WRITING LOVE

We were four years old and were, I think, the only African-American girls in our kindergarten class, though I am not entirely sure for two reasons:
(1) I was 4 and now I'm 35.  So, my brain has progressed (or regressed, depending on how you view it) over the past 31 years, and I cannot be accurate as to the logistics of kindergarten demographics.
AND
(2) For me, we may have been, at least in my view, the only important 4-year-old Black girls in my little world which was probably in the early stages of being an egocentric person.

But back to her...this one friend that I had in this lowly kindergarten class on the Northeast side of Grand Rapids, Michigan...this one person that shared a unique quality like me that made her my ace boon coon even back then.  She had what was considered a strange name.  Just like me.

We were in early elementary together, the two girls with the strange names and the creative gift of writing.  We both loved books and words.  It wasn't until we entered middle school at Northeast Middle School and Creston High School (yay, Polar Bears!) after years of not seeing each other and growing up in different paths that we had some semblance of writing and putting words together.  She became my favorite poet, really, having this grasp of words and language and humor that was signature of this young woman with the name that could no longer be considered strange but had to be considered artistic and biblical license by her parents.  She wrote things that stirred in me the desire to write.

Even today that is a most difficult thing for anyone to do.  My taste in the written word has become much more eclectic now that The Babysitter's Club and Are You There, God?  It's Me, Margaret has passed into my literary history.  No one can effectively make me pick up a pen quite like this woman.  When writer's block threatens to invade, I think of something she has said or written.  And she doesn't even know that she has been a buoy tossed out to me time and again when words fail and I sink into "thick-brain."

A couple years ago, this woman with the artistic name published a book, a beautiful poetry book entitled Respective Dreamlands.  It is the tome I pick up along with The Complete Collected Poems of Maya Angelou.  She sits in the picture above at her first book signing for this book that could barely hold her poetic genius, smiling her heart-smile which even today I miss seeing everyday.

Her birthday is the month after mine, a couple weeks before Thanksgiving.  Her birth month had to be chosen by God before the foundation of the world.  I imagine that when He thought of her, He started smiling too as He considered the exact time and generation that He would present her to the world.  She would have to be born in November in the exact generation I was because my life had to be impacted so righteously and artistically by her.  She had to be born in a month that would remind me that I have at least one thing to be thankful for...that I ever met her.

To me, Mykal is a woman that cannot be replicated but absolutely must be celebrated for her ability to intertwine God, faith in Him, and life's raw beauty in a uniquely poetic form.  And I am thankful for her presence, her love of writing, her truth in my world.  She shows me how to not take life so seriously but instead see the poetic humor in it all.

FRIEND LOVE

When I met this woman, I was 22 years old, engaged, thinking I didn't want to be and was trying to be free from the responsibilities of life.  I started working at a camp on Lake Michigan (Camp Blodgett) that summer of 2000, thinking that I could escape everything.  I didn't realize I would run right into a new friendship that would last me, now, nearly 13 years and counting.

I listened to a workshop by Shauna Niequist today about "Friendship" and I have to say that the words she spoke about maintaining real friends reminded me of the beautiful woman pictured above.  I do not reasonably think that I could be me if she wasn't here.  Everything about my life today has been shared in some way with her and nothing that matters to me is kept from her.  She knows me through and through; she even has the ability to subtly (and sometimes not so subtly) chastise me without me raising an eyebrow or getting an attitude.  (Those that know me have probably experienced "the Myama attitude" once or twice.)  Let me be clear though...it's not that she's never said something I didn't agree with.  She just says it in a way that makes me think about life and my response to it.

Not many people can do that...successfully.

The baby girl she is holding is her "mini-me", her daughter that resembles her in so many ways.  I have watched her mother this little girl from the womb and onward, mother her nephew-now-son from the heart and onward.  And I cannot wait until she is the aunt to my children that they will need as they get older.  She took my wedding photos at my wedding in December, braving the freezing cold Michigan winter with her family, so she could capture my day.  She dressed her (my) babies up so they could precede me down the aisle.  And it was then that I realized that we are indeed friends/twins joined for life.

This woman...Toya...is the friend whose love I cannot live without.  And this post of tangible love is dedicated to her...

TRUE LOVE

Christmas Morning, 2012...The dawn is slowing coming through the windows, and the room is still dark where the man sits propped up in bed.  His hands are trembling as he reaches for a pen and paper.  He knows what he must do.  He must write before he no longer has the strength to say what he needs to.

She is in the other room, preparing for the day.  He has told her over and over that he does not want the family to have a sad Christmas Day.  He wants her to celebrate it as they always have for their large family.  The children are used to a certain affect on this date - bright and shiny decorations, millions of presents under the tree, and lots of goodies to eat.  He knows that because of finances some things had to be sacrificed, but he does not want his family to suffer.  He is also aware that his very life was being sacrificed, in the years to come, Christmas Day will always be bittersweet.  He wishes, just like most men, that he could prevent that.

It is out of his hands.  But what is not out of his hands is his ability to write words that can help his wife know his thoughts and heart and feelings before he was to leave for HEAVEN.

He shifts uncomfortably in bed as he prepares to write, the pain in his body being almost unbearable.  Thoughts fill his head of the first time he ever saw her, how he felt when he laid eyes on her, and how he knew then that they were meant to be.  Tears fill his eyes as he considers that they really didn't have enough time to express the love he knows they shared from day one.  They had only been married for 18 years; when the commitment was made, they thought for sure they would grow old together - retiring in some warm destination once all their beautiful children were grown and gone, living their own lives.  He stares down at his frail arm, once so muscular and manly.  He feels like his spirit is outgrowing his body, and he only has so much time to write the words.

He presses the tip of the pen to the paper and begins to write...

As an onlooker at a funeral that should not have been taking place, I listened to words a husband wrote to his wife on a cold Christmas Day.  He wrote the words until he had no more strength to tell her how much he loved her, adored her, thanked her for their life together.  My heart ached as I heard him say he did not want to leave her, leave their family, leave their children; yet he knew it would be their last Christmas together.  He thanked her for the richness of their marriage; he said that his life was blessed because of her.

A few days before he wrote that letter, I was standing at an altar staring into the eyes of a man that I loved  and committed to stay with until death.  So, as I sat there with the audience of concerned friends, loved ones, and community members listening to the man's letter, my heart began to break.  And yet, it began to beat with an intensity to love my husband even more - my husband, waiting for me at home.  The letter was from a man dying of cancer on Christmas Day but vibrantly and evidently still in love with his wife.  He refused to leave this earth before he said everything he needed to say to her.

Today, this post is a dedication to Debbie and Ricky - this color whose very lives together was a testimony and a landmark for me on my journey toward being the best wife I can be.  For the sake of privacy, I cannot post their pictures.  But I wanted to share this story, this moment in time, with the world - a world that is broken in so many places.  This man, though he was suffering, loved his wife.  That Christmas morning, his only thought was thanking God for the gift he had been given - the woman he called his "Angel" several times throughout the letter.

At the end of the letter, he asked her to give him one more chance to say more about his love for her.  I do not know if he ever got the chance (at least on paper).  But the one thing that will always be honored and cherished in her heart, as her life goes on, is how he pressed that pen into that paper and the words inside his heart flowed out.  HE wrote that for HER.  HIS words on THAT paper will remain, etched into it like stone.  HE loved and loves HER still...right from heaven to here on earth.

In the Lord's Prayer, there is a statement that says "Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven."  This is made more clear to me now what that really means.  God's will is love - LOVE LIKE THIS.  In other words, as this story exemplifies, the prayer is that LOVE be done on earth as it is in heaven.  Ricky is in heaven, loving forever more the "love of his life" - his Debbie.  It is still working and making an impact even though he is physically absent.

Love never dies.

NEVER.

I thank God for that.  I have learned that in my own life.  OVER AND OVER AGAIN.

I want to dedicate a song to this couple and to us all...for remembrance and honor.  It reminds me of their love affair...please watch this and remember that at the end of the day, love is all that matters.  And nothing in this world can stop it - not even the grave.  (Jesus overcame that.)

I pray that Debbie knows this...the morning after her husband's funeral...the morning after she laid  eyes on the man that wrote that letter for the last time in this earth realm...the morning after she woke up in an empty bed and with a broken heart...THIS morning when their youngest children will undoubtedly enter the room and ask for him.

I pray for all that have had to say goodbye to those gone on before and felt their heart breaking in the process...hoping that one day God would help them pick up the pieces.  I've been there too.  But as life has carried on, I have learned to open my heart again.  That is why December 22 will always be a life-changing day for me.




Here is a book that I read, that helped me get through my own process and helped me understand that love has a way of finding you again.  Because it will and it can and it does...

SISTER LOVE

The CD I am listening to everyday now, on my way to work and everywhere else, is Israel and New Breed's  "Jesus at the Center", a compilation that cuts me to the quick and for me probably the one work of artistry and worship that this group has done in recent years that has the ability to speak for me.  I sing at the top of my lungs at 6:30 in the morning on my way, in the dark, before life cuts me to the quick and reminds me why I have to sing in the first place.  Even as I am singing, I am seeing the faces of the children that have been ingrained on my heart and I know as I sing to Jesus, I am imprinted on His hands and heart as well.  I sing, knowing that I don't have to apologize for being passionate about this call, like His, that matters more than selfish ambition.

I sing and consider the people that matter most to my world.  I hope they will  be blessed every step of the way, each day.

Love overrides all and grace touches in ways that mere presence can't.

I listen to the CD and thank Jesus for grace and love and music - the ability to sing of it all at this time in my life when I never thought I would have it again.  How awesome to have it all and yet be required to pour it all out into the lives that God sends my way to impact.

So I listen today.  I listen to this song that has resonated in my soul every time it is sang by various artists (Bob Dylan, Israel and New Breed, Adele) - "To Make You Feel My Love."  And to me that is what it is all about - making people feel my love, tangible and strong and vibrant.  What is the point of love, of justice, of grace if people don't feel it?  It must be felt all the way to the bone and blood and tissues - deep calling to the deep in all of us.  That is the point of even being here at all.  We can't be lukewarm. We can't be mediocre.  We have to pour it all out.  And then God gives it all back again.  Every day.

That is what I am learning today as I listen to this CD.

So with that in mind, I am going to love the souls that God has brought my way in a tangible way so the whole world knows that these souls matter to God and me.  This is the direction I will go with this blog for now.  No more complaints.  No more pointless debates.  Only love.

I think of these two women, as I think of highlighting love in a tangible way here on  my blog, not as the only women that matter but as the ones that will start out the trend here and most especially because I thought of them this morning on my drive to work:

These are ones that have made a huge difference in the earth for me in the last 15 years.  When I think of what my life as an adult has meant, I cannot help but think of them.  They helped me become the woman I am today, have stayed prominent when I had no one else to care.  They have taught me what true sisterhood looks like.  They are love to me.  They are family to me and each other, these sisters.  The beauty they exemplify means more than they even realize, as the day to day living life seems to be so difficult at times.  I want them to always know that they will always be special to God and me.  They will always be graced.  Although their parents helped shape me as well, they have been just as important to my life.

As I said earlier, as I drove to work with "Jesus at the Center", I thought of them today.  I prayed for them today - for their families, relationships, careers, finances, homes, and futures.  I prayed for their children and their children's children.  That is what I need them to know whether they read this or not.  That they are tangibly loved and I worshiped God as I thought of them.  This is more important than anything else.

And so today, with much appreciation that they are here in my world, I love them.

New Year, New Life

I took some time away from blogging so I could actually get married and then actually be married in these early days after the vows.  I thought many days about what I would say with my first blog post as a married woman, wanting to be prolific and full of wisdom and able to answer the questions I raised just before saying "I do" to Mr.  What I can say is that I am more wise because of love and what the love of God and the love of Mr. has done to me.  I am not more wise  or full of more wisdom because I had it within myself all along.  It came along with the vows and the commitment made - like a gift dropped down from heaven at the very moment we took that next step.

The intense love of both God and my man has changed me, even this early on - has settled me, has established me, and has integrated my selfish mind and heart.  I thought I was a person that thought more of others than myself, but marriage is really the only relationship (besides parenthood) that demands it.  And everyday, when the good of the household has to outweigh what I thought would be good for only me, I realize that I have to do this ten times more.  And no it is not rote or innate.  It takes deliberate concentration to not be who I was before "I do."  I have to be the woman that said "I do" and is now learning to "do" and "be" and "translate" the language of intense love and devotion everyday.

I thank God for this.

I thank God for the challenge to love deeper and broader and wider.  I thank God for the challenge to share a home and a life with this man - this man with the infectious laugh and music in his veins and love staring into my eyes.  I thank God that it really isn't a challenge at all.

It is what I want to do.  More than anything in this world.  In this new year.  In this new life.

IN THIS SEASON OF WAITING

This year, the light even looks different in the sky, as I am driving in to Port Huron; the viewpoint is different and the reality of what this time of year represents for me is very new.  I've waited before, as in celebrating Advent, but this year, the waiting is for a tangible something.  The waiting is for Christ to be revealed in a new way, inside a new relationship, inside a new commitment.

I see Christ's coming to this earth those many centuries ago through a different set of lenses, as I wait for the next two weeks to pass as they have every year before this one.  He is about to be revealed as I have not had the chance to in those previous seasons.  He is about to teach me how much He really does love me, as Mr. loves me in proxy for Him on this earth.  Mr. is to love me as Christ loves the church, as the Bridegroom loves the Bride.  He is about to vow what Christ did when He appeared and changed the journey of mankind.  Mr. is about to do for me what Christ did for us all - give love like blood and bone and breath.

"Wives, be subject (be submissive and adapt yourselves) to your own husbands as [a service] to the Lord.

²³ For the husband is head of the wife as Christ is the Head of the church, Himself the Savior of [His] body.

²⁴ As the church is subject to Christ, so let wives also be subject in everything to their husbands.

²⁵ Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her,

²⁶ So that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the Word,

²⁷ That He might present the church to Himself in glorious splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such things [that she might be holy and faultless].

²⁸ Even so husbands should love their wives as [being in a sense] their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself.

²⁹ For no man ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and carefully protects and cherishes it, as Christ does the church,

³⁰ Because we are members (parts) of His body."  (Amplified Version)

That is a tremendous job, a deeper call than any other.  Much more purposeful than even I first realized.  I truly can submit to the authority of one that is supposed to love me in such a soul-enriching, spirit-life loving way because that is what I have wanted from the beginning of time.  That is the only thing that has kept me waiting all this time.

And me?  What is my job in two weeks?

To be that bride and that wife, the one loved and cared for - the one that makes Proverbs 31:10-31 come alive in Mr.'s life.  It does not seem like much of a transfer of responsibility as a response to vows spoken, but as I submit to the commitment, this is me, this must be me (even when life spirals on in the way that it does):

" A capable, intelligent, and ^[a]virtuous woman—who is he who can find her? She is far more precious than jewels and her value is far above rubies or pearls.

¹¹ The heart of her husband trusts in her confidently and relies on and believes in her securely, so that he has no lack of [honest] gain or need of [dishonest] spoil.

¹² She comforts, encourages, and does him only good as long as there is life within her.

¹³ She seeks out wool and flax and works with willing hands [to develop it].

¹⁴ She is like the merchant ships loaded with foodstuffs; she brings her household’s food from a far [country].

¹⁵ She rises while it is yet night and gets [spiritual] food for her household and assigns her maids their tasks.

¹⁶ She considers a [new] field before she buys or accepts it [expanding prudently and not courting neglect of her present duties by assuming other duties]; with her savings [of time and strength] she plants fruitful vines in her vineyard.

¹⁷ She girds herself with strength [spiritual, mental, and physical fitness for her God-given task] and makes her arms strong and firm.

¹⁸ She tastes and sees that her gain from work [with and for God] is good; her lamp goes not out, but it burns on continually through the night [of trouble, privation, or sorrow, warning away fear, doubt, and distrust].

¹⁹ She lays her hands to the spindle, and her hands hold the distaff.

²⁰ She opens her hand to the poor, yes, she reaches out her filled hands to the needy [whether in body, mind, or spirit].

²¹ She fears not the snow for her family, for all her household are doubly clothed in scarlet.

²² She makes for herself coverlets, cushions, and rugs of tapestry. Her clothing is of linen, pure and fine, and of purple [such as that of which the clothing of the priests and the hallowed cloths of the temple were made].

²³ Her husband is known in the [city’s] gates, when he sits among the elders of the land.

²⁴ She makes fine linen garments and leads others to buy them; she delivers to the merchants girdles [or sashes that free one up for service].

²⁵ Strength and dignity are her clothing and her position is strong and secure; she rejoices over the future [the latter day or time to come, knowing that she and her family are in readiness for it]!

²⁶ She opens her mouth in skillful and godly Wisdom, and on her tongue is the law of kindness [giving counsel and instruction].

²⁷ She looks well to how things go in her household, and the bread of idleness (gossip, discontent, and self-pity) she will not eat.

²⁸ Her children rise up and call her blessed (happy, fortunate, and to be envied); and her husband boasts of and praises her, [saying],

^29 [b]Many daughters have done virtuously, nobly, and well [with the strength of character that is steadfast in goodness], but you excel them all.

³⁰ Charm and grace are deceptive, and beauty is vain [because it is not lasting], but a woman who reverently and worshipfully fears the Lord, she shall be praised!

³¹ Give her of the fruit of her hands, and let her own works praise her in the gates [of the city]!"  (Amplified Version).

It may seem like such a big job but I have been through much to get me to this place.  It was all worth it - the pain, rejection, heartache to exemplify love on such a deeply gratifying manner...

Uncle Love

Yesterday, during a quick lunch break from work, I stood in my mom's bedroom talking with her and my uncle about my wedding, what I needed him to do as he finished walking me down the aisle and the words I needed him to speak in tribute during the ceremony.  He was miles away, speaking over the phone and at the sound of his voice I missed him deeply.  One thing I have always known about him that has helped shape me is the poetic nature of this man.  For me, my wedding wouldn't be reminiscient of me or Mr. without poetic tributes - most specifically from this father figure.

My uncle in his conversation was the reminder that I needed - the reminder of the me I have always been but seemed to lose in the hubbub of planning a new life with a man that I am daily knowing and loving more.  My uncle, like a wise sage, has this ability to orate the world, to give voice to yesterday, now, and tomorrow in his eloquent way.  He means the world to me, and as I heard him give an example of his ability to uplift the world by loving someone through words, I sighed.  The day was better for me in just that instant.  All the stress from the day, all the thoughts regarding my job, dissipated into thin air.

Words do that to me.  His words do that to me, like a daughter hearing her daddy's voice over and above everything else trying to confuse and muddle things.

"I want to read something to you," he said after he'd been given clarity about my wedding day requests.

He had written a superhero vignette about his middle grandson, Jaheim, the 5-year-old dynamo that has a special place in my heart as well.  As he elaborately described this little boy's hidden superhero powers (written because he just did not want to see him ever question his purpose or his esteem on this earth), I felt the invocation to be great as well.  He had written this for him, in language Jaheim would understand - the poetic language of superhero-dom.  My uncle, this boy's PaPa, loved him like my grandfather had once loved me, as special and perfect and wonderful (even when I was none of those things).  Tears welled in my eyes when my uncle's words encircled my mother and I as we listened, voice full of love and inflection in tribute and adoration of this boy, son of his boy.

And then, excitement welled in my heart, as I considered the power of the words he would speak in less than a month as I vowed to be an enduring and committed wife.  I was excited as I thought of how he would invoke that same power as he spoke of my grandfather, my grandmother, Mr.'s grandparents, my godfather in elegy.  I had no doubt that this would be the one day that mattered more than any that had come before.  Not because of a white dress or a tuxedo or flowers or rings, but because my uncle's love for me, for family, for life would frame the day.

And that will be enough for me to make that day complete, God willing.

Words and Prayers

My first prayer when I considered getting married, as a little girl, was that I would never marry an angry man or a man that was overly emotional about the simplest of things (because contrary to popular opinion, men are and can be emotional; they just display the rawness of their emotions in different ways).  But yet, I desired a man that was able to tap into his spiritual nature as often as necessary, as beautiful as huMANly possible.  Not just the temporal things that made him tap into all those uncontrollable emotions. 

Growing up, I did not see much of that...I saw a lot of running away from spirituality, a lot of denial of God's Presence, a lot of last-minute acceptance when there was no other recourse.  Except for my grandfather, the other father figures seemed aloof from the pursuit of this.

And yet this God I love and believe in, this real and amazingly supernatural God, answered those quiet prayers whispered as 11-year-old eyes witnessed the complexity of the male species in my world.  He sent one.  Others may say God has very little to do with the choices we make in selecting a lifelong partner.  While in form and physicality He may not be as involved, because the embodiment of love can change shape when one man dies and another appears, He is involved in the means for love to find us all.  He intends for love to find us.

I believe that most of all, after meeting Mr. such a short time ago.  Everyday, like a gift, he is unfolded before my eyes.  More of his ability to dig deeper into himself, the most risky move a man can make in front of a woman, is bringing to life the parts of him that once remained hidden from view.  I love it.  I love it the more I see him reveal his heart to me.  I consider it the most priceless gift I have ever been given.

Mr. opened the well-worn covers of the Bible held in his hands, seeking a Word from this God that we both love.  He cracked that cover open and I couldn't help but snap a photo of masculine spirituality at work.  His rough hands held the Book close to his chest as his eyes slowly took in each Word.  These hands work on parts in a factory all day.  These hands pull me into his embrace as his arms hold me close, after this work is over.  These hands have touched many things, but in the moment the picture was snapped the only thing that mattered more than any of it was how he held that Bible.

Mr. tells me about Isaiah 51 - how God whispers the mystery in his ear of why the hard times come and how best to view his role in the world around him.  He says prayers before meals, that do not even really deal with the preparation of the food, the ones that prepared it, though he does mention it as part of the many blessings God so graciously provides us.  What strikes me as rich is how he doesn't customarily recite the words he learned as a child round a dinner table.  He speaks "grown man prayers" as his faith has grown up and he has seen, witnessed, dealt with many issues in life that point to a God that has always walked with him.  Mr. says these"intercessory prayers" and my heart is enamored with the deep bass of his voice reminding God of who He is.

He lifts his hands to heaven - these same hands that have done so much.  And he makes me want to lift mine, repent of everything I have ever done wrong, embrace this God that loves us both - not that I didn't spend a lifetime wanting to do this before.  The thing is, when Mr. does it, the lesson hits home about what it really means for the man to be the priest of the home.  I feel the protection in ways that having to cover myself all these years never really taught me.  Mr. is doing for us both what is in his real nature to do. 

We say a man is supposed to work; you don't work, you don't eat.  This is true across the board no matter what faith you ascribe (subscribe) to.  But what makes my faith in this God above us most true of all is the fact that Mr.'s work, his natural and supernatural work in this earth realm, feeds me too. It feeds me.  I get fat off the work he is doing with hands lifted, Bible held in rough hands, mind and heart internalizing more of God.

He seeks Words from God and then he prays words to God.  When he does this, in his  no-nonsense masculine manner, he reminds me of my grandfather - the only man I ever heard pray before I sought faith on my own.  Mr. reminds me of the past, the present, and the future all at the same time.  Mr. does for me what I need from a marriage.

Thank God.

PACKING IT ALL UP

So anyway...this is the time and the season that the love humming just below my breastbone reminds me what I was waiting for.  We pack up and move on because instinctively we know that we have to accept that nothing is meant to last forever.  And so I am doing that - packing up my life as a single woman, boxing pictures in frames, shoving old clothes and memories and thoughts into garbage bags because quite frankly some things don't need to go to the next place and cannot go to Goodwill so someone else can make memories out of them.  Some things have to go in the bright red metal receptacle outside my apartment waiting with open-mouthed anticipation.

So anyway...I have six large boxes in my room waiting for me to put in the things that I am keeping - books, journals, photographs of babies that are now adults and adults that are in some ways like children again needing care, and words scrawled in notebooks that will never see a bookstore shelf.  They are waiting for me to put my singly purposed life in them, with the intent to be carried to a new location where space will be shared in a pseudo-forever fantasy.  It won't be forever but it will mirror Heaven on earth in its intent.  It won't be perfect but it will pull us closer to the One that pulled us closer to each other.

Glorious.

And so this is me, getting ready.  This is me packing a life into storage containers, as if such a thing is even possible after 15 years of living life on my own terms.  This is the process of saying good bye thankfully to the days when I thought I was in an apartment, forgotten by everyone. This is what other women (and men) traverse through when they are leaving the life of the bachelorette (bachelor) behind.  The path will not be seen again after the vow recitation;  there may be the (God-forbid) journey of a divorcee or the widow, but not the never married.  My hands will hold my life and will place it in a box.

The statement was made that perhaps I was scared, uncertain, fearful of the unknown and the known.  Quickly, "No, I am not" shot from my lips - not because the words were escaping before I could believe them but because this is NOT fear that I feel.  It is awareness that some things are over for good, and that is okay.  Some things need to end in life, though most people want to hold on to the things of yesterday and grab with full hands the things of tomorrow much to big for the grasp.

My mom has talked to me about some definite endings and possible endings in her life, though she has not explicitly used those words.  Her eyes and her words hint at her thoughts.  And the theme has rested on my mind lightly, like gentle feathers.  I watch her and know that as surely as I am accepting the changes in my life, I do not know if I am so easily accepting hers - the presence of the AARP necessities, the signatures needed, the planning in the drawers of her house that will tell me later how to let her life change from what I am currently used to.

Mr. and I have talked about familial expansion so that her hands and his parents' hands can cradle the baby to be born before they are not able to.  This is very important to us because our own grandparents meant so much to us, loving us into a place of being "spoiled" in some ways.  Baby must be loved like this by our parents - a sure gift hinted at around the dinner table.

Still, with each silent moment this weekend, as I pack up life, looking again at things that have to be hidden from view (even after the next location settles me), I will indeed wrap it up.  In a little more than a month, the bridge between "here" and "there" will be crossed.  In my imagination I wonder about how many more things will be different with a second point of view in the considerations.  One thing that has injured my heart in this process (because how could it ever be clean cut?) is the shaking of all that can be shaken: the absence of friends that I chose to release, the need for more solid loves, the defined roles that have to be established now.  This is never easy; it cannot be.

People are what they are; some pulled close have to be released.  I have no tolerance for selfishness anymore, but I understand that I have been selfish once.  So I know what it is like to be human wanting more than can be given when others are already stretched thin.  Some times the ones we love think they know us so well that they want to cross roles and  boundaries in ways that can place a crack in a place that is already fragile.  And I believe that in this journey, this Esther process, the proof of this is exactly what is manifesting.  The sad issue to me is when it is apparent to everyone, it smacks of something that cannot be ascertained or restored.

I have read Esther's story many times over wondering how she went from one life:  relationships, patterns of behavior, lifestyle to a totally separate other.  The past life was not able to intersect with where God intended for her to go next.  She packed her clothes to go live in a palace or a brothel for a king's use.  Whatever friendships she had before, decisions she made before, dreams she had before were all of non-effect once a king came into the picture.  I am pretty sure that like me she was hurt that her friends from the neighborhood, even the ones that she thought knew her well, could not go with her and even their advice had to be left in the place where she used to live.  She almost had to view what used to be advice for nosyness once her location changed.

I wonder as she packed her things, threw away things not fit for where she was going, how she felt about her future.  I do.  Not fearfully or with the thought that I am making a mistake, but with a clear awareness that some realities are transferable while others are not.  I can take "this" with me but because "that" represented some elements of my past (not necessarily bad), it cannot travel down the highway with me.  We talk about transferable skills in a job market or in a place of employment, but marriage is also a place where some skills that were okay when you were on your own cannot be used anymore when life changes again.

So everytihing else either gets packed up or thrown away.  You thank God for yesterday's treasures and even the things you thought were treasures but were really junk.  You thank Him for the lessons in the single state.  You keep it in your heart that you traveled on your own for a season and were able to utilize some major developmental changes.  But now?

Some things just can't go with you to be used later.  There is no recycling of everything in the palace.  Esther's old clothes, habits, friends, and customs could not be used and were discarded.  The Bible does not say that she grieved over the loss of those old elements of who she used to be.  She came into her new life with the understanding that where she came from mattered but where she was going mattered more.

Me too.

Now that is true wedding preparation.

Eve, Esther, and the Proverbs 31 Woman

This thought has been flowing over and over in my mind, as I am writing from my experience as a wife-to-be.  This is not strange for me, as I have always felt the need to chronicle my life journey for reasons unknown to me - perhaps it will mean something to somebody else one day.  Anyway, most of it seems prolific enough for me to write down.  Maybe it will all be a book one day.

I have never reflected more on my womanhood and presence on this planet than this pivotal moment in my life when I am getting ready to combine that Womanhood with Mr.'s Manhood (not talking about sex, so keep up, please).  It's not that I didn't notice the she in me when I was hanging with my girls (whom have all for the most part strangely gone mum or absent on me, with no help or advice).  When we were shopping, buying clothes, getting nails done, talking as women are wont to do, and battling between eating that dessert and eating those veggies, I definitely remembered my gender.  I love being a girl.  Wouldn't trade it.  But I never really THOUGHT about what it means in combination with a man's gender in that messy, miraculous thing called marriage.

There was nothing to ponder...like breathing...  You just are who you are; you just do what you do.

But the closer I get to that day when it's official, with all the prepping and life changes, I realize that there is something deeper God himself wants me to understand about me.  We don't really learn who we are until life demands that we bring our entire selves to the table.  We bring our entire selves forward when we are getting ready to join life to life.

The thoughts I have contemplated and meditated on focus around the three women that most women whom are actively attaining Christianity attribute our role in life or marriage to.  Eve, the first woman God made...Esther, the first Queen God crowned through life circumstances...the Proverbs 31 woman unnamed so we can all fill our names in the blank...all three have messed with my mind over the past nearly 6 months of marital consideration. 

Why are these three all up in my brain, so to speak?  Why do they matter?

The life intended, the mistakes made, the process walked through, and the perfection of being are not to be looked at lightly.  My preparation to love Mr. is not a mere "something to do" in the whole scheme of things.  While I may, as a woman, desire to have the perfection of the woman in Proverbs 31, I sometimes feel like Hadassah becoming Esther with the propensity of Eve to screw things up.  The process forces you to engage every part of the woman, every part of what makes you "not-so-perfect" but loved anyway, honored anyway, needed anyway.

How can all these elements be in effect but a man still sees the deeper purpose (very reminiscient of how our Creator sees us)?  How can grace finds us in that earthbound reality?  That is where I am right now, meditating on that grace.  He does love me, honor me, need me - little old me.  How? 

This pending marriage is crazy, in my head and through my eyesight.  How can someone love you enough to want to be joined to your life everyday?  How can someone want to be with you, when he knows that you can feed him something spiritually, emotionally, relationally, and (God forbid) physically; how can he know that what you feed him can make or break his entire life, that can affect his very purpose on this earth (like Eve).  Everyday, the question is raised to women - what are you feeding your spouse?  What are you feeding your children, your generations?  What are you giving them all that they are eating, internalizing, digesting?  Obviously, I am not talking about food.  God wasn't either when He questioned Eve about the fruit she gave Adam, when He asked her "What have you done?"

How can the man I believe God brought to my life love me when I came from a semi-orphaned existence, not entirely like Esther but uncovered paternally as she was until her cousin came along?  I had a different name, just as she did.  She came from somewhere that was not considered royalty.  She was not necessarily from a royal lineage; in reality, she was from a enslaved culture - bound to a reality she did not choose for herself but was hers  nonetheless.  I am not asking these questions from a place of pity, but from a place that acknowledges that marriage for me is like queenship for Esther - something never witnessed before.  The process to become a queen was a year's worth of hard work internally and externally.  I do not believe that the reason it took so long was based entirely on physical reasons.  Esther had to learn how to walk, to relate, to exist as a queen.  Where she came from had to be eradicated from her everyday though probably was never completely erased from her mind.  Not easy at all.

Finally, how can he (this man that has interrupted everything I ever thought about manhood) see me as this metaphysical manifestation of the woman he trusts his heart with?  Of all the things that stick out to me about the Proverbs 31:10-31 verses, these two hit me the hardest:

¹¹ The heart of her husband trusts in her confidently and relies on and believes in her securely, so that he has no lack of [honest] gain or need of [dishonest] spoil.

¹² She comforts, encourages, and does him only good as long as there is life within her.

Wow.  These are heavy statements to make, especially when there isn't much trust going around nowadays between men and women in marital relationships.  That doesn't mean there aren't any good marriages, so please don't misunderstand me; yet, I doubt anyone can deny the enemy's plan to destroy marriages and families.  But when I look at the truth of these verses, to  me they are more concrete than anything else I have ever seen in describing marriage.  After all, what is the point of a man marrying a woman and not being able to feel this about her, know this about her, testify this about her?

To me, the heart of a man is the most priceless and precious treasure he has.  When Mr. says he trusts me with his life and his heart enough to give them both to me forever, it makes me want to work harder (like that Proverbs 31 woman) to keep those gifts true, to make our home his sanctuary he can come home to when the world outside our door is so ruthless and dangerous to his heart and soul.  It makes me want to work harder at "making [him] feel my love" as Adele sang in her remake of the Bob Dylan classic.  He gives me something unable to replicated by anyone else, and I polish it like the gold of heaven, holding it dear.

These three women are forcing me to make this thing we have to be the best love we each could ever have.  This is no small thing; quite frankly, nothing any of us vow until death to treasure could ever be.  I see that now.

Let's Stop Being Distracted, Shall We?

I am sitting here listening to the interview and the brief video of Victoria Christopher Murray and Reshonda Tate Billingsley on Bill Thompson's "Eye on Books" website, along with other authors that are highlighted on it this week.  While it is refreshing to hear authors talk about the one thing I live for (writing, writing, and more writing), it is also disheartening sometimes.  Ever since I was a little girl all I have ever wanted to do was be surrounded by books, art, and music and write books, make art, and play/sing to music.  With such a broad landscape to pull a creative life from, it can be hard to stay in a place of motivation if it feels that you are only doing for yourself, releasing tension with your hands to paper.

I have found it to be distracting to want something so badly and never get the opportunity to live like these women - traveling the country, reading their books to audiences, being interviewed on radio programs, and being able to keep writing for years and years to come with an established fan base.  Sometimes it makes me sad enough to just put the pen, paintbrush, or guitar down.  I have done this.  I am still doing this.  In my heart I know it is wrong to wallow in self pity when no one buys books or gives feedback if they did.  But then, days like today, I realize that the pouring out of a creative gift should never be abruptly ended just because the river is flowing to sites unseen.

The stopping is the distraction away from the gift.  The ending of a thing before it is done is the obstruction of vision and view that kills a project, a poem, a song.  It kills you, and before you know it, everything has shut down.  You are no longer happy and joyful - talking, smiling, opening yourself to the world at all - even if that world is only one person.  The halting is the precursor to the procrastination that intercepts starting again.

So for my artist friends, my writers friends, my musician friends....how do you stay focused?  How do you battle the war of distraction and procrastination?  This is the area that many of us that hold claim to artistic endeavors wrestle with.  The reality is evident that these are the tactics of an unseen enemy.  But what is the weapon you use to move forward in writing, art, or music?  What is the key?

Listening to these Black women writers' voices talking about writing a book together reminds me of the work that I am doing now, helping others bring their voices to life.  The problem I am running into is the distraction of waiting for responses when others don't understand their role in the flow.  Waiting for responses can be a distraction in itself because you begin to wonder if you are really talented enough to help yourself more or less anyone else.

How do you not give up on the gift, the contract, the comradery, and the ability to help?  How do you stand still when you want to leave it all along and ignore the urgency to tell the story of life again and again.

Here is the short video of the life these authors are living now.  I pray one day I will too.

http://youtu.be/KNbhrFpZ6Zc

Getting Closer to the Ideal

I probably should be scared, nervous, uncertain.  I probably should be getting cold feet.  But whatever for?  If he is the one then he is the one.  I am a very cut and dry person, which sometimes gets me in a lot of trouble at work with the co-workers (not with what I actually do); that trait comes in handy no matter the circumstances because I have a "no-BS" (no Bureaucratic Stupidity, or something like that) rule of thumb I swear by.  I just wonder what the rest of this life together will be like.

I am loving the color purple right now and am realizing that getting married and having a marriage are actually two different things - two distinctly royal parts of the Esther Process.  I have not been overly concerned with the wedding itself, though I have a few wedding magazines sitting on my living room table at home for good measure and I also carry one with me so I can read what other brides have done when I am not busy.  But, I am concerned with keeping the sacredness of the union in the forefront of my mind.  I do not want to lose the sacred, as I have lost so many other things that I cannot get back.

I found a book entitled Sacred Marriage by Gary Thomas while Mr. and I were wandering through Barnes and Noble last week looking for ways to spend my birthday gift from his parents.  Holding the paperback in my hands, I got the feeling that I should approach the reading of it as the help I really need - not so much the same as reading Inside Weddings. 

We all know and it is understood that weddings last at most an hour, but a marriage is a lifelong endeavor.  Somehow, it seems easier to not acknowledge that and distract ourselves with throwing a big party instead.  Forever seems an abstract concept, though we are living eternity now.  I love parties but I do not love heartache.  It is better, I believe, to throw myself into building on a sure foundation, a sure thing.  Taking risks in marriage is not wise, as I have witnessed time and again.  And I have never been called unwise.

Overly cautious maybe.  Innovative, surely.  Able to see sounds and hear colors (synesthetic)?  Artistically and faithful to the God-given spark inside?  Absolutely.  Unwise?  Never.  Never.

In two months my name will change again, though I have already released myself from the last name that I held for 34 years.  The going joke is that I will be "Locked" in.  Do I want to be?  Yes.  Do I want to escape?  No.  But what will it be like to be someone's wife, someone's mom, when I have been myowne somebody for so long?  That is the harder question, quite frankly.  That is the more realistic stance to take.  But who really asks this question?

I look in the magazine that is in my bag, carried everywhere, and I begin to wonder if the brides highlighted in it asked the right questions to make the right decisions.  I'm not talking about floral arrangements or chic shoes luxe bags, though for someone this is important or it would not be indicated as an article on the front cover.  Can someone write about the life after the wedding as a topic of discussion or is it really true that fantasy is what people want but reality is what they need?  I mean, I understand that weddings are big business but so is divorce court.  We want to be joyfully in the first place but definitely not in the second, if the marriage becomes just as important as the precursor to it.

I want to ask this bride (the one whose quote was boldfaced on the magazine page above), was her marriage completely worth it?  Is being married better for her than being single?  Does she still feel like herself a year later?  (Typically these articles are written six months to a year in advance of publication, coinciding with the appropriate time of year.)  So, by now, she should have started the beautifully principled, not-so-easily-desirable meshing together of two lives into one.  That is a bloody, difficult process if there ever was one.

When God took Adam's rib to make woman, that Eve-girl that rocked his world so (and ours too), there had to have been some blood involved or otherwise why was he put to sleep?  There may not have been physical pain in the Garden, but there was blood.  Adam bled so his wife could blend.  To be part of who he was, she had to be part of who he was.

I am preparing to drape our wedding day in purple, but what happens after everything is over?  Everybody claps and cheers and wonders under their breath as they witness us drive off into the future how long we will make it. 

Mr. will wear that purple; it will be intertwined in my hair and make-up.  The children, precious god-children of ours) preceding my entrance will be clothed in it as well, matching us that day.  But there are more  questions to ask every day after: Will our marriage be draped in purple - the royalty of a lifelong imperial love?  Will it be sacred, and will we be holy at the end of it - having drawn closer to God and each other as a result of being together in holy matrimony?  Will it be completely worth it?  Will those children grow up and admire the union they got to be a part of establishing those many years before?

Going Somewhere I've Never Been

People don't tell you and the bridal books don't say it, but when you have been single for as long as I have been, the journey toward joining two lives into one is a very difficult preparation.  You want to follow the books and the advice but the truth is every marriage is as unique as a fingerprint.  You will never see two the same.  On the outside they all look alike, but inside the house, there is more to the reality, there is more to the story that the couple never tells.

I don't mean the bad stuff, the hidden secrets that could tear the union apart.  I am talking about the dream they both had when they said "I do" to each other and not to someone else: the goal they had for their family before the family actually came into being and the desires they wanted to have when marriage became the topic of discussion.  When you are heading somewhere you have never been with new keys in your hand, you want to ride that journey to the end.

Getting married has been a journey from one place in life to an unforeseen other.  The love is the key that locks the door to the past and unlocks the door to the next place.  For me, it has been easier to not go back the way I came; it has been scary but exhilarating to move on to that next place - although I don't really have a map or advice on what the future for me and Mr. will look like.  Call me a raging, blind-faith romantic, but I am okay with not knowing exactly what will be around the corner.  All I know is that we desire a future that will be better than the places we have been before.

We are naming things that don't exist yet - two children, a homestead, a church together that we will both attend, artistic paths that we will encourage each other to pursue.  We are hoping for more ahead that we have never seen.  And the goal, the passion, the love is something we cannot deny.  I am glad for the broken road, as Rascal Flatts sang, that God blessed.  But I am also glad for the journey we travel together, with new keys opening new doors.

Eating Music Like Candy

This season in my life has been very busy, very crazy...
This season of my life demands music and pictures drawn
To erase life as we know, to erase the evidence that reality is not spirituality
Because love is not meant to be used as a pawn
In the attempt to be traded for something less risky
In the attempt to be used in place of the pain that rides love's coattails -
Can't have one without the other, can't live without love and pain
With the inevitable truth that while it grows deeper, the root of love fails
When you aren't nurturing the inspiration, nursing the muse
Stroking the ego of that art going beyond the visualized and auditorily internalized....
I'm eating music like candy gumdrops chocolate drops red hot drops
Hoping that the pounds will still drop, hoping that the residual won't leave a residue
Because the blues and the jazz and the hip hop of the bee-bop
Have the power to fatten up the unseen, colored a strange color of artistic blue....

I'm eating music like candy so I don't have to eat something better
So my soul will have reprieve and the spirit can receive
The deeper details of a life and a love that cannot be circumvented
In order to create the lie no one really can say they believe
But they eat it up anyway
Like water for chocolate
And sugared fruit snacks for the raw bite of true fruit
And the shot that changes the game, taking over the table with a corner pocket
None of it is real and emotions rise and fall like the piano carrying the melody
Of the song where Joss says she is The Last To Know
And I begin to wonder if we are all so blind that we don't look close enough to see the truth
That eating music like candy is the action that makes love slowly grow....

The History of a Family Love

Love the picture; love the stairs.  These were stairs much older than me, photographed at the Atlanta History Museum near Buckhead.  The home so beautiful was literally full to the brim with life once lived.

Generations ago, children ran up and down these stairs.  A Grandmother watched them from the windows, being too refined to join in their play but not too stoic that she felt any need to stop them.

I wonder if the home I am thinking of this morning will be looked at with as much awe as I stared at stairs, at doors, at stone work - wondering and imagining the lives that so haphazardly were lived here.  I know these lives were lived, as if unaffected by what happens to others as human beings would ever happen to them. 

When you live life, you don't think of the days when you won't.  You don't think of the stairs you will never climb again.  The water fountains you will never swim in again.  The floors you will never click and clack across with heels on.

The people who lived here don't anymore.

But when they did...

THEY DID.

That's what I want to happen after December 2012 has passed...when we are busy building a life combined and conjoined. 

I want my home to be the place where he and I will be so intertwined with the art cabana, the blue music room, the knotted pine library, the kitchen of many meals cooked, the fire pit outside, the well-used fireplace inside - that when our great, great, great grandchildren receive it in inheritance, they will know we loved.  We loved and lived here.  That will be felt and remembered long after our practiced wealth will transfer into the eternal gain of living in God's rich Presence.

That will be their history...their historical society..their history museum.  That will be their inheritance.

When I remember my grandparents, I don't think of the house that doesn't exist anymore on Thomas Street in Grand Rapids.  I don't consider where everything used to be.  It was not as beauteous as this home my friend and I toured a warm day in July.  But it was home.

It is remembered.  Never forgotten.

Like cemented history and blue doors...

I remember the inheritance of love.

If life is nothing else, that is the definitive purpose of breathing.

Happiness, Simply Put

He laughs, though not audibly.  Such a tiny little dog, his silent laughter rings truer than anything I have ever known.  How can he be so happy?  I can ask the question, but I already know the answer.

Nothing is better than simply being alive.

And my Barklee's smile is what lets me know that, there is absolutely no excuse to be frowning.  It does it to me every time.

Watching the Sunrise

I didn't realize until a few months ago that the best way to greet the day, at least for me, is to greet the sun as it rises in the Eastern sky. It is a brief moment in time that if you are not looking carefully, you can miss. You can miss the sweet instant when new bright sun rays kiss sky and a day never before seen begins on earth. It is not just another day.

Like God's grace and mercy being new every morning, the sun slowly creeping up from the horizon, is significant because the way it arrives has never been seen in quite that way. Yes, it is the same sun as yesterday. Yes it will shine down and warm the skin. Yes, it will be the light to the day, so that we do not have to live in darkness.

Like the grace we take for granted sometimes, that sun is ever present. But what is not is the awareness that eyes are seeing it new again for another day. The sun is being born right before our eyes. If we pay attention, we will remember that the same God that made the same sun that gave the same grace as yesterday will keep us today and the acknowledgement we would do well to give makes everything more bearable.

Rain will come.

Mercy will be needed.

Grace will need to be extended for those who fail us and for each of us when we fail, at even the simplest tasks.

But behind the clouds is the sun that always comes back. Behind the issues that cloud our human nature and our restrictive view, grace and mercy always come back.

This day is a God-given day with blessings, challenges, heartache, love, pain, worries, and release. We rejoice in it when we know, first, that we were blessed to see it. And second, we rejoice because the old shines new.

I sit here now, every morning racing to beat the sun-streaks across the sky that signal that the fire ball in the sky is about to be reborn; it is about to make a grand appearance in a brief moment that can easily be missed. I don't want to miss anymore moments.

And I begin my day determined not to.

Showing Grace

One of the lessons that God has been teaching me this year, especially since Whitney Houston died and everyone started speculating and gesticulating on her last days on earth, is that grace is something none of us deserve but because out Creator loves us, He freely gives it. I wondered where was the grace for her, despite the issues she dealt with in her life. I wanted there to be some justification for what appeared to be so much unfairness in her daughter being left behind. What was the point of this girl losing her mother at just the time when she needed her most? What was the real lesson there?

The real lesson...the real intangible...the real beyond the obvious...

My best friend reminded me of the answer to that question today. She told the story of a young lady that was hired to watch her children this summer. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, this young lady decided to steal from my friend and her husband by changing the amount of her pay on a check.

Lots of people had a lot of responses to this action and the decision that my friends made. Some understood my friends' showing of grace rather than pursuing prosecution. Some felt that the only recourse was to enter the court of law - dragging her in there to teach her a lesson about being sneaky, being a thief, being dishonest.

I wanted to say something equally as biting, that she will only learn not to steal when she is prosecuted. She has to learn her lesson or she may do something far worse. She needs to be judged for her decision to make such a stupid mistake. But then I remembered something that God told me back in February at three in the morning.

"Stop looking for life to be fair; start looking for my grace."

I am looking for grace everywhere now, like a hidden jewel. I am looking for it, not just for me, but for others. I am seeking it out like a bloodhound on a scent, sniffing it out, wanting to see it manifested in this earth. Where grace is found, the Grace Giver is somewhere behind the scenes. I am not looking for fairness because although we'd like to think so God is a just God but what happens on this earth is not often fair. A just God allows unfairness.

God demands that we sometimes do what is not customary or according to the laws of this earth to teach a much bigger lesson. He wants us to live a life that isn't always easy, isn't always cut and dry, isn't always as simple as 1-2-3. He wants those of us that have found grace and been found by grace (when the lights get turned on and we are caught red-handed doing something we KNOW we had NO business doing) to show the same measure of grace on an individual basis.

"What was the lesson?" Jason, a friend, asked.

Maybe it wasn't what others would have done but I believe that my friends showing of grace to this young lady was the lesson. It wasn't what happens after; it is the showing of that thing that matters most of all. What the young lady does with it is entirely up to her, but what my friends do with the showing of grace points back to God. They showed what God shows us all and for me, I saw His face in their action. For me, my heart started beating double time, because yet again I sensed Him in the room just over my shoulder, reminding me that His grace is the perfume saturating my life.

Yep, I Know You're Going to Delete Me

So, here's the thing I didn't want to say. I haven't said much to anyone about wedding colors or bridesmaids or flowers (mainly because there actually aren't any). At first I had made the lists and started stressing over music and venues and caterers and dates. I thumbed through the bridal magazines (mostly out of obligation) and felt my stomach churn over all the things the articles said I was supposed to be doing right now.

But then I figured out that there was something of more importance than all that. It was actually speaking vows and not being put on display while I did that with the one that preferred privacy and intimacy. These actions are preferred over making our day about everyone else, keeping up appearances, hooplah, gray hairs (as if I didn't already have some I'm trying to cover up).

With that being said there are three reasons a lot of friends and associates are going to delete me off their Facebook and possibly out of their lives (but if they love me as much as they should, they will not even consider it):

(1) They won't have time to book an airplane flight, take time off from work, buy gifts, pick out outfits or make any other plans surrounding my wedding. The wedding is a lot sooner than people know. And due to fiance' privacy laws, I cannot say when or where or how or why (and no, I'm not expecting a tiny person in nine months before people start speculating).

(2) The invitees are on a very small list. Those whom have spoken to me within the last few weeks about this are on that list. Those others that have not called me, have not spoken to me lately, or had pointed discussions with me about my future can best presume they are NOT on the list. I love you all anyway, no matter what group you belong to. Hopefully there will be no hard feelings. But if there are, I apologize in advance, and maybe next summer you all can party with us when we continue to celebrate life, as we all should.

(3) The life I have dreamed off sincze I was a little girl did not actually start with a wedding dress or all the details of weddings. I have such a hard time with overwhelming events and moments in life that I never even considered the prospect of a wedding. I was more interested in the marriage itself, so my focus is on the preparation of being a wife and not just being a bride.

The rest of the world will be able to live vicariously through pictures after the unnamed date. I promise not to keep those secret. But, for now, despite the trepidation of hurting people's feelings, I am breathing a sigh of relief.