Rain: A Love Story

Rain has followed mine and Stephen's courtship from the beginning. Take the following examples:
1. We had planned to have a picnic on our first date. It rained. So we saw Mission Impossible III and had our picnic inside instead.

2. 3 months later, Stephen had planned to propose to me on a bridge at Natchez Trace State Park. It rained. He proposed to me in his apartment. It was still beautiful. I still said yes. I still love him.

3. On the afternoon of our wedding, as we were standing in the parking lot of TGI Friday's, locked out, it rained. We still made it to Nashville's Embassy Suites, our stop for the night (and it was an awesome hotel).

4. When we went to St. Louis to celebrate our first anniversary and excitedly walked up to the entrance of Six Flags, it rained. When we came back the next day and had ridden just one ride and were in line for another, it rained. We simply donned our totally awesome St. Louis Cardinals ponchos, watched people with looks of envy pass us, and waited it out.

5. Just last week, Stephen and I took his parents and our parents to a Redbirds game. We had front-row seats right behind home plate. I don't even really like baseball all that much, but even I thought it was amazing. Three innings in, guess what happened? It rained.

I'm not exactly sure what I'm supposed to learn from all of these rainy experiences, except to remember that we choose how to respond to everything that happens to us. In each of these situations, we could have stomped our feet, shaken our fists at the heavens, and bemoaned our bad luck (and I probably did some of that), but did we really lose anything? No. Every time, we ended up enjoying ourselves anyway. And while we've been dealt several times of physical rainfall, thus far we've been incredibly blessed not to experience that metaphorical rain of hardship, rain that seeps into your soul and causes you to take cover. We praise God for that now, and it is my fervent hope that even when our happiness is clouded by trials, we'll still praise Him. He is constant, though all around changes. And even when we do face those times, I have no doubt that while we may come through it soaking wet, we'll be the better for it. Think about all the benefits of rain: Without rain, we wouldn't appreciate the beauty of sunshine. Without rain, we wouldn't see rainbows. Without rain, grass wouldn't grow and flowers wouldn't bloom. Without rain, crops would die. Without rain, our world be a lot more grim.

If rain means a better us, bring it.

Music that Gets Me Movin'

I exercise a lot. I love music. It's only natural that the two go hand-in-hand. I must have good music to accompany my exercise (unless I'm using one of my fitness DVDs). I pick songs that are upbeat because my body usually follows the tempo set by the music. The songs may not all be incredibly inspiring or deep, but they keep me going. Here's a list of some of my favorite workout songs, with links to some of their home pages (you'll have to hover over the name to see the link):

1. "Gonna Fly Now (The Rocky Theme)" from the originaly Rocky soundtrack. When I first began my lifestyle change, I listened to this song every day at the beginning of my workout. As cheesy as this may be, hearing that song really gets me motivated and excited about working out. Being motivated was crucial when I was first beginning because I HATED exercising, and this song just gets me pumped.

2. "Since U Been Gone" by Kelly Clarkson. Despite the fact this song is guilty of the cutesy spelling I abhor, it's so great for exercise because of its rhythm. I also listen to Kelly's song "Never Again" quite often. I guess the angst works for me.

3. "The More" by Downhere. I love the lyrics of this song: "The more You show me, the more You grow me / The more Your glory becomes all there is / And the more I know You, the more I need You / The more I love You, the more You become to me. Upbeat and thought-provoking all in one song! Also, the group is offering on their website FREE downloads of their entire album, Wide-Eyed and Mystified!
4. "Shiver" by Coldplay. I've always loved this song, and it fits right in with my workout. "Clocks" is another Coldplay song I often listen to while working out (and I walked down to it at our wedding!).

5. "Hypocrisy #785" by Jeremy Casella. Jeremy Casella is an artist I've just been listening to for a few months, and I really love his songs. This one in particular has a great message along with a beat that helps me maintain my pace.

6. "Pocketful of Sunshine" by Natasha Bedingfield. This song just makes me happy.

7. "Typical" by Mute Math. Mute Math is one of my favorite bands, and this song's driving rhythm is perfect for exercise. Click on the link to their website, and you'll see a YouTube video of them performing the song, and it's an awesome video because it looks like everything is going backwards. Watch it. It's amazing.

8. "Control" by Mute Math. This song is also a great workout song, and it contains one of my favorite song lyrics: "There is no better loss than to lose myself in you." Love it!

9. "Are You Gonna Be My Girl" by Jet. From the first few beats, this song hooks me.

10. "The Way You Make Me Feel" by Michael Jackson. Such a fun song. I never get tired of it.

Others: "Black Horse and the Cherry Tree" (KT Tunstall); "Work" (Jars of Clay); "Revolution" (Grey Holiday); "Move Along" (All-American Rejects); "Beautiful Love" (The Afters)

What gets you moving?

P.S. I've lost 26 pounds!! Woohoo!

"What is that to you?"

Stephen and I have been going through a one-year Bible, and today I read the end of the book of John, when Jesus asks Peter if he loves him and then tells Peter to feed his sheep. I really love this passage and blogged about it before, and I was reminded again of how like Peter I am. After Jesus has instructed Peter to feed his sheep, Peter is still not content but looks at John and asks Jesus, "What about him?" Jesus replies, "If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you? You must follow me." In other words, "Who is your focus? Is it John, or is it Me?" You must follow Me.

Last week at my church's music camp I had 5 girls under my care, and I had ample time to discover their individual personalities. One girl in particular--we'll call her Samantha--is a tattle-tale. She is constantly on the lookout for others to break the rules so she can then come to me and report it. She loves getting onto the other kids if she sees them doing wrong, and she constantly would look to me for affirmation of this behavior. But instead of affirming her for her policing of the entire group of children, I would tell her gently but firmly, "Samantha, you are not the leader here. You are not in charge of these kids. All you need to worry about is yourself." She would sigh in great annoyance and say, "Yeah, but what are you going to do with them?"

Samantha reminds me a lot of myself. I hate to say it, but I have a feeling I was a lot like her when I was younger. I relished opportunities to please others, especially those in authority, and I felt that a good way to do that would be to find what others were doing wrong and report it. (How did I have any friends??) All it came down to was a desire for attention and a yearning to feel significant, to feel as though I measured up. I imagine this is how Samantha feels, and how Peter felt. We want so much to feel significant, to feel as though we measure up, but then we look around at other people and wonder how in the world we'll ever make the grade. How could Peter, the one who denied Christ, be like John, the "disciple whom Jesus loved?" How could Samantha get attention unless she did so by pointing out the flaws of others? How can I ever feel successful in my weight loss when so many others are doing much better?

The answer is that we can't do it, and there's no need to even try. Just as Jesus exhorted Peter to follow Him, so also must I do the same. I don't have to look at other people for my example; Jesus is the perfect One! I don't have to worry about what other people think because it's not them I'm trying to please. Paul wrote in Galatians 1:10, "For am I now seeking the favor of men, or of God? Or am I striving to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a bond-servant of Christ." If there's anything I want, it's to be bonded to Christ. But I can't do that if I'm a slave to the world and its expectations. I can only serve one master, and Jesus is far better than anything the world has to offer. If I look to Him, I will be so blinded by His glory that I will see nothing else. So I fix my eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. (2 Cor. 4:18)

I must follow Him.

A New Kind of Spam

Now you can have insults delivered straight to your inbox! I have noticed a couple of these emails in my spam folder recently. It doesn't seem like the best way to get my attention.

One said, "You look really stupid." The other said, "Your face is ugly."

Sign up today for your own customized ego-deflating emails! Also available in "You're a fat tub of lard" and "You have a pea-sized brain."

*Sorry this is all I've got. I'm helping with my church's children's music camp (they're learning a musical--in a week--haha). And Stephen's parents are coming into town tomorrow night and staying through Monday, so the site will be blog-lite until then.

My Lack-of-Progress Report

As long as I have known how, I have read books. One of my earliest memories involves me getting caught reading Aesop's Fables in bed when I was supposed to be asleep (I had a very trusty little flashlight that allowed me to stay up many a night, unbeknownst to my parents). I would read during class, at meal times, in the car, everywhere. As I got older, I quit reading in class, but I still would take a book with me if I anticipated having any sort of downtime. In college I would read books when I should have been doing homework. But something shifted in grad school. There, reading was my job, even more so than it had been as an undergrad, and coupled with that "job" came the assisting and teaching of classes, which left me little time for "pleasure reading." During summers, I rejoiced in not being forced to read, and I would read a lot of fluff, books I'm sure my professors would have been horrified to see me reading (although who knows, perhaps they too are closet fluff-readers).

Now, 4 weeks into the Summer Book Project of 2008, I have yet to complete a single book (although I'm about 100 pages shy of finishing the MacDonald fairy tales. In 4 weeks, I haven't finished a single book! I'm deeply disturbed by the fact that I have all kinds of free time, and yet I am not reading. No wait, I am reading. Blogs, news headlines, the SparkPeople message boards, facebook posts. Just not any books. How have I come to this point? I have always considered myself a reader, but now that self-descriptive phrase appears to no longer apply.

I recently read an article in The Atlantic that might shed light on my current existential crisis. The author surmises that the Internet (namely, Google) has decreased people's abilities to digest larger works of literature because everything people now "consume" in a literary sense is in the form of a blog or news headlines or facebook wall posts (my examples, not his entirely). In short, the Internet has changed the way we think, absorb, and process information. Our brains have become adept at skimming over information, looking for only what we came to find, and so we no longer linger over words as perhaps we were wont to do. I found this particular passage to be quite enlightening:

"Over the past few years I’ve had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory. My mind isn’t going—so far as I can tell—but it’s changing. I’m not thinking the way I used to think. I can feel it most strongly when I’m reading. Immersing myself in a book or a lengthy article used to be easy. My mind would get caught up in the narrative or the turns of the argument, and I’d spend hours strolling through long stretches of prose. That’s rarely the case anymore. Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do. I feel as if I’m always dragging my wayward brain back to the text. The deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle."

This describes my plight exactly! Reading is a struggle (even reading the whole article was difficult), and it almost physically pains me to write out that little confession, but there it is. And it's not as though this problem is inconsequential; for Nicholas Carr (the author of the article), this crisis of the mind is of utmost importance: "The kind of deep reading that a sequence of printed pages promotes is valuable not just for the knowledge we acquire from the author’s words but for the intellectual vibrations those words set off within our own minds. In the quiet spaces opened up by the sustained, undistracted reading of a book, or by any other act of contemplation, for that matter, we make our own associations, draw our own inferences and analogies, foster our own ideas. Deep reading, as Maryanne Wolf argues, is indistinguishable from deep thinking. If we lose those quiet spaces, or fill them up with “content,” we will sacrifice something important not only in our selves but in our culture."

Is there any cure for me? Anyone have any ideas of how to combat this? My very existence as a reader is at stake.

One Man's Trash Is Another Woman's Magnet

Things I've found while cleaning out my bedroom closet (everything in the closet is mine, so I can't place any of the blame on Stephen):

1. Letters from 1996. Was that really 12 years ago?
2. A magnet that says "Blessed are the caring like you." Next time I doubt my capacity to care, I'll just consult this magnet!
3. An envelope of receipts, all of which are from 2004. I used to be incapable of (or perhaps just unwilling to) get rid of receipts for the month until my bank statement came out.
4. All of the letters informing me of how much financial aid I was receiving each year at Union. (They paid me a LOT, people! Praise the Lord for scholarships!)
5. My membership card to the National Beta Club, along with the pin. (I don't really know what to say about that.)
6. All the cards we received from wedding showers and at our wedding.
7. The program I got from my first Steven Curtis Chapman concert, the Heaven in the Real World Tour. (I also have ticket stubs from two of his other concerts. I've seen him 4 times that I can remember. I should write a post about him sometime...)
8. Pens I bought while in Bangkok. (They still write!)
9. Pictures from senior prom. (I sure was skinny!)
10. Most of the papers I wrote in undergrad, along with papers I wrote in grad school. My favorite feedback from a professor? "To be honest, I'm disappointed in this paper." OUCH. He then proceeded to write me almost 2 pages of ways to improve said paper and encouraged me to revisit it because I have a "good critical mind." He closed by wishing me "all the best." How nice. (And really, to be fair, it was a terrible paper on Their Eyes Were Watching God, written during one of my last weeks of grad school. Motivation was low.)
11. My acceptance letter to UT, along with my GRE score.
12. The program from my 8th grade "graduation." I was the "Class Speaker." All I remember is that during one of the graduations (there were 3 because the class was too large), I got my index cards out of order and had to improvise. It didn't go well. But it was 8th grade, so who cares?
13. 4 stacks of Post-its. (longtime readers should know of my love affair with Post-its)
14. 8 scarves. That's way too many scarves.
15. The name tag I wore during freshman orientation at Union.

I could go on, but why would you care? 15 is a pretty indulgent number as it is. I got rid of most of this stuff, except of course for the Post-its (and the magnet, the papers, the acceptance letter, etc.) Okay, so I got rid of the tapes and half the scarves. I'm a sentimental pack-rat, and it's very hard for me to let go of things. I have 2 full photo boxes of letters and cards I have received over the years, and if Stephen weren't around to make me throw silly things away, I would keep them for 10 or 15 more years! (Even so, I kept some of the especially nice cards/letters.)

I've been "saving" things for as long as I can remember, much to my mother's chagrin. She would look at the stack of shoe boxes stuffed with notes and declare my whole closet a fire hazard. Where I am sentimental and reluctant to throw away a birthday card a year after I've received it, she glibly tosses hers the day after, even before all the cake is gone! When it comes to my pack-ratting, nothing is off-limits. I used to save all the notes my friends and I would pass in grade school. I saved anything that I felt I might want to remember someday. And truly, my memory is terrible, so sometimes I think all of this collecting isn't a bad idea. For example, at one point I had all of the ribbons I'd won in field days (I doubt I contributed at all to my team's wins; my feats of athleticism are limited to walking in a semi-straight line). I finally got rid of them (post-college, I do believe), and now I can't even remember what we did during field days.

I'm sure a psychologist would love to delve deep into my psyche and unearth my repressed urges in the hopes of determining the root of my pack-ratting, but I'll wager a few guesses.

1. I confuse the memories with the items themselves. I tell myself that by throwing away a card, I'll forget about the person who sent it. While in some cases, this may be true (I'm not going to remember every person who ever gave me a card), I'll cherish the friendships of those who matter to me now, whether I have a card from them or not.

2. Keeping all of these mementos gives me a sense of security and stability. I feel like as long as I have these "anchors" to my past, I'll be fine. I might need these things someday. For example, what if someday I need to prove that I was indeed a member of the National Beta Club? All I have to do is whip out that membership card, and voila! Case closed.

3. It's genetic. My dad's mom is a notorious pack-rat, so much so that she has a storage room as well as 2 bedrooms full of stuff, some of which she doesn't even know she has. She could have passed this tendency onto me, but I will not cause my pack-ratting to spill over into entire rooms; I'm content to fill a closet.

Hey, I never said I was a logical pack-rat.

I'm SO Glad I Changed My Major

I'm not a huge play-with-a-lot-of-kids kind of person. I love kids on an individual basis, but put me with more than 3 in a room, and I get a little stressed. What is most hilarious about this is that at one time I thought I wanted to be an elementary school teacher. I even went to a summer-long program in high school geared towards that profession. Then, suddenly, I realized during my freshman year of college that while I admire children from a distance, having 20 of them in a room in close proximity to me every day isn't really ideal for me. I prefer to teach people who already know how to tie their shoes, sit in a chair, use the bathroom by themselves, and write legibly. Most of my college students have mastered these skills. :)

However, despite all of this, I thought it would be fun for Stephen and I to sign up for extended session (the time between the end of Sunday School and the end of the service) at church. We have been looking for a way to serve together, and extended session with kids sounded fun. When we got the schedule and saw that we had been assigned to the 4- and 5-year-olds, I was relieved. At least at that age they can follow orders and are used to some semblance of structure, right? They also would require no diaper-changing! And since the time was full of structured activities (snack, video, craft), it should be no problem getting them to follow along. Piece of cake.

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

About an hour and fifteen minutes after we arrived to pick up the children and guide them to the classroom (for some reason we had to switch classes), we were exhausted. Chairs were strewn about the room, along with glue stick lids and craft pom-poms, the orange mark of cheese puffs was all over hands and cheeks, and one kid was missing.

Okay, so the last part isn't true. And I wouldn't say things were "strewn about" exactly, but the room definitely wasn't in the state of order in which we'd found it. And we were actually smart enough to wipe the kids' hands after they had their cheesy snack (cheese puffs are a terrible snack idea, if you ask me). However, I don't think the kids learned a single thing while we were in there. At first mention of a video, they excitedly went to the chairs, but that interest disintegrated within seconds, and one boy was roaming about the room, another was trying to kiss one of the girls, and a third was playing with some jingle bells. (That is all true.) About 2 minutes into the video, one request for a bathroom break was made, followed by 7 other requests, so we paused the movie and took them all to the bathroom. (I got lucky with this, as there were only 3 girls, but Stephen got to deal with 5 boys, one of which touched the urinal and then licked his finger. Yum.)

After the video was over, there were only about 10 minutes for craft time. The craft involved glueing small pom-poms onto a cardstock arrow (it somehow tied into the lesson), using a glue stick. I know glue sticks are a lot less messy than other glue, but should you ever get the desire to glue pom-poms onto a cardstock arrow, know that the glue stick is virtually useless unless applied in copious amounts, which some of the kids gleefully did. I think only one boy actually finished the craft. Two of the girls spent several minutes debating over who would get to use the pink scissors (the pink scissors are CRUCIAL to the completion of the craft) and therefore didn't get much accomplished, a couple had trouble even using scissors, and others just goofed off. Even though most did not get any pom-poms glued to the arrow, plenty of pom-poms made their way all over the table. Yippie!

After this wonderfully adventurous morning, Stephen and I have decided not to have kids. KIDDING. Well, maybe. :)

One Year Down--Many, Many More to Come

On April 6, 2006, my life changed forever.

But I didn't know it yet.

On that day, I received a MySpace message from a guy named Stephen Mount. I knew him from college, and we had some mutual friends, but we hadn't seen each other in a few years, so it was a surprise to hear from him. However, I responded to his message, and after a flurry of emails and endless phone calls, we were a couple. And I was completely smitten. I knew early on that I loved him and I would marry him, and he must have too, because just 4 months after that first email, he asked me to be his wife. I thought at the time that August 4, 2006 was the happiest day of my life, but then our wedding day came, June 2, 2007, and I couldn't imagine being any happier or more in love than on that day.

But I was wrong.

Every day, I find I fall a little more in love--become a little happier--just waking up next to the man I call my friend, my confidant, my love, my husband. He makes me laugh, dries my tears, soothes my fears and calms my worrying, gives countless hugs, serves me, looks after me, protects me, places me first. There are many things I love about Stephen Paul Mount, but one of the things I love the most is the way he loves me (selfish, huh?). He loves me unreservedly, unselfishly, unwaveringly. I know there is nothing I could do that would cause his love for me to wane because on June 2 he committed to love me always and forever. In making this commitment he is making a choice to love me every day, even when I am terribly unlovable, and I in return choose to love him always and forever.

In realizing Stephen's love for me, I realize the extraordinary love that the Lord Jesus so freely and graciously lavishes on His children. If I am secure in Stephen's love for me, how much more so should I be secure in God's love? And yet I doubt and forget and worry. It is no accident that Paul in Ephesians draws a parallel between Christ and the Church and a husband and wife. The marital relationship comes the closest to reflecting God's immense, extravagant love for His people, yet even the love between spouses cannot compare to the depths and the riches of God's love. What a precious gift we are given, that we are able to love! But we love only because He first loved us. God created marriage first and foremost for His glory, and I long for Him to be glorified in us.

Stephen, how grateful I am that you sent me that first fateful email, and how grateful I am that each day is a gift because you are in it. I love you, forever and always.

"May your unfailing love rest upon us, O LORD, even as we put our hope in you." ~Psalm 33:22