Engagement

6 Weeks from today will be my wedding day.  That sentence along with many other things right now still feel incredibly surreal.  I keep thinking maybe I will get use to being engaged, like it will feel normal or something...but nope.  Almost every day I have a "pinch me moment".  One of those moments where I am in awe of the Lord's sweet gift to me, in awe that this is my story, and in awe that years of prayers were finally answered. I know marriage isn't everything, I know it will never complete me, the hard things of life haven't and never will go away, but there is a sweetness that is this season that I want to remember.

My birthday is next week. For years i've always dreaded my birthday.  Adult birthdays are awkward when you are single.  As much as each year I am thankful for another year of life, and that alone is worth celebrating, it also represented another year of singleness, another year of getting older, and another year of wondering if this desire would be fulfilled.  But as this birthday approaches I am filled with hope, with excitement of what's to come, with a sense of peace.  and as I think forward to my birthday and to my wedding I wanted to stop and write.  Thoughts swirl in my head all the time, but sometimes it's good to get them out. To write them out and be reminded where I am today.  

Dustin and I said last week in many ways engagement has felt like a pressure cooker.  Maybe that's not the way to describe it as that may sound bad, but for us that's the best wording.  Since May 14th life has been a whirlwind.  We started planning our wedding right away knowing that Dustin was going to be leaving for a month (for work). As we got into the details of planning a wedding it felt like even more details piled on.  And then there is all the other things that come with engagement.  Parties, showers, premarital counseling, figuring out what life together is going to look like, learning one another, slowly merging our lives, and the list goes on.  And then there is just normal life.  Both of us are in full time ministry and after a VERY full summer August/September turns out to be our busiest months of the year.  Those 2 months happened to fall slap down in the middle of our engagement.  All that to say life has been going at full speed and as fun and exciting as most of it all is the pressure has been intense, the stress has risen, and the emotions have been all over the place. (well at least mine!) 

And so when people ask me on a daily basis "how's wedding planning?" or "how's engagement?"  99% of the time I say "great!"....because it really is..... but truthfully it's a little bit more of a loaded question than I ever realized.  But in all of IT my overwhelming emotion is thankfulness, is joy, is amazement, is contentment.  Because I am in awe that the Lord gave me that the man that he did, that I'm getting the opportunity to walk through this season, and that in just 6 short weeks I will be a wife to a man who is more than I could ask or imagine.  

I know the wedding will be here in such a short time and this season of engagement will come to an end.  And in many ways as much as I've ready for that, ready to get out of the pressure cooker of this season and live life with Dustin, I also want to soak it up.  There is a reason engagement is meant to be walked through once.  It's intense, it's crazy, but it's also so so fun!  I've dreamed about this season for so long, I've dreamed about planning a wedding since I was a little girl,  so as I make every decision for our big day or open every shower gift, or talk through pre-marital things with Dustin I am reminded how faithful God really is.  He knew all along I would be walking through this season with Dustin and he also promised to take care of us each crazy day that we walk through.  

So I enter my birthday week with in a very different place than years past.  I look back on this year with so much thankfulness and look forward with so much anticipation.  I know I don't know what the future holds but I'm ready for this new season and look forward to the journey of these next 6 weeks, and then of course all that comes after that....