learning curve

I know I haven't talked much about my life recently and I think it's because I'm not sure where to start. Being engaged has been fun - and not fun, but I didn't quite anticipate the feelings that I've had and the issues that have surfaced. It's funny, I thought that by the time I got married I would be someone different than I am now. Not that I wouldn't be me, but that I would have figured out more by now about service and selflessness. If I've learned anything in the last couple months it is that I have so much room to grow and that God chooses to use your spouse to refine you more than anyone else. Somewhere in my brain I knew that cognitively, but experiencing it has been really significant for me.
There is something healing about just knowing that Jeff is committed to me forever, no matter what....he chose me. I feel so honored by him and am so excited to have the opportunity grow beside him. He is an excellent sharpening iron. I'm sure that he has been all along, but for lots of years I just kept trying to shape and mold him without allowing who he is naturally to sharpen ME. I can be SO arrogant, it should be illegal. I don't think I've fully understood what unconditional acceptance, grace, and love is available to me in Jesus until I received that from Jeff. That in itself has transformed me - hopefully forever.
It is such a unique blessing to have the opportunity to become more like Jesus by getting married. I like to think that I have loved people for a long time, and loved them well. But, somehow marriage brings a completeness to it that I didn't have before. I loved to spend time with people (occasionally), to go out of my way for them (sometimes), to meet their needs (when possible)... but what I didn't understand was the complete otherness of the marriage relationship. I don't get to quit when it isn't convienient for me, when I'm tired or busy. Marriage in a way that honors God is completely selfless and beautiful. Marriage isn't about making me happy, someone probably told me that before - but I didn't believe them... however, marriage is wholly about making me holy and I'm SO excited about that. I fully expect a lot of 'failure' as Jeff & I enter into marriage and becoming more holy, but I'm really excited about growing together. There is NO ONE I'd rather fight with and for than you, Jeff - I love you.

my favorite engagement pictures

Abby did such a great job with these pictures, it was hard to decide!!! But, these are a few of my absolute favorites.




Jeff can do a pretty good cartwheel ey?


This picture is so cool!


I feel so 1955 in this picture


this would be a good soap opera ad


more evidence that Jeff does in fact have some super powers

engagement pictures

Abigail Criner is pretty amazing - we had so much fun taking these pictures with her! check her out at www.abigailcrinerphotography.com

Weird Things about Jeff

Jeff and I were talking about the things that are weird about me because he couldn't really think of any that I didn't put on the list. The only thing he said he would add to it is 'you put salt on everything', which is true. So, with Jeff's permission, here are the things I told him were weird about him...

1. For as long as I have known Jeff anytime he gets a drink with a lid that has those little buttons on it that tell you what kind it is he always pushes all of them down. And then he proceeds to do the same to whoever's drink he is with.

2. He has a 'dog voice' for when he is around animals, and not a voice that he uses to talk to the dogs but a voice he uses to make the dogs talk to you. He uses his dog voice to tell you what the dog is thinking, wanting, etc. It is actually kind of hilarious.

3.Jeff likes to make faces - or should I say a face. I can probably find a picture of it... hold on... wow, it appears that somehow I've never captured this face on film. I can't really describe it but it's the same face every time and to this day I'm not exactly sure what it means. I think it might be something like 'I'm excited, or I'm happy' but it is used so frequently that I just don't know.

4.Jeff has to cross everything off of his list at the store. Even if he decides he doesn't need something anymore he still has to scratch it off the list.

5. Jeff is in the dark ages a little bit when it comes to technology. He got a digital camera for Christmas this past year and before this was using disposable cameras.

6. Jeff doesn't like to use his windshield wipers. They only become a necessity to him when it is raining so hard he can't see, until that point he doesn't like to use them.

7. He loves to laugh and sometimes when he is telling stories he won't be able to finish because he is laughing so hard - lots of times at himself. I don't know many grown men who can do this - it's pretty adorable.

8. Jeff won't take his phone in the bathroom with him when he has to use the toilet and should he by accident he won't answer it if it rings. However, when he is in the shower he takes his phone with him and will answer it if it rings... in the shower.

So - this is the pre-marital list ... do I get to post one afterwards?

Redemption Story

I feel like I need to share a story with others and this seems like the most effective way to do that. So, I don’t usually share things of this nature here, but as I was praying this morning I felt like God said this was a story that needed to be told, so here goes:

Our God is a God of restoration, who takes the bruised and shattered pieces of life and puts them together in a way that is not just whole but is wholly more beautiful than anything we could have created on our own. That’s what this story is about; it is a redemption story.
The summer after my sophomore year of high school I was headed to church camp in Colorado where I would get to know a guy named Jeff Priour. I didn’t think a whole lot about him at first other than that he was nice, cute, and everyone seemed to like him. Well, on the 20something hour ride back to Texas we sat next to each other and a few months after that started dating. This was also at the same time that my parents had separated and then later divorced. Jeff was there through all of that – it was by far the hardest, worst, darkest time in my life. That made things really hard on us. I did some pretty unspeakable damage to Jeff. I took EVERYthing out on him… I wish that were an understatement. I wish that I could make him forget some (or a lot) of the things that I did and said to him when we were dating, but maybe it is good so that he can remember what God has done. Jeff has this ability though to remember details from forever ago really well. Years after we broke up he would say “Hey, remember that time you got mad and told me ‘blankety blank blank!’” While I have some vague memories of stuff I said and did that was awful, overall I really don’t remember most of it, it just seems like such a long time ago. So, anyway, we dated for 2 years of high school (1 year of college for him) and then I decide to go to Baylor. He moves up to Waco with me, literally, packs my stuff with me and moves me into my dorm room, takes me to a concert, I kiss him goodnight and then break up with him and we don’t talk for about the next 7 months. Granted I told him I didn’t want to date him in college when we started dating, but that didn’t make it much easier for him.
So, Act 2. We’re in Waco now and not really communicating at all. We are pretty incapable of communicating or interacting with each other in a way that is healthy or edifying. We continue to hurt each other either through actions or non-actions and take different paths. I choose the path of Jesus and moving forward, and Jeff chooses the path of alcohol and escape (not that I chose the high road at all, I still made a lot of mistakes with him). Towards the end of my freshman year I start dating again and don’t handle that well at all with Jeff and he sees the guy I am dating walking across the street towards my dorm one day as he’s driving by and he floors it like he’s going to run this guy over… he would never do that, but at the time he was really angry. So, there was some pretty heated animosity between us.
Time goes on, we make nice and are friends and I start seriously dating someone else for a long time. This guy went to talk to Jeff about dating me before we started officially dating and Jeff told him ‘If you hurt her, I will kill you.’ And Jason thought he meant it. (I didn’t know about all of that until after Jason and I had broken up). Jeff and I stayed friends through my other relationships and his as well. We still managed to hurt each other and default to our unhealthy ways of relating to each other, mostly because we knew each other so well that we knew right where it hurt and would go there frequently.
Until a few days ago I had been single for 2 years and 7 months. And man, did I need that time. I have experienced so much healing and wholeness and so has Jeff as he dealt with his issues and turned back to Jesus. My family had always told me that there was a 40% chance that I would marry Jeff and others in college had suggested it, but I always said that ‘I would never date him again and it would take an act of God for us to ever love each other again.’ About December of this past year was when I realized that some real feelings for Jeff had developed as I watched him grow and be transformed by the love of God. So, we talked about it and while we both liked each other we were determined to honor God in whatever he was calling us to do and not move forward until we knew that calling. We have since walked that road, stumbling sometimes, with uncertainty and confidence, fear and excitement. But all the while, we are amazed at how God has healed us individually and therefore restored our relationship. Whatever the end is (and I have no idea what it will be) I am so thankful for the restoration that has happened in my soul as a result of trusting and loving Jeff again. I mean, I’ve hurt him more than I have hurt anyone else in the world. We have torn each other down, and then buried us alive, and then helped us up only to shove us down again … you get the picture (despite awkward pronoun usage), it was bad. It is totally an act of God that we can let the past die and live as new creations mutually respecting and caring for one another. That may seem normal to most of you, but for us that is huge!
After this, I am so confident of God’s ability to redeem that which was lost, broken, stolen, or abused and that at the very heart of God there is a Redeemer. What is cool is that we didn’t go looking for this, on our own we would have continued in our self destructiveness, but as we sought Jesus for ourselves, He brought restoration to us together. He gave me this verse this morning as I was meditating on redemption and praying for Jeff:

Behold, I will bring it to health & healing, and I will heal them and reveal to them abundance of prosperity and security… I will cleanse them from all the guilt of their sin and I will forgive all the guilt of their sin and rebellion against me. And this city shall be to me a name of joy and praise and a glory before all the nations of the earth who shall hear the good that I do for them. Jeremiah 33: 6, 8-9.

I needed God to remind me that it is HIM who perfects and unifies, heals and cleanses. So, however this redemption story ends between us – it doesn’t matter, because we’re not the Author and the story isn’t even about us… I know this seems like a long story about us, but truly it is about the God who brought us here. Thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!