4 years?! No way!

Oh hello four year anniversary date. What a sweet blessing it was to spend all day Saturday with my sweet fiance. We went to Atamis and got to spend time watching movies and just relaxing together. Saturdays are my favorite days of the week. No school. No work. Just relaxing enjoying one another's company and fellowship with other believers. We were blessed to have Kristen come visit this weekend which is always such a blessing. My sweet man put up curtains all around my house this weekend so it is starting to look like someone actually lives there. Yes, Vanessa and I did move in almost two months ago but better late than never. Pictures to come once we are all finished making everything cute. Believe it or not we are almost to double digits until the wedding. On Thursday it will be 99 days until I am Mrs. White. Scary? YES! Exciting?! You know it!! Wedding plans are in full force as we figure out what we want for our ceremony, flowers and a bunch of other things we don't know we "need" yet. In our minds we have cake and a pastor so what else could you need? Haha! Jokes jokes. This semester is flying by as we are about to start our 4th week of the year, meaning....test week. dun dun dun. Only 2 more test weeks after this until I am a college graduate! Praise the Lord. I don't like tests. at all. I guess not many people do. But here is to a week of studying and preparation in order to excel in my last year. 

Prayers for this week

This week is a big week. Our God is bigger, but this week is a big week. TJ has decided to accept the job offer from BP. How thankful we are that the Lord has provided. (He always does)What a great joy it is to see TJ's excitement towards this job that he enjoyed so much this summer. For the first year it will be rough as he is on a rotation schedule; but our God is so faithful to bring comfort to the wife :)

Please pray for me as TJ is gone. I don't have a job yet in Houston. The Geoscience Career Fair is this Thursday and my nerves are already shot. I don't know which is worse, the realization that I am graduating in 13 weeks and will be officially a married adult, or the idea of actually getting that "real world" job. Either way, it is a big week. Please pray for calm nerves. Please pray that the Lord would put me where he wants me. God has given both TJ and I a heart for the orphans. I am praying that even if God doesn't bring me a job, that He will show me where I can serve and be used by Him. One of the things that really calmed my nerves about TJ working at BP is that there was a little section (one sentence) in his offer letter that said BP supported adoption and would cover the cost of adoption for its employees. We couldn't have asked for God to speak with more clarity.

Aggie Football has begun!

Make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; 6and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; 7and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. 8For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9But if anyone does not have them, he is nearsighted and blind, and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sins. 1 Peter 1: 5-9

Authentic Lifestyles

TJ has a full time offer from BP. What a blessing we have been given. And yet....it comes with a heavy responsibility. After reading Scripture, the Bible clearly says that we are to look out for the poor and the oppressed, the fatherless and the widows. Luke 16 shows us that God takes care of the poor. Lazarus is sitting at the gate of the rich man, covered in sores and starving. And yet, Lazarus enters the kingdom of God while the rich man doesnt.
   In a time in our lives when we are registering for the "necessities" of life, it has begun to hit us that the things we can't see ourselves without, serve to remind us of the rich and the poor. The difference between the comfortable life we live (even as poor, almost married college kids) The abundance God has blessed us with over and over again. But why? Why has He given us a petroleum salary? Why has He allowed these blessings to pour in over and over? What plan does He have for our lives to serve Him and look out for His people? How can we use these things to further God's kingdom?

Please pray for us that we would be sensitive to the Holy Spirit and react faithfully with what God commands us to do.

2 More Days

So, I don't have a whole lot to say right now, I am just taking a break from preparing for my final presentation here at BP tomorrow and I wanted to say how excited I am to be moving back to college station on thursday evening. I realy have enjoyed working here this summer but this whole leaving Amanda every sunday thing is getting really old, and the moving back and forth is no fun either. So I am just very ready to be back to be able to see my sweet fiancee when ever i would like. So wish me luck on my presentation tomorrow and I wouldnt mind a few prayers if you think of it (tomorrow at 2:00). Well, thats all I have to say about that.
Shalom,
TJ

move

Well the move is basically complete. Our living room has just a few boxes left, and most everything has found a place to live. The internet, still lacking. The cable...not set up. But we are settling in. It was strange to make my new bed, where one day my husband and I can sleep. It is weird to picture the near future where I have a husband and share this simple place with him. Its strange because this place doesn't feel like home just yet. It feels like another temporary  place to sleep.


 My sweet friend Vanessa lives with me for the next four months. What a fabulous blessing she is. What a great gift God has given me in her. Our friendship grows stranger and stronger each day.

You know its love when....

When he drives 180 miles to go to the grocery store with you on a Monday night
When you check your blog and he has written a love letter to you
When he looks on the top shelf at Target to find an address book
When he sits on the couch and just holds you


I am so blessed. In five months (ish) I will be a blessed wife. The idea of leaving my father and mother hit me hard this week as my last family vacation ended. The last time I will go on a family vacation as Amanda Boudreaux. But in a way it was good...well after the meltdown it got better. Any encouragement from you married ladies is much appreciated!!

But what God showed me is that by trusting Him and committing to his plan for my life, He will bless my life in greater ways than I can imagine. I have been so focused on the various changes, adjustments and decisions that are coming up, that I forgot to focus on the fact that the Bible says "Leave your father and mother and be united with your wife" God designed marriage to bless us and to create a picture of Christ and the church.

Obviously I have no idea what this will look life post January 2, 2011; but I know that God has promised that He knows the plans for my life and that they are plans to prosper and not to harm me. Plans to give me hope and a future.

And I know that the Lord has blessed me abundantly with a family who loves me dearly, a future husband who passionately pursues the Lord and serves Him daily, and a sense of peace towards the changes to come

Grace and peace to all who love the Lord Jesus Christ, with an undying love
-AB

Sacrifice

So, i just had a brief thought while listening to a breakaway podcast that i wanted to share before leaving to go into the field till thursday. This weekend amanda and I both had moments where we realized what we were giving up in order to get married. We both agreed we still wanted to do it but at times had trouble quantifying why it was worth it other that thats what we knew we wanted. And i heard the reason in a teaching from the Gospel. Readers digest version is, Jesus asks his disciples who they think he is and they say messiah, making a commitment to follow him. He tells them the cost of following and they still do. This is because to truely be devoted to Jesus, or the parallel on Earth, you spouse, there will be sacrifices. But those are considered worth it because by truely making that sacrifice to Jesus/spouse you begin to develop a deeper intimacy with them that before wasnt possible. Jesus shows this by then immediately begining to teach the disciples His truths "plainly". Well in marraige when you make that sacrifice to pursue your spouse, the parallel happens and you begin to know them on a whole new level never before possible. Yet another way husband and wife is a picture of Christ and the church.
I love you amanda.
Shalom,
TJ