.Life Lately.

I know the last couple of posts have been on the heavy side of things. So, I think it’s time for a simple life update. Here are some things that happened/I discovered this week [In no particular order, just as they come to me]:

1. I’m a SENIOR in college. Because I’ve been taking classes on-line the timing gets a little fuzzy in my head, but it’s official by credits!
2. Mike and I were not liking the idea of not seeing each other until May… so WE BOUGHT A FLIGHT! I get to see him next weekend! {This was only after much prayer, checking bank accounts, and finding a GREAT deal on flights!}
3. As of Sunday I’ll be half-way through another set of classes {I take 2 classes every 8 weeks}. Time seems to be FLYING by!
4. 133 Days until the wedding… WHOA! I go back and forth, but today I wouldn’t mind if the countdown would slow down just a little!
5. I got my wisdom teeth out last Thursday and the recovery seems to be going well! No dry sockets, infections, or bruising. Still just a little swelling and regular doses of pain meds. I would not have been so optimistic last weekend, I cried several times, but now I’m glad I did it all as once and NEVER have to do it again!
6. Finally, and most importantly, the Lord is moving in new ways in both Mike and I. It’s SO refreshing and encouraging to go through this as a couple and not alone. Our God is TRUELY faithful, wise, and SOVREIGN in every way. I’m excited to see what He has in store!

To End- a few engagement pics. I realized I never put these on here. I never grow tired of seeing these! It was a fun. lovely. exciting. day!

All credit goes to Ria, with Ri Photography. She did a GREAT job!

Love,

Heidi

..Surrender..

This is something it seems like I used to think alot about, especially when I first moved home, has come up in my life again.

Do you ever wish that you could take the “Chalk-board” of your life and wipe it ALL clean? To start completely over. To SURRENDER everything to Christ.

I’m not sure if I would do anything differently, really. But I look at my life - the way I think, the things I believe – and I see areas that need lots of work. My mind, actions and speech are swayed so easily by the world I live in and what society dictates is the “Norm”. I wish I could have a right view of Christ, Prayer, the Holy Spirit – all the things of God that don’t always make “sense” - not tainted by the comfort of my home, abundant food, and the society I’ve been trained by my whole life.

I just want to surrender it ALL…

and only get back His thoughts, ways, and life.

~Heidi~

Significance.

Mike was asking about my day earlier and my reply was simply “Good.” Nothing else. Which started a longer conversation in which my wonderful fiancé said something that stood out to me that I wanted to share. I’m sure I’ll butcher what he [actually] said, but here’s what I walked away with…

“ There are significant things that happen daily in your life, but because it’s your life you’re not aware of them. If we fail to see the significance in our lives, then we will fail to feel significant and forget we are called to make an impact with everything that we do.”

Life at work today felt just like every other day. Life at work tomorrow, will [hopefully] feel a little.bit.different.

Side Note: Part of me wants to make blogging apart of my everyday life. It’s necessary {for me at least} to process life daily {in some way or another}. We’ll see how that goes!

Love,

Heidi

Learning to LOVE Simplicity

My thoughts often wonder to the simplicity of my life these days…

*The Lord

*Mike

*Work

*Family

*School

Many times I wish there were more things like, sitting in coffee shops for hours counseling my girls or journaling or talking to mentors, but there simply isn’t. Which is simply beautiful in it own way and I want to start FULLY treasuring this season for what is it, because I know someday, I’ll wish I could have it back!

Simply,

Heidi

It’s a Hard-Knock Life… for me?!?!

I have just come to a freeing realization…and it’s weird to admit to the world, but I’m going to anyway, because it’s true and I’m learning how to be honest :-)… I’m not a big fan of my life right now! “Gasp! Heidi - how can you say that?? You’re engaged that’s one of the most wonderful seasons out there!” (which I do agree with, by the way) Well… for several reasons:

1. Working full-time, going to school full time, preparing to be a wife, and planning a wedding all at the same time does some CRAZY stuff to my emotions! I didn’t think of myself as an emotional woman until now! And now, not only am I trying to understand it all, but I have to try and explain what I don’t know and understand about myself to a man…rough stuff!
2. No matter which of the above things I’m doing I always feel like I should be doing something else or want to be doing something else. It makes it VERY difficult to just BE!
3. My heart still longs to go back to the simplicity of life at Teen Mania, it was fast and full, but grounded and rich! Life in the real world takes a whole new level of faith and dependency on Christ… which are wonderful and amazingly difficult characteristics to work on in your own life.
4. Yet, while my heart looks back with that deep longing, it’s also looking forward with GREAT anticipation, excitement and fear towards August 28th, 2010, where nothing will ever be the same again! So many new adventures and things to look forward to… and so many unknowns I will never understand until they’re upon me!
5. The more time Mike and I get to spend together… like in the same place, at the same time, enjoying the same things… the more dissatisfied I become with going back to only having a phone or Skype to communicate on. *sigh* someday this will not be the case anymore!

So, as WEIRD as it feels to admit all of that, I realize that it only means… I’m human! And a woman with CRAZY emotions at that! And even though I’m not a big fan of life at this moment, when I take a step back and see ALL the RICH lessons the Lord is teaching me, the character HE is building, and the WONDERFUL life He has given me…. I chose to be thankful and give all praise to the ONE who deserves it all, because without him, I am NOTHING!

Thanks for listening while I seek to understand my current world a little more :)

Heidi

Comfortable In My Own Skin

The Lord has been doing a work in my heart this week, and it hasn’t necessarily been an easy, enjoyable journey. Insecurities in my own life have been rising to the surface, like grape skins do when you’re boiling grapes to make grape jelly.. .like this picture… a favorite childhood memory of mine. :)

And just like when making Jelly, it is important to skim this stuff off the top and not ignore it… cuz if you ignore it you’ll have to deal with it again, it never truly goes away.

For me this has come to the surface in the planning for engagement pics., invitations and really everything having to do with the wedding. I want it ALL to be PERFECT and WOW the world for years to come. In doing this though, I have walked down the treacherous path of caring more about what others think or the latest fashions than 1) The Lord… yikes! and 2)Being myself and comfortable with who I am and what I enjoy. This is a path I used to walk down alot, and by the Lord’s grace hadn’t been walking down, until now :).

So, I am slowly growing comfortable with the fact that 1) what I wear in my engagement pics. doesn’t have to be the latest fashion, because fashion really is what you make it, not trying to copy the latest trend… SO out come all the scarves I LOVE!

2) I am a big town girl, living in a small town world - which offers it’s own unique classyness for pictures and wedding locations! It may not be the nicest places, with the best food, but it is where I grew-up and thus uniquely part of me.

With all this realization, I can’t wait to share more of ME with the world and be comfortable with every part of who the Lord has created me… in my own skin :-).

“Life Chapter” for this Beautiful Season

The more and more I read Ephesians 5, which has been daily lately, the more I want my life to be modeled after this chapter. The last section hasn’t really applied to my life until now. I hope and pray I can live my life this way…

Excerpts from Ephesians 5 - NIV [source]

“1Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and 2 live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

³But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God's holy people. ⁴Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving. ⁵For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person—such a man is an idolater—has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God…

⁸For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light ⁹(for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) ¹⁰and find out what pleases the Lord. ^{…. 13}But everything exposed by the light becomes visible, ¹⁴for it is light that makes everything visible. This is why it is said:

"Wake up, O sleeper,
rise from the dead,
and Christ will shine on you."

¹⁵Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, ¹⁶making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil….¹⁹Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, ²⁰always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ…

Wives and Husbands

²²Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. ²³For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. ²⁴Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything…”

Such a high calling for any Christian and we could not achieve it without His Grace! We all need to be comparing our lives to scriptures, to make sure we’re living up to the standards and truths of Scripture… it’s not easy, it hurts, it’s gross sometimes… but it is SO WORTH IT to become more like our savior everyday!

I did something CRAZY today!

So… I was having a hard time dealing with the thought of being away from MY Valentine on the first year that I’ve ACTUALLY had a Valentine! That on top of the fact that it was a 3 Day weekend because Monday is Presidents Day!

Today, about 1:00 PM, I jumped on Kayak.com JUST to see if I could find anything remotely close to inexpensive for a flight from Des Moines to Boston… because both are on the small end for airports you ALWAYS have a layover and flights are not cheap!

Do do do… drumming fingers … I plugged in the airports and dates and times… *sigh*… probably won’t find anything. The prices start appearing… NOTHING under $300 for the times I’d specified sooooo, I widened the search a little more…

$220 for a flight for GOOD times, not the best but still good! SO… I text Mike… WHAT DO YOU THINK? We prayed/ thought/ checked our budget, and I don’t have to take vacation time… IT FIT!

So – I’m GOING TO SEE MY LOVE in 10 DAYS and be with him ALL day on VALENTINES DAY!! WAHOOOO! My heart is SO happy, being in a long distance relationship is hard when you don’t get to see each other often!

***Those of you that know me, know that I’m not usually a last minute, spur of the moment, BIG trip taker… but this I could not pass-up and Engagement is the season to do crazy, spur of the moment stuff like this…RIGHT?!?!***

--- A Very Happy Lady ---

Life As of Lately…

Ok - here's the long awaited update on most of life!

... done after I discovered this SUPER cool tool that Windows Vista has that helps you create your blog offline and then publish it... making adding pics and hyperlinks MUCH easier! It's a little thing but I was excited!

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Wedding planning - going very smoothly!! I made a lot of the “Big” decisions pretty quickly so, now I’m down to a couple smaller decisions a day! *whew* I know that if I kept up with the pace I was running before school started AND had to do school, burnout would be inevitable! The most recent decisions I’m contemplating is this dress for a bridesmaid’s dress:

To see other pictures, especially the SUPER cute back go Here.

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School – let’s just say this is going to be a challenging semester! The first 8 weeks I’m taking Physiological Psychology… the class is 10 times harder than the name, if you can imagine ;) and Exceptional Children… INTERESTING! This second one makes me think about being an Educational Therapist or some sort of counselor within the School System. Children need people who love them, believe in them, and are willing to do anything to see them succeed!

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Family – my season of living in Iowa is 207 days away from coming to an end… it’s sobering and exciting! To make the most of the little time I have left, my mom and I have made Monday nights our “Date Nights”! Every single girl, living near her mom should DO THIS! We go out to dinner, wherever our hearts desire, and then to a Small Group where we’re discussing:

Last night was the first night, but it’s a diverse group so I think it’s going to be SUPER interesting and worth it to spend some time with my mom!

Blessings Blog Readers!