Blog-tember Challenge // day 1: introduce myself

Last year, the lovely and creative Bailey from Brave Love Blog started the Blog-tember Challenge where she posted a prompt for every day of September for fellow bloggers. Throughout the month, many bloggers got to know each other and grow in their blog "family" through this fun challenge. I sadly was only able to join for a few days last year, but even those few posts were fun. So when she started posting about the upcoming challenge again, I decided I'd try to come along for the ride for a few posts a week.

Today, as the first day of September (whaaaaat?!), the prompt is an open-ended introduction of yourself, so here I go!

Chapter One: I am born …

Just kidding. 

I'll spare you the full memoir and instead introduce you to my currently crazy beautiful life. 

{1} I am getting married in 46 days and 17 hours. 

{2} My last day of work was three days ago and I do not yet have a job lined up (and let's not even think about grad school loan payments, eek!).

{3}I am moving 2,000 miles away from family in 8 days.

That's just a hint of the crazy! So many changes are coming my way in the next six weeks, from my zip code to my last name, things are changing faster than I can keep track!

 Thankfully, and ohhh sooo joyfully, there's a whole lot of beautiful in the mix. 

{1} I am marrying a man who far exceeds anything I could have ever hoped or prayed for in a husband. He is my blessing and my joy, my best friend and the love of my life.

{2} I am able to look back at three years of working with an amazing group of people whose compassion guided the care they gave to the families that came into the pediatric clinic I worked at.

I get to prayerfully and purposefully dive into the job market and patiently look for a new job.

{3} I am moving to Texas, y'all! I've already fallen in love with the state since being courted by a handsome Texan (one of my first nicknames for him was "Alamo"… It didn't stick) so although it's sad and scary to imagine leaving everything I know in the Pacific Northwest, I get to start life with my soon-to-be husband in a city filled with history, sight-seeing, culture, and enough BBQ and Tex-Mex fit for a (Southern) king! And above all of that, I get to kiss long-distance dating goodbye & catch up on some long over-due kisses! YES, PLEASE!!!

One thing I should probably introduce about myself (it may go along with the crazy… )  is that I love my plans and schedules and lists and goals and organization (but, apparently not my commas), so all this change has been rough. I have no idea when I will get a job or if I'll love it. I have no idea how I'll brave my first summer in the heat of Texas next summer, because I am a major wimp in the heat! I can't tell you what Greg and my marriage will look like in ten years or what the first thing we'll fight over as Mr and Mrs. For crying out loud, I don't even know where I'm going to fit all of my adorable teapots in the apartment that will soon be our home as a married couple.  So many unknowns! 

I tend to lean towards worrying and anxiety when there are so many unknowns, and this summer has not been exempt at all. There have been days I worried myself to tears and days when I felt numb from fear of what I couldn't control or know yet. Because, really, there isn't a script that's given to us to read ahead of time. We can't proof-read or edit it either. I can't skip over to Chapter 11: Elena is a Wife or Chapter 15: Elena is a Mom. It doesn't work that way.

Instead, I can trust in the One who knows the unknowns. The One who holds the pen to the proverbial script and who knows when to write each sentence. He knows when to set the period in it's rightful spot and when to leave some silent spaces (oh, I don't really like those pauses! I just want to get the show on the road, no time for the space bar!) or when life comes fast and feels like a run-on sentence (uhhh, yes, that would be right now). He holds the pen and I am so glad He does and I don't. 

One of my favorite things to remember when I get worried about what I cannot see yet is this beautiful and humbling quote by Corrie Ten Boom:

"Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God"

Through the seen and unforeseen changes that may come, I choose to trust the trinatarian God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. His faithfulness, love, grace, forgiveness, patience, protection . . . it has never failed me and never will. 

So, what I am trying to get to is this:  let me introduce myself.

My name is Elena. I do not have it all together. I sometimes feel like I do and then I eventually realize I wasn't even close. But, that's ok, because I was never meant to have it all together anyway.  I am in love with a handsome Texan fella named Greg who has been, apart from God's saving grace, the best thing that has ever happened to me. We get to start life as a married couple in 46 days and 16 hours. In some ways we have no clue what we're getting ourselves into, but we know that we'll be sustained by the Greatest Love this world has ever known because God has been so good to us so far and there's no way He's going to let us down from here on out. It's not Greg and my love thats the greatest. We are going to fail each other at times. But the Greatest Love is God's love for us.  His love will sustain us. And though my last name may change along with my zip code, my job, and so many other things, I know that God's character and His love for Greg and I will not change. And that right there . . . that makes all the change bearable. No, let me say that again… that makes all the change more than bearable. It makes it joyful and exciting and the greatest adventure we could ever dream of. 

(photo by SpottedStills)