The Future Mr.&Mrs. Routley!!

We had been waiting eagerly for the 26th to come, being that Janelle's boyfriend, JJ Routley, was coming to town!  And, lucky us, we were the first that got to spend time with them for the first couple days of their visit. 

They got in after dinner on Monday night and we stayed up talking for a bit.  We instantly loved JJ...what a great guy!  Actually, it was funny because we figured out that JJ and I went to college together the first semester I was at Emmaus Bible College.  So I have known who he was for a long time.  But it was fun to see him in a totally new light...as the guy who loves my baby sister!  It was super fun to see them together. :)

The next morning the couple ate a quick breakfast and left super early to head to Cannon Beach.  When they got there, it was super stormy.  In fact, it made the news here in town that the beaches had super strong winds.  But we knew that the lovely couple would have fun anyways...they were exploring together. This was the picture I took as they walked out the door for their day's adventures.

Then....next thing you knew, I got this text while I was at the grocery store!  And nearly screamed out loud!

We could hardly wait for them to get back into town to celebrate with them.  After they had dinner at Mo's they finally made their way back to our place!  We were so thrilled that we were the lucky ones that got to enjoy their first moments as an engaged couple!  This was the picture I took when they walked in the door. :)

So we all sat, toasted with apple cider, and Caleb and I listened to the story of how JJ asked her to be his wife. 

Janelle always talks about how Cannon Beach is her favorite place to go.  So JJ had locked that in his brain for future use.  So when he realized that they were going to be at the beach before he met Dad, he ended up calling Dad to ask for permission before they got in town.  (Story on that later.)  So Janelle didn't figure it was going to happen at the beach.  In fact, the weekend before she and I discussed how it probably wouldn't happen then.  Well, when they made their way through the wind storm to the rock, they were the only couple on the beach other than one other couple.  JJ started talking about how he had known for a while that he loved Janelle and would want to spend the rest of his life with her.  She almost jokingly said that this would be the perfect time to propose.  And then the next thing you know, he was on his knee asking her to be his wife.  She laughed, said something about he needs to ask Dad first, and then a huge "YES!!!!!"  Hahaha!  LOVE IT! Then the other couple came up and took a few pictures of them.

We had so much fun with them!  Now it is time for wedding planning! We have been dreaming of the day Janelle would get married for some time now...and we have to say she did a great job!  Actually, GOD did a great job matching them up!  We truly love that JJ will be a part of our family!

The next day, Dad told me his story from JJ's call to ask for permission to marry Janelle.  He was in the car, on his way to pick up Diane, when JJ called.  As he was pulling into a parking lot, he realized what was happening and was really trying to concentrate.  He thinking about how important this call was and how he wanted to make sure his response was very clear and said just how he wanted it to be.  So, that being said, he wasn't paying very close attention to his drive.  Next thing he knew, as they were having this conversation...he backed up over a curb, grass AND sidewalk!!  Hahaha!  Oh, gotta love my dad! :) 

So now the couple is back in Iowa and the next time we see them, they will be saying "I do!"  Ahhh! So exciting!  The greatest part is this is only the beginning..... :)

Our Second Christmas

I am at peace sitting here with some time to journal about our Christmas this year.  But I have to say that it really hasn't gone quite as I had planned in my head.  Then again, that shouldn't surprise me because last year definitely didn't go as I had thought it would either!

Last year was our first Christmas as newlyweds.  You know, as a little girl you dream of getting your house all set up, cookies in the oven, music playing, getting the whole family together to celebrate.  Well, lets just say that last year it was a miracle that a tree even got set up.  And I didn't have time to make Christmas cookies or decorate the rest of the house.  Instead, the couple weeks before Christmas I was trying to fit all my clients in and take care of Caleb's health before I took a couple weeks off to have throat surgery.  My surgery was scheduled for the Monday before Christmas.  So I knew that turkey dinner was going to be out of the question. The sad thing was that Caleb's knee flared the weekend before. So, the week of our first Christmas as a married couple, I had a tube sticking out of my swollen neck as Caleb was in a wheelchair. 

All to say, we dreamed of this year being different.  Bad news: Caleb is flared up again.  Good news: At this point it really isn't as bad as last year. 

For the most part we knew it would be a low key Christmas.  Caleb has been flaring up in his hip and toes for almost a few months now.  In fact, I have had to drive him to and from work every day because we have to prevent him from using his feet as much as possible.  All to say, we knew we wouldn't be stolling through Peacock Lane this year.

So Friday we took off to have our own little family Christmas, just the two of us.  It was so great!  We relaxed all day.  Caleb had finished reading through the Bible for the second time this year the day before, so he continued reading another book he has been enjoying.  As he read, I cooked and cleaned as I listend to music, as I enjoyed an amazing peppermint mocha.  Later we ate dinner and watched the movie "The Help." (Which was obviously my choice, but he loved it too!)  That day was just what we needed.  Down time, together...all day in our PJs and phones in the other room!

Saturday, being Christmas Eve, we decided to have some people over.  Caleb has been mentoring a guy who works for him, who had no place to go for Christmas, so he invited him over for dinner and to go to church with us.  So I also had my sister Janelle, who is in town, come over.  We also had my new friend Sarah, a girl who is in our college group, come join us.  It was so fun and relaxing as well! We all watched football and ate....what else could be better?!?! And then we got in our cars and went to our church's Christmas Eve service. 

The sad part is that yesterday Caleb's flare-ups started spreading to all his feet versus just his toes.  Poor buddy.  He is such a tropper though! He really doesn't complain. So we kept putting his feet in a tub of ice water (as we have been doing for months) and he used his cane again to get around, well, the little he walked. 

But this morning he was worse. In fact, we were fearful it was going to his ankles, which it looks like it did not happen.  That would not be good....I don't know if he would be able to work if that were the case.  So, sadly, we stayed home from going to Dad and Diane's today.  Although we would have loved to be there,  we know it was for the best.

So although this Christmas turned out different than I had thought it would in my head, that is okay.  Ya know, I am realizing that's life.  I am so glad we at least have each other!  These are actually special times. 

It is so easy to get caught up in the hype of what our society has made Christmas to be.  This year, it was really about thankfulness, simplicity, and peace.  Thankfulness because we have each other and this year was better than the last! Simplicity because we have kept things low-key again and really tried to keep the right perspective this holiday season.  And peace because Jesus came to give us peace...He is the Prince of Peace!

So now the best part of Christmas dinner...leftovers and more football! :)  And then get ready for Janelle to have her boyfriend come stay with us the next few days...should be so fun!  So, really, it hasn't turned into what I thougth it would....but then again, we aren't finished yet! :)

To Be Known

You know, one of the things I have been talking with women at the salon recently is our desire, as women, to be known and understood....and in that, valued and loved.

The reason this has been such a regular converstation is that fact that I am realizing that most people don't feel like they have this in their life.

My conclusion:  The one hope I have is that I have confidence Jesus knows me fully and completely.  He knows my past, my hurts, my fears, what I think when I am alone in the quiet of my house, why I do what I do, and why I am how I am.  He knows the pressures I face every day.  He even knows who I will be in the future.  There is nothing that is hidden from Him.  There has never been anything in my life that I have to explain to Him.  He is my friend who just gets me and knows me.  And inspite of all that, He loves me.

You know, we all need to be loved.  And we all need friends and community...that is how God made us.  We aren't intended to be alone.  I think the saddness comes when we put more of a value on people understanding and being there for us than we do on God being that to us.  And at times, we look to people for the validation of what we are feeling, and just pass over the validation from God Himself.

I say this being somebody who struggles with it myself.  I know I am loved deeply by multiple people in my life.  For example, I never knew how much I could loved and valued and appreciated by a husband until I was married.  Caleb loves me so much.  And he wants to know every part of me.  It is so special to be loved this unconditionally and deeply by another human being.

That being said, last September I had to see a breast specialist oncologist to see if I had a cancerous tumor.  We found had found a lump and were concerned because of the fact that my mother died early of breast cancer.  You know, that day I went in to see the doctor, and he ordered an ultrasound and testing, I was overwhelmed with grief.  I don't know if it was for fear of the unknown future, or also reliving so much of the pain of my teeenage years dealing with Mom's cancer.  But that day, when I was actually by myself in my car, I wept.  Sure, I completely could have run into Caleb's arms and be held by him (which of course I did that too), but I needed to just have a good cry with Jesus, just the two of us.  It was so clear to me that no matter how much, and no matter how hard Caleb tried, he could not know me as fully as God knows me in this matter.  And this is not to disrespect him or our relationship, because I think we have more of an intimate relationship than I ever dreamed!  But it is to say, Jesus sat there with me in my car many days when Mom was sick and dying...and we cried together in private many times.  He knew all I had gone through, he knew all I felt and experienced cause He had been right there with me.  As much as I could try to explain to Caleb (which I did that too) there is no way he could fully know all I felt.  He sure tried!  But there was still a limitation to how much he actually could know that part of my life.  So, I cried with Jesus that day, just as I had fifteen years before I even knew Caleb.

In the end, I am so thankful that I did not have cancer.  It was such a relief that we felt!  But regardless, I learned a lesson that day...which, if I am being completely honest, I am still totally learning!  Like I said, we all need others around us to hold us up sometimes.  Trust me, I do.  How many times have I sent out an email to family in the recent months with Caleb actively flaring up?  Too many to count.  But I know there is a striving in my heart if I put more value on their support and understanding that God's.   But I have found most comfort if I go to and trust Jesus' value and love for me, and then those people around me.  It is then that I see them as His gift to love me face-to-face now....that is, until I see Him face-to-face.

I have found comfort in a verse recently that speaks of this.

1 Corinthians 13:12-13 "Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face.  Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.  And now these things remain: faith, hope and love.  But the greatest of these is love."

I am fully known, and I am fully loved, by God Himself.  In the meantime, I still need those around me.  But I think one day we will see clearly how God just gave us each other to help each other out.  But in the end, God was there all along, wanting to be our everthing and to have the most intimate, deep, real relationship ever!  I pray we all begin to grasp the fact that we don't have to strive so much to be known....cause we are fully known by Jesus, Who loves us completely.

Persevering to have a Sharing Love

A friend came into the salon a while ago.  When she sat in the chair she seemed a bit distraught.  She was thinking about a friend of her's who is leaving her husband.  I don't know this couple, but I was sad for them.  And my friend's heart was obviously heartbroken too, after all, she loves them both and described them both as good people. 

So we talked, as we always do, of life and matters of the heart as I foiled her hair.  I love talking with her because she is so full of love and wisdom and I don't even think she knows how much!  But, I hang on to her words and her thoughts. 

We talked about life and love and marriage.

In the end, I am convinced of this:  Couples don't get married thinking they are going to get divorced.  Couples don't get married knowing in advance the struggles they will face, and what life will throw their way.  But that is what makes the promises so important.  When I promised to Caleb "for better or for worse, in sickness and in health" I meant it.  And we have had to put those promises into practice already in our short year and a half of marriage.  The reason we promise, is because those times will come, no matter who we are.  I think I have a pretty good marriage...and for that I am humbled, because I know I am blessed.  But part of our blessings have come as a result of our hardships.  One blessings is that Caleb and I trust each other and what we have promised, because we have seen each other put it into practice.

My friend made a good point.  She said in effect, "Our society doesn't like pain.  If something happens, and they cannot fix it, their instinct is to get out and run.  They don't actually put a value on persevence."  Which makes me so sad for some many people.

I am also blessed because I have only been married a year and a half.  And we have a lifetime ahead to hopefully make good patterns and good decisions in our marriage.  Although we struggle with health and all that is effected by that, we don't have years of disrespect and unloving words to correct.  And I just have to say again, since so many of my friends are struggling in their marriages, that I am humbled.  I am humbled in thankfulness.

And my goal is to prevent those things from happening...and when bad things happen, for Caleb and I to persevere together.

I have been reading a book for my book club this month that has been so thought provoking.  It is called, "A Severe Mercy."  It is about some friends of C.S. Lewis who came to know God after they were married and then his wife gets cancer.  In this book there are 18 letters that are written between this man and C.S. Lewis.

I am not super far into the book, but there are a couple thoughts that I think are so profound and have read aloud to Caleb in fact.  And so, since they are on my mind, I thought I would jot them down.  It is not necessarily truth from Scripture, but I think there is some important wisdom in what he shares, none-the-less.

"We talked deeply...about how to make love endure.  What emerged from our talk was nothing less, we believed, than the central 'secret' of enduring love: sharing.

'Look,' we said, 'what is it that draws two people into closeness and love? Of course there's the mystery of physical attraction, but beyond that it's the things they share.  We both love strawberries and ships and collies and poems and all beauty, and all those things bind us together.  Those sharings just happen to be; but what we must do now is share everything.  Everything! If one of us likes anything, there must be something to like in it- and the other one must find it.  Every single thing that either of us likes.  That way we shall create a thousand strands, great and small, that will link us together.  Then we shall be so close it will be impossible- unthinkable- for either of us to suppose that we could ever recreate such closeness with anyone else.  And our trust in each other will not only be based on love and loyalty but on the fact of a thousand sharings- a thousand strands twisted into something unbreakable [I have to add that having Christ as the center of those strands is key...Scripture says that a strand of three cords is not easily broken.  There is strength in a relationship when Jesus is center.]....

Through sharing we would not only make a bond of incredible friendship, but through sharing we would keep the magic of inloveness.  And with every year, more and more depth...."

But he goes on to explain what is fighting against this in marriage....

"...why does love need to be guarded?  Against what enemies?  We looked about us and saw the world as having become a hosile and threatening place where standards of decency and courtesy were perishing and war loomed gigantic.  A world where love did not endure.  The smile of inloveness seemed to promise forever, but friends who had been in love last year were parting this year.  The divorce rate was in the news.  Where were any older people in love? It must be that, whatever its promise, love does not by itself endure.  But why?  What was the failure behind the failure in love?

On a day in early spring we thought we saw the answer.  The killer of love is creeping separateness...Taking love for granted, especially after marriage.  Ceasing to do things together.  Finding seperate interests.  'We' turning into 'I'. Self.  Self-regard: what I want to do.  Actual selfishness only a hop away.  This was the way of creeping seperateness.  And in the modern world, especially in the cities, everything favoured it...The failure of love might seem to be caused by hate or boredom or unfaithfulness with a lover; but those were results.  First came the creeping separateness: the failure behind the failure.

We raised the Shining Barrier against creeping separateness, which was, in the last analysis, self.  We also raised it against a world of indecencies and decaying standards, the decline of courtesy, the whispering mockers of love.  We would have our own standards. [God's standards, more particularly, I might add.] And, above all, we would be us-centered, not self-centered.  Against creeping separateness we would oppose the great principle of sharing.  We saw self as the ultimate danger to love, which it is; we didn't see it as the ultimate evil of hell, which it also it.  We saw only the danger to our love. Still, we turned away from it, turned away because we loved our love.  And we determined that it should endure."

I love that he said they loved their love....because that is what I always say! :)  Regardless, I just thought these were some interesting thoughts to consider.  I talk to women, literally on a daily basis, about relationships and matters of the heart.  And so many people, through their own struggles, teach me so many things.  And I hope I am the same with them.  There is no perfect marriage....because we are imperfect people, all of us! 

But how amazing that marriage is entended to be a picture of Christ and the church....the most intimate, pure love that lives contrary to the world's standards.  My hope is to be able to have a marriage that models that.  If we can grow old together, and look back, and Caleb can say I loved him well, as I loved Jesus well first, I don't think there is much more that would make me pleased.  That is except finally hearing I did well from Jesus Himself! :)

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.  Love never fails.  1 Corinthians 13:4-8

Thanksgiving and Updates

I have meant to write about our Thanksgiving weekend sooner than now, but the last week has been quite a whirlwind.  But now, with a day off work, and Caleb in the other room either sleeping or watching football, I can just relax for a little bit.  Well, until the washer is ready for the next load of laundry at least. :)

It was quite a full weekend, yet relaxing at the same time.  It started with going to Jock and Karen Elliott's home in Albany to join friends for a Thanksgiving meal.  I, first of all, must say that Albany is the cutest little town, and I would love to live in a place like that one day.  And once we got there, we just enjoyed each other's company and ate great food.  These friends are like family, so it was our first Thanksgiving family meal of the year.

The the next morning, Caleb and I woke up early to drive to Dad and Diane's home on the actual Thanksgiving day.  The drive up was so picture perfect, and definitely set the mood for a holiday.  There were colored trees and waterfalls all over the Columbia River Gorge.  And once we got there, we got Caleb all settled in the recliner and everybody just hung out, watched football, and ate all day. 



The next day, Caleb and I had our own day just the two of us.  He still didn't have the best mobility with his toes having flared, so he read a ton and played playstation as I cleaned and put up the tree.  (Next year we are hoping to have him healthy enough to get a real tree versus a fake tree!) :) And then we had our own little family roast Thanksgiving dinner.

It was such a nice weekend!  We were hoping, however, that Caleb's joints would heal up enough to feel really comfortable going into his work week.  Sadly, his toes kept flaring every other day and it got really hard to function.  So, we ended up going back to the doctor this last Thursday.  There, together with his doctor, we made the decision to postpone trying to start a family and go back on methotrexate which is the potent drug used to prevent the flare-ups.  We are praying that it really calms his body's immune response down, to stop attacking itself, so Caleb can be healthy again.  I have to say, however, that through these flare-ups I could not be more proud of my husband.  He has not fallen into self pity and I see the Holy Spirit working in and through Caleb.  He is sharing his faith with so many people around him and using these flare-ups for good.  God is with us, and He is so good to us.  And that is what I was most thankful for this last Thanksgiving...for a God who is near and Who loves me, and a husband who is faithful and loves me in the most amazing way.  I trust God and I trust Caleb...and for that I am the most blessed woman on earth!

So with the methortexate in his body already, we are praying his toes start looking normal again soon!



All to say, last Thanksgiving I was preparing for my throat surgery and Caleb's knee was flared.  This year I felt great!  And Caleb's toes were pretty much the only thing bothering him that day, so he could at least walk! So all in all.....this year was better than last year.  And next year, we are praying that we both can say we are great and healthy! Regardless, we are blessed, and we have so much to be thankful for!