the petty

I am sick of it.

The petty, that is. Maybe I always have been, and so I shouldn't be posting it like it's news or something. But it seems like news. I think I've never had to notice before now. I have always been surrounded with people interested in deeper things.

But life is changing, that's for sure. The people I grew up with are now just that. People I grew up with. Not people I am with. I have less than three months of living with a parent left. And that's a good thing, only because I will soon be living with a husband. But right now, it's strange. Jamie is always working or at school. In fact, it seems to me that everyone is always working or at school. And as for me, I am always sick.

It's not that I don't have plenty to do. Or that I don't see anyone at all. (Although the number of hours that I spend with other people per day is very low.) It's just that...

I don't want to talk about money or careers or fashion or bars or food. I want to talk about the necessary stuff. I am too intense, I know. It scares people. But it's true. I have no patience for this world. That scares even me. It's an early age for me to be saying with Solomon "all is vanity and vexation of spirit."

But that's why I was glad to go to the house of God and hear preaching tonight. Preaching, no less, on the importance of serving the Lord, because out of everything that money can buy or power can obtain, all is vanity, and the only good is for a person to fear God and keep His commandments.

Coincidence? I don't think so.

Well, that is my monologue of the day. I needed something to update my blog with, so there it is. A simple, black-and-white view of the world. Sometimes I need color, but right now black-and-white clarity seems good.

i am getting married!

on May 24.

I just got the email from Dad showing confirmation of our reservation of the park. It's pretty exciting. And all of a sudden I am full of inspiration again, like I was when we first got engaged. There was awhile in there, waiting for Jamie's job situation to get worked out and all, that I felt like I had figured things out as far as I could. For the wedding, I mean, not the marriage. The one that we shall be will be a work in progress for all of life as much as the one I now am is, I should think. But that's the beauty of it! Jamie and I were just reading about how we don't know all the working that God does, just as we don't know how he created the universe. It's in Ecclesiastes 11, I think. And we said, "that's the beauty of it! Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and forever. He is always working." And He is always working in us. As the Newsboys would say (in our father-daughter dance song!) "To have found You, and still be looking for You, is the soul's paradox of love; You fill my cup, I lift it up for more."

Anyway. I had the bridesmaids' dresses picked out, I had my gown, I had my bouquet and all planned, I knew where we were going to have it,I knew the music, I felt done. But in an incomplete way. Like there was more I should know and I was just uninspired. Not as in I lost interest in the wedding, as in there were no ideas pouring out of me like before. And then there was the shoe fiasco...but let's not go there.

But then. We set a date. We went to the park, Dad booked it. And now I have ideas again! I hired a florist in my friend Jess because I want to have a lot of control but I also want to have a professional's eye on it, and now all of a sudden more flower ideas are coming to me. There's a little bridge next to our ceremony that just begs to be all wrapped in flowers. And for the church, for the reception- I think I want two big tall arrangements at the front and probably very little else. With apple branches. Jess will have to help me with that. And all these possibilities started occurring to me about the cake. So I have to talk to Megan about that. Big doves? Little doves? Fountain? Pearls? Stencil? Piping? Sugarpaste? Color? Originally I had thought the cake would be fairly simple, but then Megan said, "It's a work of art! I need you to give me some inspiration here!" and I started looking through magazines and seeing pictures and getting ideas, and now I can imagine it elaborately elegant. And I finally figured out how to do the centerpieces!

It just feels like it's all finally coming together. I just need an after-party site, some hoodlums to man cameras, a photographer...and some preparations for actual marriage, not the wedding. But it's going to be amazing. There isn't a bit of this relationship or the wedding that isn't dripping with meaning. Truly, my cup runs over.

So what can I say? I'm excited!