Friday, October 2, 2009

Cold Snap

I woke up this morning to a chilly 60 degree whiff of fresh air and immediately I was taken back to North Carolina. My first few weeks there were gorgeous, the leaves were changing and I was up in the mountains, everything smelled so fresh and I had hours to myself to explore and relax. Those were some good days. I love how just the slightest scent can bring back memories sooo vividly.

Just the other day I was on my way to work with my mom when I suddenly was about to wet my pants, nothing new really, so we stop at a CVS and I run into the bathroom and BAM! I'm hit with this intensely strong air freshener and I feel all these strong emotions start bubbling up and twirling around but I don't know what they are because I couldn't put my finger on the scent....And then I remembered, it was the air freshener I used to use on a daily basis when I had my very first roommate at 18. She was the most filthy person I have ever lived with and all we had was a tiny dorm, so I would push everything to her side of the room, clean and decorate my side, and then drench the room in air freshener to cover up the 3 day old bowl of cereal she never finished and left sitting on her desk...uggggh!

Ahhh, memories. I love how smells can do that :-)

Monday, September 21, 2009

Lots of 'I Know's'

Okay, so it's been forever! I know! I think I just keep waiting for everything to line up perfectly and to feel completely settled, and I'm starting to realize that might take a while, so I give up, it's time for a blog. I can't believe we're coming up on a month since we left BC, we've only been in Tx for about 3 weeks.
So before we left was crazy! Erik was getting his scuba certification the last 3 days we were in BC, and his mom and I were packing and cleaning like mad....all I wanted to do was cry, I think I would have paid any amount to have someone come do everything for us those last days...but alas, it's done!

So we made it on the road, but not before our nightmare at the border...but thats a whole other blog that will probably never happen ;-) Here's some pictures of our trip...



This might have been the prettiest part of our trip

This is our 1yr. anniversary, camping in Utah or Wy, or something

part of our anniversary feast :-)


Our tent ...lol
This is what the majority of our trip looked like


































This was one of the nights we were too late to make it to our campsite so we stayed at a truck stop. It was pretty funny being sandwiched between all those trucks. And this was our little shaggin' wagon ;-) We were totally prepared for an alien invasion with all our tin foil.
























Anywho, we made it. It's been good and has definitely taken more adjusting than I thought it would (at least on my part) considering this is my home and where I grew up. But things are playing out and lining up, slowly but surely. Erik's been able to work for a Canadian company doing websites and I've been working for my mom and dad a few days a week. I think one thing we do know for certain though, and have seen happening so quickly in our lives is the healing, refreshing and restoring of our hearts, and our passions.

So as of now we are waiting, and living, and it feels good. We have an income, we're getting to work on our immigration stuff, and right now we just have opportunity to soak up all that God has for us, and it's nice to be in a place where we're wide open for whatever God has for us, because really we have nothing conflicting in our schedules or lives.....just wanted to throw that one out there to remind God ;-) Now the only other thing we really need is just some divine connections with other couples our age that we both click with....I know they're out there somewhere...floating around in the abyss...somewhere

Random, I know, I'll get it together someday.


Wednesday, August 5, 2009

TWO weekends of fun

SO the past 2 weekends we have been gone non stop and taken tons of pictures, so I'm going to try to play catch up. Weekend before last Erik's sister Krista came into town from Toronto and other than one night at a restaurant around Christmas time, this is the first time I've seen her since we were married. She's here working in some hospitals for school (she's studying to become a doctor) and she's here for a month, which is perfect timing cause it's the last month were here. Then Leila came up from WA for 2 weeks, so now were squeezing in lots of family fun time.

So back to what I was saying, weekend before last Krista came in town and we went out for a day on Olli and Deb's (Erik's dad and step-mom) yacht. We spent the whole day just going all over the Fraser River and then came back to dock and had a steak dinner and wine and hung out with some people from other boats. Also Debbie's son and girlfriend came and one of her nieces and her boyfriend so I met all of them for the first time. That was all on Sunday. Then there were the few days before that, that I wish I had pictures of, but I don't. That Friday Erik and I finally got to go on a long overdue really nice date. It was so much fun and relaxing, we went to a restaurant called Moxie's and ate SOOOO much food and just took our time and talked and laughed, it was great! Then the next day Erik made plans to meet up with a friend he hasn't seen in years, so we asked him where he wanted to meet and funny enough, he wanted to eet at Moxie's..haha, so we ate there 2 days in a row. Then we drove to Rose's (Erik's moms) for dinner and dominos (the game, which I had forgotten how fun it is) and spent the night there.

Okay, so jump ahead to this last weekend. Friday I drove out to Langley to get my hair cut mid afternoon, then went to my MIL house because Leila and Davin were there and hung out with them for a little while, then drove staright to Erik's work (which took about an hour!) picked him up, then went straight from there to his Dad's for a BBQ. SO we ate and talked and watched a movie and got home at like 12:30am. Then The next day Rose and Leila came and picked me up and went went out to this really cute little town, Ft. Langley, and had lunch and walked around looking in shops and such, then we drove to White Rock and walked along the shore, and then drove home, picked up chinese food and ate at the house. Then Sunday morning Erik and I went to the annual air show. Debbie had some VIP tickets through work that she gave us, and we got to sit in a private area and have free food and drinks all day. We were so exhasted and burnt by the end of the day, but it was fun. Then we finally took the day yesterday to pack, not too much more to go, but we sure do have a nice disaster area going around here.

Okay, so now for the pictures...they are sooo out of order, but there's so many and honestly, I don't even feel like trying right now.

So this is the airshow: Snowbirds flying, Erik was really excited to see them, they did some pretty cool stuff. I just wish they hadn't waited til the end of a like 6 or 7 hr show to bring them out. I was fading.

Speaking of fading , this is me doing just that, and frying.

Old warbirds

I made Erik take a picture of the Canadian rednecks

This was cool, and very loud. I think it's called Mach 1 something about breaking the sound barrier, or almost breaking it ? Anyways, it looked cool

My Love, who remembered his sunglasses, unlike me.

Oh ya, then a guy proposed in the middle of the show....I don't know I'm not really into that, thought it was kinda lame, I'm all for being showy and stuff, but it's also a time to say some really meaningful things and share your heart, and all he did was drag her to the middle of the feild, propose, and then just get up. BOO

They had parachuters, doing tricks

more tricks
We sang the Candian Anthem

Me standing for the anthem

I was impressed, we sang the American anthem, and they had everyone stand, I stood proudly!
Erik took a picture of the Mounties for me...seriously, the outfits are a riot.

I had to have a picture with this tiny little plane, they were so small people were pulling them with one arm.

This was before we left for the airshow..there was a dress code for VIP


This was the Sunday we went on the yacht. Krista and I after an evenng swim in the nasty Fraser.

Erik and I spent the night on the boat after everyone left.

Deb's son and girlfriend, Olli and Deb's niece

JoJo II


Captain Erik

Krista and Deb enjoying the sunshine and cool breeze



And this was from the night before at Rose's house for dinner
Anyways, we have tons more pictures, maybe I'll post more later. At least just for memories sake, for me. We've had so much fun. And it continues. Erik started a scuba course last night that goes from 6 pm to 10:30pm and tonight after he gets off work we are heading straight to his moms and he's going to babysit Davin and Rose, Krista, Leila and I are going to see Julie and Julia. Then we have our going away party this weekend. Time is flying!

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Not Fixed


A few weeks ago Erik was going through some boxes of his stuff and I picked up a small little black book he had unpacked that caught my attention "Messy Spirituality". I started reading it's not really anything new it's just all those things I've thought or felt in my heart but have never put to words, and now I can't stop thinking about how amazing spirituality is, and wonderfully messy.

The Church, by and large, has had a poor record of encouraging
freedom. She has spent so much time inculcating in us the fear of making mistakes, that she has made us like ill-taught piano students: we play our songs, but we never really hear them because our main concern is not to make music but to avoid some flub that will get us in a dutch.
-Robert Capon

I'll never forget Jon Dunn (a pastor from my church in Tx.) saying several times, something along the lines of 'God loves the process' He's not in relationship with us for the end result, yes, this is a process of transformation, but God's not sitting there tapping His foot and waiting and wondering when we're finally going to catch on so we can move forward to the next test or trail. This is not a race to perfection. This is a marriage commitment, the kind you come into saying I'm in this for life! The good, the bad, and the ugly.
And God knows good and well that some days we wake up on the wrong side of the bed, or cranky, or just plain not 'feeling' the love. There will be nights you don't follow the rules and you let the sun go down on your anger, you say things you don't mean, you lash out in your hurt or just not understanding. And like the picture (A bit dramatic, but it gets the point across) He knows that a commitment of that magnitude is going to bring out your worst, but He knew that and He can't help fix what doesn't come to the surface. He knows! He knew well before you signed up for this commitment, that's why when He made a covenant with you He decided to cover His side and YOUR side of the deal, because He knew you would fail Him. He knew you would fall flat on your face over and over again. And some days you would accidentally fall, and other days you would go pick up a rock place it in your path walk right into it and try to 'pretend' it was an accident....NO SURPRISE! Seriously, He knew this was going to be messy, but honestly He doesn't care, He's in this for your heart. Because He can see beyond all the outward symptoms of something deeper, He knows the past pains and wounds that were never properly dealt with and now you walk around with a spiritual brain injury doing stupid things. He's not waiting to tell you what an idiot you are, He's waiting there to cheer you on to get up and keep trying, His main concern is that He can keep you running to His arms, that you know He's the one who will always be there for you.

So in keeping with the quote from the beginning, Go sit down at the piano of your life and try to hash out some music. Slam your hands all over the keys if you don't know how to play, and whatever you do, don't let the Church tell you that if you can't do it right, then don't bother doing it at all! Because they might just hear noise or see a giant mess, or God forbid, you might slaughter a sacred cow!

But God sees something different :
"The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart." 1 Samuel 16:7


This is so not where I was planning on going with this blog, but I am happy with the outcome. I don't want to be lumped into a group of 'religious people' at least not until there's a better definition of them, but my life, my love, my overflowing, crazy, passionate pursuit of Jesus is not about a set of rules that govern my life! It's about my heart, fully abandoned to love, it's about a daily relationship, messy or not I'm there! It's worth it.



Monday, July 27, 2009

One year later and beginning again


Erik's gone this morning. He's at his dad's helping him do some work on his boat and doing some work on his car so it's ready to give to the guy we just sold it to. I'm still in my pj's starting this blog and watching the homeless guy out the window dig through the bushes, and wondering what he's looking for, and also looking at the crack in the screen door and wondering if the homeless person, or people, that have been stealing from us has some how managed to climb up to our balcony and sneak into our house at night to sleep or something. I'm sure he hasn't, we would have heard the floors creaking, it's just the first thing that pops into my head. We don't live in a bad area, it's just that for some reason the Vancouver/ Fraser Valley area seems to be one of the most heavily populated places I've ever seen for the homeless. I feel awful saying this, but this year I've found my compassion level drop to all new lows and my faith waiver more than I ever thought possible. I'm sure some of my loss of compassion is due to the fact that most of the homeless here are druggies and to keep the druggies 'healthy' our tax money for health care also goes towards clinics where the homeless care go and exchange their dirty needles for clean ones....Anyways, I'll not go there otherwise I'll rant about it the whole blog.

I'll try to stay on subject as much as possible, and here's the subject: Erik and I have decided to move to Texas! I'm thrilled, I'm so excited to be near my family, yet it's terrifying at the same time, considering we have no plan, and no jobs, just trusting this is what God's telling us to do. And I can't help but feel a massive amount of guilt in taking Erik away from his home for the past 18yrs. and his family. It really does suck to have 2 amazing families on opposite ends on the continent. And of course it's always the moms that take it the hardest. Erik's mom, Rose, has been so great, and I've barely gotten to know her, but I'm just trusting that she'll be able to travel and visit us, and we'll still be able to come for visits often. It is amazing how much you have to take into consideration someone's feelings and life once you get married. This has not been an easy decision!



None the less, this is the decision we've made, and it seems that peace never really settled in until the decision was made. Of course hearing God on this one came much easier for me ;-). British Columbia is beautiful, when it's not raining cats and dogs, overcast, or so cold you can't enjoy being outside. So I think that leaves about 2 months a year. Not to mention this is one of the most expensive places in the world to live. A decent house with barely any land is at least half a million, and until you can afford that you can plan on living your life in condos and apartments and living paycheck to paycheck. It's just way too hard to get used to the idea of that. I know tons of people do it everyday here and they're fine with it. But I come from the land flowing with milk and honey (my Texas pride is kicking in). The place where housing is cheap, jobs are available, people take pride in working to actually enjoy life, family and friends rather than put food on the table and make their mortgage payment. Don't get me wrong, I know things won't be perfect and things might not always be easy, but it's hard not to daydream after this past year. I know we could probably have a great life here, and maybe one day we will but since we've been here we've hit wall after wall and now after a year it seems that God just had us here to wrap some things up. Here's just a ittle of what's happened:

Erik and I met May of last year. We actually hung out on his 30th bday and that's kinda where we began. (Just a quick little side note) before we met we both had been feeling very strongly we were about to be married. I had been seeing 222 EVERYWHERE. SO I asked the Lord what it meant and felt like He said Genesis 2:22 'Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he presented her to the man.' SO I said to God, if this is really going to happened, you literally have to present me to him,cause I will not search him out. So it's funny, because I was literally like his 30th bday 'present'. Okay, back on course. After we met we knew without a doubt we were meant for each other and we were married 4 months later. At the time Erik worked for Fresh Fire ministries as the technical director. He was good friends with Todd Bentley and we had met in the midst of revival. If you want to argue the revival or theology then find somewhere and someone else. Bottom line, Todd fell, and in my heart I knew that there was the beginnings of a genuine revival, you may not believe all the theology, but my heart knows the presence of God, and He was there, in an amazing way. Anyways, before everything fell apart Todd was promising Erik a great job and me too....we were so excited. Then one month before our wedding everything fell apart, and in the midst of the stresses of wedding planning we were trying to decide if we should still move to BC, neither of us had jobs, and of course all of the hurt, betrayal and anger of it all. Oh ya, and did I mention we had only known each other 3 months at the time (living in different states) so we were getting to know each other and how we deal with things and react. So long story short we decide God's telling us to still go, and it's funny now wrting about it because it sounds so horrible, but at the time we both had so much peace it just kinda seemed a no brainer. But the hardest thing was knowing that we would probably have our kids in BC and my parents would barely get to see them, and I would go from seeing them at least every 3 months or so, to maybe 2x's a year. Of course I bawled on our wedding day while I was getting ready...UGH, there were sooo many emotions that day.

So we got to BC and Erik had no job for about a month or 2, but then the church hired him back on. At the time we were living with Erik's dad and step-mom. And though it was scary not having jobs and living with other people when we barely even knew each other I think it was so a God set-up because we had that time to just be with each other, we were together all day. But by December it was time for us to move on, we needed a little more privacy but we couldn't afford to rent because Erik had bought a house with another guy before he met me and that is a very long, NASTY story, but finally a year later we are rid of it! Until then though we were making a mortgage payment on a house we couldn't live in, and paying rent for room in another couples house. So from December to July we lived with friends. We tried to sell my truck, get extra work, I tried starting a business, finding a place to live on our own, nothing! Not one door opened for us. Then finally after months of waiting we found out we were going to be rid of the house Erik had owned, so much money was going to be freed up, we'd be able to live, have a little fun, be alone! And then that same week we found out that everyone was being cut to a four day week. Really, what can you do but laugh. But it hurt so much, through it all I went through days of saying 'God, I'm just going to trust you, I'm going to praise you, I'm in this for good or bad' to day after day of feeling betryed by God and invisible to Him. Had he forgotten us? It saure felt like it. No encouragement, no prophetic words, no feeling, everything was going numb, and I felt depressed on a level that was probably getting close to needing medication. I used to wonder how people could get like that, why could they just give it all to God, they didn't need to carry that burden, why couldn't they just trust and have faith, and maybe there's people out there that can do that, but let me encourage you not to judge to you've walked through fire....you might be considered an incredible person of faith once you've come through the other side, but in the midst of walking through you don't know how you'll really react til you're in the midst of it. Then on a whim, but God knew what He was doing, Erik brought up Texas, the more we talked about it, the more it made sense, and then I started having dreams, my family, mainly my mom and sister, (who we hadn't said anything to at the time) start calling and confirming the dreams I've been having and the things we felt God was saying, and they started having dreams. Then everyone we started telling didn't really seem surprised at all, we just kept hearing over and over again 'makes perfect sense, why not'. Then finally after a month or two of the back and forth trying to decide if this is the right thing to do, the decision was made. And it was a painful one, so many things to take into consideration, and people. But once the decision was made I've had so much peace. We decided to sell all of our furniture and within a week it almost gone. We wanted to sell Erik's car and before we even told anyone someone called him and asked to buy it! Erik might even be getting a job he can do from anywhere...he goes in on Tues or Wed.! But it's just amazing how things seem to be so much easier all the sudden. It is kinda odd too that all the sudden when we made up our minds we find out that people everywhere seem to be moving. Even some of Erik's good friends here, but I know of people in Fl., Tx. BC, and all over that are just up and moving out of nowhere. So God must be up to something.

So here we are leaving August 22nd. Headed to Texas. As of right now, no jobs, no home, we'll be living with my parents, embarking on a massive and expensive stack of paperwork for Erik to immigrate, and I haven't felt so alive and hopeful since meeting Erik a year ago. Some days it's exciting and some days it's terrifying. But none the less, we're doing it and believing God's in it. And though we've had some really rough patches this past year I'm soo glad I had someone to go through it with. It wasn't like in my fairytale world, where if something went wrong and you were married you wouldn't even notice it because you would be so happy just being together, not at all, I'd almost say at times it was worse, because you love and care for someone sooo much and not only are you hurting, but so are they and you want to make it baetter but you can't, you can't fix everything for them, nor can they for you. You just learn and grow to together, and you are there for their bad days, and they are there for your bad days. But though it's not always been easy and I can honestly say if I had a choice I'd NEVER go through it again, I am grateful for it, because we have grown so close and so strong together, and we may have failed at some points, but we've kept getting back up and moving forward, and in the big picture we've passed on a major level, and I'm excited to see the fruit that will come from this season.

Well, if you've stuck this blog out for this long then I applaud you! They probably won't all be this long, just wanted to catch you up.