Distance is hard...

I know it may sound a bit pathetic since we are only 90 miles apart and get to see each other every weekend but that doesnt necessarily make it any easier. We have just passed the halfway point for finishing this summer apart and it has really started fighting us. But one thing it has taught me is a little about what to expect in marraige. Though we refer to ourselves as crusty love aroud our friends because by our age's standards we have been together forever, to the couple that has been married 50 years we are still very much new love. What this summer has shown me, especially this week, is how delibirate and conscious love has to be. Just this week, i was going along thinking i was doing pretty well at loving Amanda and making her feel loved, I was just loving her however and whenever it just naturally came out, but was making little no conscious effort to love her in a specific way. After only two days of this it was brought to my attention that she was feeling no love from this and I was taken aback, in my mind I had been doing pretty good. What it made me realize is that just taking for granted that your love is being conveyed effectively and assuming your natural tendencies are enough is a very dangerous road to take. It made me realize that if I do not have a very specific plan and concentrated focus on how and when specifically I am going to love her, I run the very real risk of neglecting her. Now, to tie this back into my original statement about what it has taught me about what to expect in marraige, is that I will have to be every bit as deliberate and more in our marraige. If this is how out of whack it can get by just being a little tired and not seeing each other for a few days, I can only begin to imagine how much more that this is true 15-20 years down the road when the natural tendency (just a guess) is to take each other for granted, and at times the desire to love each other ebs somewhat. If that day comes and I have not learned how to love deliberately and intentionally, I can only hope to let her down in those harder moments. So now the action from this lesson, since a lesson is no good if you don't do anything about it. For starters, I am going to start each week thinking of one special thing to do for her and plan it specifically out. Then, in addition to doing that, I am going to start the habit of in my morning prayers each day, asking God what little ways I should love her throughout the day and then commit to doing them. Thats all i've got so far but I can only assume I am going to learn a lot more about loving her over the rest of my life, and nothing in this world excites me more than that thought.
Shalom,
TJ

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

update

So for those of you who haven't heard yet, I am in houston for the summer working as a Drilling Engineer Intern for BP. As a first time intern they gave me a rather large project; it's a part of a possibly billion dollar project being planned. So that's a little intimidating, but is exciting too. Being here in Houston is bitter sweet as Amanda is still in college station, and everyday I come home from work makes me realize how much I truely want her to be my wife and I just can't wait until she is and when I come home everyday she will be there. So yea, that's made me miss her just a little bit. Other than that, I played frisbee one night, tore up my knees and made myself incredibly sore, so good game :); I hung out in the biggest house I've ever been in with a friend who lives in Houston. That's about all from my first week but I just wanted to give everyone a brief update and tell Amanda that I love her <3.
Shalom,
TJ

It's that time of year again....

Long distance time....TJ starts his new job at BP today :) What an incredible blessing this job is. God once again blows me away with His provision. We could have never dreamed up a job that would provide for us as well as this one. The sad thing is that Amanda is in College Station and TJ is in Houston. Better than last summer when we were 8 hours apart, but still tough. Please keep us in your prayers. Just going through this last year showed us how easily satan can cause division and temptation. Please pray God will comfort both of us as we are apart; that He will protect TJ while in Houston, and that He would give Amanda peace.

I would just like to take this moment...

to brag about my amazingly awesome, ridiculously smart fiance. Who took 18 hours of class/engineering at Texas and got 4 As and 2 Bs. Unheard of! He is basically the smartest guy at A&M. You might think you know someone smarter, nope you don't. By far he has worked harder than any other person at A&M this semester to get these amazing grades. You might be thinking, well Amanda I feel like I worked pretty hard this year...I'm sure you did. But this is my proud fiancee moment. So don't ruin it. Plus my fiance could get better grades than your fiance. ok, i'm done. But everyone should know, that TJ White is the most amazing fiance ever and he is the smartest engineer at A&M. And I can't wait to be his wife. I'm a lucky girl

The end.
-ARB