Keeping Everything in Perspective

This picture is from the day Nate proposed. We got engaged in June.

Little did we know what all engagement actually entailed.

We've successfully made it through 6 months of being engaged, and with only 3 months left to go, I've come to realized that the engagement period is this really unique time of transition full of anticipation, planning, self-control, expectations, and wishing you could go back to the days of care-free dating!

Overall, these months of our engagement have been a period of learning and growth.

Two weeks after Nate proposed, he closed on a house that we have been working on fixing up to move into after the wedding.

One month after we got engaged, Nate started a new position at work and is now a truck driver at Frito Lay. This meant long hours and an unpredictable schedule and requires a lot of patience and flexibility.

Throw planning a wedding into the mix and preparing for marriage and you have a whole lot of life changes happening all at once!

Instead of becoming overwhelmed by everything going on during this period of engagement, we've really tried to keep things in perspective:

• The wedding day will be one day out of our entire lives. I enjoyed planning events ever since high school. I pictured planning my own wedding to be a wonderful experience, but in reality it's been hard to find motivation at times to keep moving forward with plans and making decisions. We've decided to keep the day simple, but are still looking forward to celebrating the significance of the day with our family and friends in a memorable way.
  
• This house we're fixing up will most likely be our home for the next 10+ years. Nate purchased this house with plans to pay it off in 10 years and eventually move to a house with more land - and perhaps more than the one bathroom this house currently has! We are grateful for the opportunity to work on this house together as we make it our home. It's fun to think about all the major life milestones that could happen at this house as we dream about our future together. We're putting significant time and money into this house know, trusting that the investment will pay off with wonderful memories there in the years to come.
  
• Our relationship as a couple will last a lifetime in marriage. As we've been looking forward to the wedding day and moving into the house, we're also looking for ways to continue developing our own relationship - because without that, these other plans are meaningless. While this engagement period is a busy time of planning and preparing, we're still making time for us as we continue to learn more about each other. We're seeking advice on marriage and have plans for pre-marital counseling. This is a unique time for us to prepare ourselves for the forever commitment we're about to make to each other!
  
• Far beyond each of these three areas and time frames I've mentioned, our relationship with God will last for eternity! All of our plans here are on earth are nothing compared to what God is preparing for us in heaven. Nate and I try to remind ourselves that with everything going on, we need to keep an eternal perspective. There's a line in a poem which says, "Only one life, it will soon be past; Only what's done for Christ will last."

Nate and I might have the best wedding day ever. We may have the best house around. Maybe we'll even have a perfect marriage relationship. But none of that would matter if each of those aren't also glorifying God and moving His purpose forward!

Would you pray for us as we finish out this weird transitional time called engagement? Pray that we'd be able to keep everything in perspective and keep Christ in the center of all we do!