A Love That Lasts

As I sit in the airport waiting to join my group in Italy I can't help but reflect on several different things over the last few days. Many of which I'm sure will appear in the blogs to come, but one that I will focus on now. 

As I am getting older it seems as though I have more and more weddings to attend (6 this summer alone). My friends are starting to "settle down" and "start their lives". Yesterday my lifelong friend and practically sister married the man of her dreams. Sarah was the second member of our group to get married, and let me say she made a stunning bride. But even though she was beautiful it seemed like everything that could go wrong did go wrong. The cash bar never showed, the weather turned to crap, we were running behind schedule, and her shoes turned her toes purple. Even though all of these things happened Sarah kept saying something over and over that really captured my heart. She said "I don't care about any of that, all I want to do is marry Jared today!" 

To Sarah the perfect wedding didn't mean anything more than committing her life to her groom. Over the last four and a half years I have been lucky to see this love of Sarah and Jared's mature into the fairytale it is today, but in those four years my eyes had never seen such maturity and lasting love. Now I'm sure it has been there much longer, but yesterday as we sat in the hall waiting for the weather to turn and to see how Sarah could care less about the details it really came to life.

In my life I have been very blessed with examples of great love. The biggest example stems from my parents and the second biggest example stems from my best friend Lauren (the first member of our group to get married) and her husband Eric. After the last several years and especially after last night I am proud to add this example of Sarah and Jared's to my list. All three of these marriages show me that love isn't always easy, but man is it worth it. I wish you all many years of happiness together and hope to someday find a love like yours. 

So if I've learned anything from Sarah and the way she conducted herself last night it is that none of those details of the wedding really matter. All that matters is at the end of the day you get to be with the ones you love. 

Pre-Wedding Extravaganza!!

MY BEST FRIEND IS GETTING MARRIED! In 3 days she will stand in front of her friends and family and marry the man of her dreams! On Sunday we began wedding festivities with Sarah's bridal shower, on Monday we "packed" her old room at her parents house to take her things to her new house. I say "packed" because we spent about an hour or so packing and then decided we wanted to go do make-up trials, go to dinner, and go shopping. Tuesday was the day everything went "CRAY CRAY" as Sarah often says! Lauren and Sarah spent the afternoon actually packing when I met up with them we went to drop off the car at my moms work and went on to visit Sarah's "groomy" at his work. We then went to my church to say goodbye to a friend of mine who is moving away. We sat in the car just before going in and we got a text that caused sheer panic in the three of us.

One of the bridesmaids contacted us saying she called the place where we all got our dresses and they didn't have anything on file for her. WHAT?!?!?! Sarah is getting married on Saturday, there was NO way that the store could order her one in time. So the three of us jump into action. I was on the phone with Alfred Angelo trying to see what they had in stock that we could buy off of the rack, Laruen was on the phone with David's Bridal seeing if there was some chance the order went through at the wrong store, and Sarah was trying not to hyperventilate in the passenger seat. We had about two hours until stores closed so after saying goodbye to my friend and talking with a few other people we hit the road for the mall on a mission to find a formal black dress that looked similar to ours. Before we stopped at the mall we stopped at Men's Wearhouse to pick up the grooms tux then we were off to the mall.

First stop, JC Penny's and everything we found was either too informal or too ugly. Next store.

Second stop, Dillard's and we found one that could sort of work. It was black, long, Britta's size, and formal enough. Even though this dress would work we wanted to find something that matched us a little better. We knew we needed to ditch the mall and try David's Bridal. It would be our best bet at finding a formal dress this time of year. As Lauren is buying the dress we found just in case that was our last resort I am on the phone trying to call David's Bridal to see if they had items we could purchase off of the rack. Lauren and Sarah follow behind me and all of us start running through the mall to the location of our car. In the meantime I am on the phone with David's Bridal explaining our situation "Hi, I think one of the other bridesmaids called you earlier looking for a dress for a wedding on Saturday. We were unable to find a dress for this bridesmaid and were wondering if you all had any long black dresses in her size that you could pull for us to look at?" The lady responds "What kind of dress; strapless, halter, straps??" I told her that pretty much anything would do, but we were on the way and needed these dresses pulled so we could search before they closed at 9.

We arrived at our third stop, David's Bridal ran to the back of the store and sitting there on the rack that was a dress that looked almost the same as the one the rest of us have. We snap a quick picture, send it to B and put it on hold for her to purchase three days before the wedding.

We all walked out of the store, breathed a huge sigh of relief, and went over to Sonic to grab a drink.

If there is anything I learned from this experience it was that sometimes in life you are blessed with a group of friends that will always stand by your side, they are there to help you through all of the challenges of life, and they make sure you are taken care of. I am so lucky that I have several groups of these friends, but I have a very special bond with "my girls". We have been friends since high school and I am certain that we will be friends for many more years. Here's to hoping nothing else will go wrong in the next few days and to knowing that if anything does we will take care of it! I love you Sarah, Britta, Lauren, and Jennifer!

Your Voice or Mine?

Recently I have been in a huge point of discernment in my life. I had two very good options sitting in front of me, two things that would help me to live a very full life, and two things that I felt could be the will of God. After spending several months in discernment I realized that the voice I had been listening to that left me so certain of what I should do was my own voice and was not the voice of the Lord. See, I had such a strong desire in my heart for all that I thought this one option would be that I failed to listen to everything around me that was coming from the Lord. After I made the decision of what I wanted to do I did all that I could to convince myself that I had found peace in that decision. The reality was that there was no peace in that decision for me at all, and it would take months for me to understand that. After I made my choice I went back and forth and back and forth, until finally I just knew something wasn’t right. I knew I needed to take some more time to pray about my choice, to listen to the priests in my life, some of my family members, and the discontent I felt. As I brought this decision to prayer one last time I finally found great peace in knowing that I had in fact made the wrong choice. I learned quite quickly that the voice of God had become so faint and my own desire had become so strong that I couldn’t even distinguish between the two. In the moment where I became certain of my decision I knew what I had to do. I had to humble myself, go to the pastor at my parish and ask for my job back, I had to tell the teens that I wasn’t leaving them after all, I had to call the place of my first decision and tell them I would no longer be coming, and I had to share that news with everyone who knew. Some of the people were joyful that I had come to this conclusion and others thought I wasn’t listening to the voice of God in my life. None of what anyone else thought really mattered though, because for the first time in months I was absolutely certain that this is what I was called to do. See, I have no doubt that if I would have stuck with my original choice I would have been happy and I would have led teens closer to Christ, and I think that is part of what made my decision such a difficult one. I will say that now, two weeks after I made the final decision I continue to live in the peace that the Lord has given to me.

What I have learned from all of this is that we can find a million things in the world that make us happy, but there will ultimately be one thing that will always make us happiest and this happiness comes from the Lord. Like St. Augustine said “For you have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you”.

Tiny Humans

As the countdown continues I am feeling several different things. The first is excitement to see my family, the second is anxiety about all that needs to be finished before vacation, and the third is sadness to leave the teens and friends I have made in Rock Springs. Thankfully I am only leaving them for three weeks and in order to leave them for three weeks I will get to do three things; I will get to see two tiny humans that have captured my heart (along with the rest of my family and friends in New Mexico), I will get to see my best friend marry her prince, and I will get to join a group of pilgrims from the Diocese of Cheyenne in Italy for the rest of the pilgrimage.

I want to focus this blog on those two tiny humans. In February I was blessed to become an auntie for the first time. See I have plenty of younger cousins that I am close with, but for the first time in my life I would hold a baby boy in my arms that would someday call me auntie, would come to visit me in the summers when he grew older, a baby boy that would grow to know that I am always his support and often times will let him get away with a little more than mom and dad. As I held this tiny human for the first time during Easter break I was baffled by the amount of love that was pouring out of my heart. I couldn't get enough of him! I wanted to spend every minute of every day of that vacation with him, and the day I went to the airport and I had to say goodbye my heart ached because I wasn't sure when I would return. I held him in my arms that morning and would have given anything to stop time in that moment. 

In May I was asked by a dear friend of mine to be the auntie to her son. She explained that this baby would need a person like me in his life, someone to support and love him and who would lead him in the faith. I accepted that title with great honor. This little boy is one of the cutest kids I've ever seen (and I'm not just saying that). He has a smile that can light up the darkness, he is already quite the ladies man, and he just fills my heart with joy. That same day that I went to the airport he and his mommy were the ones to drop me off. One of my favorite memories of him is that on the entire ride to the airport he sat in his seat and held my hand. He would turn around to look at me and just giggle with such happiness on his face. 

I honestly don't know how I can love anyone or anything in this wold more than I love my hijitos, and yet I remember that their parents love them even more than that! In the last few months as I have reflected on how these two baby boys have captured my heart and I am constantly brought back to the cross. The fact that one man loved you and me so unconditionally that he would give his very life so that we may live. Much like a parent or an auntie, he was willing to give his life so that we may know truth and unconditional joy. So as my countdown reaches the end I will remember that the love that I have for those sweet boys is only a fraction of the love that our Lord has for each of us.

3 Days!!!

So it Begins...

Over the last several months I have been writing different "blog" posts as they have come to my heart. It wasn't until recently that I decided to post some of these. In the last few months I have been using this concept of blogging as sort of my personal journal. Some of the things I write will remain unseen, but those things that I feel called to share will be posted for the world to see (although I'm sure this will never expand outside of my circle of friends and family).

Those of you who know me well would know there are a few things I would claim to be "obsessed" with. The first is Matt Maher and pretty much any song he has ever sung. The second is helping people come to know the love of the Lord. And the third is the word Agape. Agape is one of the four words used in the Greek Language to express love. See, this love is not just any regular sort of friendship or passionate love, but it is "Love Without Limit", the type of love that has you willing to sacrifice everything for your beloved. As a young woman who has seen many examples of this type of love I have made it my goal to live out that type of love every day with each person I encounter. Yes, there are many times where I fail, but the important part is to continue to strive to be successful and holy. It is in that love that we can become more like Christ and in becoming more like Christ we are able to share him with the world! 

So here it is; my monthly, weekly, and even daily attempts at living a life of "Love Without Limit" I hope you enjoy the ride!

In Christ,

Amanda