Only 198 days

Only 198 days until we are married!! Yay!! Thank you Jesus. Time actually is moving! TJ is still enjoying  working at BP, which is good because he still has 8 weeks to go. He finally got paid a petroleum paycheck which is very exciting! Amanda has started her new job at the Heights, which is alot of work, but its a new challenge. She is also working at KBTX in the mornings at 4:30am, which is very early but has been more fun than she has ever had with meteorology. So life has been busy, but the Lord is faithful to keep time moving.
All of the sudden we are 6 months away from getting married, and honeymoons are being booked, the venue, cake, caterer, DJ have all been booked. The dress has been purchased. The photographer is amazing http://www.rachelledbetterphoto.com/ and the bride and groom are so excited.
    Jesus keeps stretching us. Amanda has gotten less patient and TJ has gotten more patient. She keeps learning that God's timing is not hers, and patience is always an area that needs work. The verse "Love is patient" keeps coming back to my mind.
  Dear TJ,
      I love you. I love that you get to go to College Station every weekend. I love that you stand outside my front door smiling with a jar of JIF Reduced Fat Creamy Peanut Butter. I love that you help me do all the wedding planning. I love that you text me " Good morning beautiful" every morning when you wake up. Basically I love your querky, goofy, enginering self.


Essentially, you rock


Love
Amanda

Its been a crazy week

Well what was supposed to be a short work week turned into a crazy, God is totally in control of our lives, week. Needless to say, God has a plan for us and while most of the time we "never saw that one coming" i is amazing how God provides abundantly. After reading the Treasure Principle, we committed to include giving in our monthly budget. Money was very tight and we weren't entirely sure where the money was going to come from. God has so blessed us because we were given a raise!! Amazing! Proof that God rewards those who follow His commandments.
   Like TJ said we have been reading Love and Respect. I have been told all my life how the husband needs to be respected. It is in the Bible everywhere as well "wives submit to your husbands" "and the wife must respect her husband" but I guess I didn't know what that looks like in real life. This book has opened my eyes about how everything I say or do conveys a message of either respect or disrespect. I am really enjoying reading this book because it is showing me every place that I am falling short and how I need God's grace to get it right.
   Not a huge fan of the distance this summer, but its ok because we have both been so busy I don't know if we ever would have seen each other anyway. I start at KBTX this week, bright and early at 5AM....oh goodness the life of a meteorologist.  So I will work 5-9 and KBTX and then 9-6 and Heights/Crossing Place. Plus summer school. Exhausting. I'm just going to focus on the Lord and it will be ok. " Let your eyes look straight ahead fix your gaze directly before you. Makelevel paths for your feet and take only ways that are firm. Do not swerve to the right or the left. Keep your foot from evil" Prov 4: 25-27

Love and Respect

So Amanda and I are reading the book Love and Respect this summer as we try to prepare our relationship for marraige. We have decided to read two chapters per week this summer so that it will last the whole of my internship so not only will it help our relationship, it will inspire conversation in spite of the awkwardness that can be caused by distance and neither one of us enjoying long phone calls. We have just finished through chapter four and I am already super excited for what it could do for us. The book promises to help teach me to love her unconditionally, in the way that she needs and desires, not the way I think is best. This excites me because it is something I desperately want to be successful at. I also think it will be good this summer because I will have to make sure that I make a conscious effort to do so, not just out of habit or absent mindedly, since we wont see each other and habit won't translate over distance. This too excites me because I feel like if I can learn to fully meet her need for love from a distance this summer, hopefully it will make it that much more second nature to do so when we are together and I will be much less likely to make her feel unloved. Well those are my thoughts for now, I'll probably go further with this train of thought once I'm further into the book. I love you Amanda!
Shalom,
TJ