an honest prayer

Thank you for this food. Thank You for providing me with food that my body accepts and can use as nourishment according to Your design.

Thank you for meeting with me this morning and manifesting that which I silently told you I desired yesterday. 

Thank you for having your way with me. Thank you for enabling me to be a part of the Grow or Die series from miles and years away. You have met with me so clearly through the Word that has been spoken.

Now continue these good works as I seek to allow myself in positions of dependence upon You and Your divine provisions. As I walk through today, keep my mind stayed on you. When my mind wanders, Spirit call me to Yourself.

Lead me on in the practicing, growing, training, and maturing of my mind that I may grow up in all aspects into Christ. That I may grow up and continue in the ways You have prepared and set apart for me - the ways You have set me apart for.

May today, this fasting, be a space in which You foster growth in my thinking patterns and how I handle my desires and temptations. Teach me to navigate temptations by teaching me today to nestle up to You whenever I desire to eat meats, sweets, or grains.

To Him who is able to do far more abundantly than I think our ask, to Him be the glory. Amen.

Recreating the Dress...

The Concept Dress from Anthropologie

$24.80 on forever21.com

$44.99 on ModCloth.com

$30.99 on ModCloth.com

Be on the look out for lace that we could use to recreate this dress!

I'm thinking we could buy dresses of the solid color I want then add the lace details at home. I put that B&W dress up there because I thought maybe that dress would work with simple green lace over it.  

Today we talked bridal party attire.

Groomsmen | dark grey pants, suspenders, lavender shirt, bow tie, hipster boots. 

pants $39.95 from H&M

Bridesmaids | evergreen dress, some sort of flats, 

dress $149.95 from Anthropologie

(I'm still looking around to find a less expensive version of this, but this is the idea)

Anna | dark grey pants, suspenders, evergreen shirt, evergreen tie, hipster boots?

About the Aisle...

Also! Instead of having arches all the way down the aisle, we were thinking we could have them standing straight up, then as you go down the aisle they would curve in until you reach the alter and they make a full arch... We could do that with either wires in the twigs or maybe fishing line?

i have learned that communicating my needs does not make me needy.
having emotional needs does not make me needy.
wanting my man to learn how to care for my emotional needs is not needy.
feeling let down when my emotional needs are slashed, does not make me a needy, irrational, hormonal girl who can't be trusted.

my emotions add to the complex beauty that is me.

an honest prayer

i guess i've been feeling sad, granted i'm having trouble eating the food i need to eat, and i'm currently dealing with physical discomfort... Jesus, i feel sad.. i know You must know how it feels.. so, hold my hand? help me through? keep me singing in my heart to You?

expressing affection...

I used to write you letters, make you gifts and write you poems

I used to make collages, scrapbook photos and tickets, memoirs of our dates

these were ways I expressed to you how lovely, loved and cherished I felt

Letters to My Fiancé

11/12/13

I miss cuddling you already, but our diligence will be blessed.

I miss welcoming sleep from within your arms, but obedience will sow seeds of a fuller life. 

I missed your presence all day long, but The Lord is my companion, my hiding place, my strong tower. 

I longed to share each moment with you, but His Spirit still enables us to share the most beautiful realizations. 

I yearn to be with you, but my God will make all things work out for the best of His Kingdom and Children - my sight is limited, He sees when we best be united for life, love and joy in abundance. 

ponderings

there's this ring on my finger.
it's lovely and shiny.
-----
the greyness outside, all about
may be a point for depressed mood
or an opportunity for me to insert my own color and Light to the day

who makes my days meaningful,
who determines what does or doesn't make my days meaningful?
is it what i do? how i feel?

am i to set a time and space and mindset and determine to grab hold of the meaning of each day... i think i do...

i used to live my days like a story line...
there was this story i had in my mind, in my heart, and each step i took wrote the next line of said story...

if living in New York, i'll want to have an imagined, thought up storyline that i can use to navigate my days. hmm, thank you Lord for imagination! for creativity!


-----
Lisa encouraged me to use these days, this time - as i am still single - to come to You emotionally, to allow You to care for my emotions and learn to allow You to be my emotional stability.

this is a call, I, too, have sensed. with emotions. with spiritual disciplines.



(typed to my fiancé, 11/12/13) "sometimes i wonder what i used to do before we were together, how i used to stay happy (or make myself optimistic) when i was going thru my days all by myself, or when i was in-between things or had a lot of unexpected free time… i can forget what it was like to be self-sustaining and responsible.. 'cause you took much better care of me than i knew was possible, you filled needs that i didn't realize i had… so it's easy to lean on that for the filling rather than appreciating it for the overflow..

'cause before you, i had just found what it was to walk thru my days in a sort of ongoing, fluid motion that kept my emotions stable and ready for prayer… and He challenged me with greater privileges to balance… and I have been learning nonstop about Him and ways i thought of Him wrongly and then experientially been taught of His character and how different He is than I was thinking… and that is absolutely invaluable!!!

i also realize.. though I am not totally dependent on you for stability, that being one of your gifts, i often without realizing, opt to lean toward you for those signals and can lean to you to see my grounding.. thank God your grounding is in Him cause then I'm just pointed to Him! but ultimately, i desire my first wanting gaze to glance upon Him and seek Him for my filling… so i'm just pondering these things…"

by my side...

when i'm fighting a battle, he joins and makes it two on one.
keeps us unified, moving in the same direction, and he doesn't leave me behind to fight on my own as he just walks on.

oh to grieve with the Spirit grieve with him here, here to fight on my behalf,

with you i'm allowed to grapple. about anything.

incomplete thoughts...

i forget how terribly i need to create. create sentences from thoughts. poems from emotions. movement from sensation. create moments. of laughter of questions of seeking of following curiosity of doing the very last thing i would do...

the very last thing i would do right now... go eat a bowl of cereal, call mamaw, chat with mckenna, charge my computer, organize my closet for a few minutes, print my homework, ask evan how he's studying for 220, pull out my Bible and write 1 Thes 4 out to memorize it, lay on the floor visualizing how i will proceed/how the rest of the night will go...

huh, that's a practice i haven't done much of at all lately. positive visualization, imagining and running through real life situations (upcoming) in my head and imagine them going as positive as possible or at least how i may walk through them in a positive manner.

when i allow myself to stay in my head, or even in one subject for too long, i seem to let go of whatever that thing is that typically fuels my interest, ambition, curiosity, energy, mental sunshine...  it's like a part of me dies, or at leasts slips into a coma, it's like if i squint my eyes i can faintly see it trapped behind a sheet of dark slate