Praise Be

Praise be to the Lord, our God, King of all creation... whose words can melt a heart and split the strongest nation...

Here I sit bee-boppin (a technical term) in my head to a rockin' praise song as externally the AC consumes the quiet of a friday at practicum. Whomever said fridays are chaos in a social work agency has never been to CHOICES, Inc. I have a half hour to kill and nothing creatively fun is entertaining my mind here at CHOICES. I wonder if I'm really cut out for a nine to five job. My bills seem to think so. But my creativity rebels.

Yesterday was Matt's 21st birthday. 9Happy Birthday again, Matt). We both were surprised when "sixteen people" showed up at the Stauffer's for a "small" family birthday party. Matt and his old sister, Ellen, have back-to-back birthdays, so a family birthday party was definitely in order.

In other news, today marks 106 days until I marry Matt and the word "engagement" has popped up in the vocabulary of one who is very close to me (but I'm not sure if they want the world knowing about their thought yet so they will remain nameless).

I also got to hold my niece last night. She's a whoppin' one week old and so freakin' cute. I love that baby to pieces (only I hope that'd never be a condition she'd face).

"How are wedding plans?" Everyone always asks. "They're going well" I leave a vaguely open statement hanging in the air. To bring more detail I could say that they are going quite well. As Matt told a friend last night "they're 97.43% done. There's just little details and last minutes to do." You know, like invitations. ;) But my mom's so graciously taken all the invitations (I'm transporting them down there tonight) and has come up with a standard format and wording for them. Sometimes soon we will start the printing part and on Memorial day Matt, Mom, Robin (?), Kelly (?), Jes (?), and anyone else who wants to help will meet up at my apartment and assemble them all. Guestimation of how many we'll be sending out? 150 or so. And a guesstimation of how many people will show up at the wedding ceremony? maybe some 250 or so. Afterall, Matt's inviting his whole church and Apex can handle it.

Every day it's becoming more and more real that this whole wedding thing is coming quite quickly. And while the thought of standing before 250+ times 2 eyes gives me the heebie-geebies (again, a technical term), the idea of marrying my dearest friend is overwhelmingly joyful. "Are you getting excited?" a friend asked me. I think she could see it in my face. The word "excited" can barely contain the joy I am holding. I'm just trying not to be overly excited, and therefore, get hiccups for the next 3 and a half months. I'll wait until the 30 day countdown for hiccups to become a normalcy in my life.

With each passing day the thought of leaving Apex becomes more normal in my life. The thought of moving on the Miamisburg First Baptist becomes more of a normal transition and less of a stressor. God has built up my faith at Apex that I may be able to serve Him to the ends of the earth and the entrance door to the ends of the earth is entitles "Miamisburg First Baptist Church". It's absolutely awe-striking to imagine where God could take us. It is amazing to think of how God could use two people that say "where ever You want us, we'll be". Ohio, Wisconsin, Nevada, Maine, Africa... wherever... we're following the One worthy of all praise.

Indeed, Praise be to the Lord, our God, King of all creation... whose words can melt a heart and split the strongest nation...I will ever put my trust in Him, though the world be shaken... I will not be moved.