanting to be bothered or inconvenienced or slowed down. "Not my problem." Only the Samaritan got involved, saving him from, most likely, bleeding out or starving to death on the side of the road. 

In this passage, Jesus uses the parable to teach us that we are to love our neighbors as ourselves. But do we? Do we really? I feel deeply humbled to have had to privilege or watching my husband actually do that.

Lastly, I've thought several times since this happened: If God can save two girls who were alone and far from home from a situation that could have easily been life threatening...why on EARTH do I worry so much about my own life? All my fear and anxiety and worrying is essentially me telling God, "You won't really take care of me or protect me or provide for me." But how could I doubt his goodness and protection and provision when I got to witness him work a miracle in saving these girls lives (and using Glenn and a few other kind passersby as part of that)?

I hope this story is an encouraging to someone else as it was to me. May we not miss such evidences of his presence and provision and the things who uses our circumstances to teach us. 

more than i could ask or imagine.

8  For my thoughts are not your thoughts,

neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD.

9  ^pFor as the heavens are higher than the earth,

so are my ways higher than your ways

and my thoughts than your thoughts. [Isaiah 55:8-9]

---

20 ⁱNow to ^jhim who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think,^kaccording to the power at work within us, 21 ^lto him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen. [Ephesians 3:20-21]

I don't really have a lot to say on this one. Just a follow up on my last post and a small testimony to these two verses.

When COVID-19 struck and shattered all my carefully-laid wedding plans, I didn't think there could be anything better than the way I saw it going in my mind. But I was wrong. God had better, sweeter, more intimate, more special plans for my wedding than I had for myself. 

I wish our friends and family could have been there to celebrate with us. But, quite inexplicably, I really did feel like everyone was actually there as they tuned in on Facebook live. And with such a small, simple ceremony, the day was stress-free and just sweet. The weather was perfect. The lighting was magical. A few family members watched from the top of the horse pasture and friends from foreign lands stayed up until after midnight to support us as we entered into this sacred covenant with God and each other. 

I'm sure I'll need to be reminded of this again and again in my life (and I'm sure I'll sink back into fear and doubt when ambiguity and seeming not-rightness/goodness come barreling through my life again), but God really does know better than I do. His ways are better. And in my wedding and my marriage so far, he has done more than I could ask or imagine.

Also, I'm personally LOVING married life! And to go back to a blog post from last year called "Why Wait?"....Yes: It is exceeding, abundantly, beautifully worth the wait :) 

If you would like to see our wedding (free of the frozen screens of the Facebook Live video :)), here's the recording (in three parts): 

Thanks for celebrating this very special time in our lives with us! We are just joyful and thankful :) 

all other ground is sinking sand.

To say this isn't what I expected would be the understatement of the century.

Of all the reasons to cancel a wedding, the possibility of a worldwide pandemic never even crossed my mind. 

Go figure, right?? 

But, here we are. I know the past few weeks have been crazy for everyone, but here's what the last two weeks or so have looked like for me:

March 13: Last day of working at the preschool before the governor of North Carolina mandated school closures (my school has continued to pay us, which is SO extravagantly gracious and generous and we are all so thankful!!!!).

March 15: As an anniversary/Valentine's Day gift, Glenn had bought us tickets to see Les Miserables...performance cancelled following the prohibition of large gatherings.

March 17: All restaurants begin operating takeout service only (Glenn and I have to have a meeting with a missions organization representative to talk through going overseas in my apartment instead). 

Somewhere between March 16-20: Move from denial that this could all go on long enough to affect our wedding to acceptance that we would likely not be able to have the 300-guest event we had planned and start to even get excited about a smaller, more intimate gathering and being able to livestream the ceremony so even more people could participate than would have originally been able to come anyway.

March 20-22: Enjoy a sweet time at the beach with my family and continue to work on wedding decorations with the hope that we would still be able to have some sort of ceremony/reception on May 23 with 50-100 people.

March 23: Governor of Virginia closes schools for the rest of the school year and limits legal gatherings to 10 or less until the end of April and travel agent calls to inform us that the resort where we had booked our stay for our honeymoon was closing until June 15.

Sometime between March 23-24: Give up on having anything May 23 and start to see it as just an arbitrary date at this point while starting to seriously consider getting married sooner (Glenn was already there haha) and looking at local honeymoon options (thankful for family members who are willing to let us stay in their mountain cabin for a few days!!!).

March 25: Read the news that Wake County (which eventually became North Carolina as a whole) was announcing a stay-at-home order the following day. Leave for my family's farm in Virginia to hunker down in wide open spaces. 

March 26: After hearing back from courthouses in Virginia and North Carolina with their uncertainty as to how long they would be able to remain open in the midst of all this, Glenn calls from work to say he is coming up to my hometown in Virginia so that we can get a marriage license the following day.

March 27: Go to the local courthouse to fill out the paperwork for a marriage license. Glenn drives back to Wake Forest, neither of us knowing for sure when we'll be able to be together in person again. Get a housing assignment from campus housing and a move-in date of May 1. 

March 28-30: still trying to logistically work out the details of how to 1) actually get married and 2) move into a place of our own when we are currently in different states and not supposed to (in North Carolina at least) leave our homes other than for a list of designated reasons (and we don't currently live in the same home!).

March 30: (note: I had pretty much written this entire post before this latest update) The governor of Virginia issues an order to stay at home (other than for a short list of reasons) until JUNE 10 (!), begging the question, "Is it legally permissible for us to leave our current homes to even get married?" These are hard times indeed. 

Several people have asked how we have processed through all of this and arrived at the decision to cancel the wedding on May 23 and (hopefully) actually get married sooner and have some sort of celebration later (possibly in September). Hopefully the above timeline provides some insight into all that!

Those are the facts. My feelings have been certainly on a journey through it all...from disbelief and indignation and a sense of entitlement and a clinched-fisted attitude to a more open-handed posture and a genuine peace from the Lord in the midst of uncertainty and instability. 

This hasn't coming without a grieving process. I, perhaps more than most, had big dreams for my wedding. I was looking forward to planning my wedding and putting those plans into action. I enjoyed getting to design the event and was working on making all sorts of chalkboards and DIY decorations. In college, I even wanted to BE a wedding planner and did an internship with a wedding planner my senior year! So when I say the Lord has given me peace, please read that as "miraculous, unlikely, unnatural, nothing-I-could-muster-on-my-own peace."

It may sound outlandish, but the burning away of all this dross--all the non-essentials of the wedding itself--has felt almost cleansing...It has left only the most important thing standing: my relationship with Glenn and our commitment to one another in marriage. And that genuinely feels stronger than ever...as we have become even more welded together as we are forced to make hard decisions together and communicate well with each other through it all (which, let me just tell you, learning to make decisions with another person is HARD). 

We know we could wait to get married and have our wedding when things are back to normal (though, really, who knows when that might be?). But wouldn't that demonstrate that we care less about our marriage itself and more about having our wedding the way we envisioned it? For us at least, being together (especially as the world seems to be falling apart around us), is more important than the frills and the trappings of the wedding. 

And yes, it literally took a global crisis to make me see that. 

But all of this, certainly, is SO much bigger than me and us and our wedding. I feel for all those affected...for small business owners and students who won't get to celebrate their accomplishments through a graduation ceremony and people who are watching their investments plummet and people losing their jobs and the people losing loved ones to the virus and experiencing symptoms of it themselves...for everyone whose plans have been shattered...for people who live alone and are isolated and lonely and dealing with deeper depression and anxiety and suicidal thoughts (on that note, please reach out to your single friends)...for losses I haven't personally experienced or even considered...and yes, even for brides. 

And yet...

There is hope. There is joy. If we choose to take hold of it. 

I've been thinking a lot about what God might be up to in all this. This is a very tangible example of the philosophical "problem of evil," isn't it? In light of all that is happening, God is either not there, not in control, or not good...right?

I don't pretend to have all the answers or fully understand his plan in all this. But I still believe that God works all things for his glory and our ultimate good (Romans 8:28). And I am experientially learning that even if I try to plan my own way, it is the Lord's purpose that prevails (Proverbs 19:21). 

Maybe God is trying to teach us all something similar to what I'm learning as I let go of my wedding and focus on my relationship with the man he's calling me to marry. A wedding is not a bad thing. Neither are jobs or graduations or a thick financial cushion or independence or busyness. But I believe all of this is shining a spotlight on a few very important questions we are normally either too busy or too comfortable or too fulfilled to notice:

On what do you build your identity? Where do you find your security? Where do you find your hope?

My friend and former colleague, Paul Barth, who lives in Italy (and we all know how heartbreaking the situation is over there right now) posted this today, and I thought he put it all so perfectly:

"Yesterday, during family worship, we talked with the kids about the possibility of any 'good' coming from the coronavirus. Together, we concluded that in the face of this terrible tragedy, God might be teaching us the importance of family, teaching us how fragile we humans are, and healing the environment. It was a great conversation for us and hopefully for them as well. They are of course, acutely aware that this virus brings pain and sometimes death, but over the past month, perhaps Tracy and I haven’t done the best to explore and process with them how God could be using this for His good and for His purposes. 

For me personally, God is teaching me two things. Firstly, He’s reminding me of our mortality and fragility. We are here but for a little while on this planet and then, sometimes unexpectedly and unfortunately, we…aren’t. With the time we’ve been given, how to we spend it? With whom do we spend it? When life inevitably begins to escape us, how will we look back on it? Our time here is so brief that the Bible calls it a vapor, a wisp. One minute we’re here and the next, we’re gone. Being reminded of this reality during this terrible time isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Secondly, I think that God is using this period to destroy some of our idols. Shutting down a country and being forced to stay in isolation changes things for people. Who are we when the things we often place our identity, joy, and hope in, are removed from us? If your worth or identity is wrapped in your work or productivity, what is your purpose in life when that’s taken from you? What do you do when you can’t…do? If an overwhelming amount of your joy and happiness is derived from sports or entertainment in general, what are you when that’s gone? What do you delight in? If your hope and security are placed in wealth and treasures, what happens when you lose your job, when your 401k drops, when your forced to part ways with your things? 

Timothy Keller calls an idol anything that absorbs our heart and imagination more than God, anything you seek to give you what only God can give. Good things can become our idols when they become ultimate things. As this virus continues to affect our daily lives (perhaps irreversibly) and forces us to reexamine ourselves, our values, and our priorities, I pray that we find that only Christ satisfies the deepest longings and groanings of our heart. Despite all the fears, may we be reminded that only He is the anchor that holds in the storm. Despite all uncertainty, may we be reminded that both in the harvest and in the famine, only He gives us worth, purpose, hope, and security."

If nothing else, these times have proved that your hope and identity and satisfaction can't be found in your job or job description or your paycheck or your schedule or your self-built sense of purpose. With all that burned away, what remains?

It brings to mind the old hymn:

My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus' blood and righteousness
I dare not trust the sweetest frame
But wholly lean on Jesus' name

On Christ the solid rock I stand
All other ground is sinking sand
All other ground is sinking sand...

So friends, we have a choice: When all is said and done, will we be found faithful? Will we be bitter and angry and downcast (not that those feelings aren't legitimate...trust me, fellow Virginians, I'm not any happier than you are that we were just ordered to stay in our houses for the next two and a half months and my heart breaks for the many ways that many people will be negatively affected by this)? Will we spend the next however long frittering the time away on Facebook and Instagram (I saw a quote from John Piper recently that said, "One of the great uses of Twitter and Facebook will be to prove on the Last Day that prayerlessness was not from lack of time." OUCH.)? Or will we let the dross be burned away and let our characters be refined? Will we cling to Christ, our Living Hope (1 Peter 1:3-9) and our Solid Rock (Psalm 62:5-7) and our Anchor (Hebrews 6:19)? Will we look up and see our families...learn to take time to really play with our kids and share meals together and even give thanks for this gift of extra quality time? Will we take the time to pray for our world...for the people dying without Hope? Will we figure out how to love our neighbors and find ways to be together, even if we can't be together physically? Will we let ourselves be taught something about contentment in all circumstances (Philippians 4:11-13)?

I'm not saying it's an easy choice to make. And trust me, given everything I've just shared with you, I'm struggling to make it, too. 

But the choice is ours. 

Born Again to a Living Hope

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, 5 who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 6 In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, 7 so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 8 Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, 9 obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.