What the wha--?? Our house has WHEELS!

Hello all!

    If you’ve been following along the past few days, you know that Isaac and I have prayerfully decided to move forward towards our dream of owning a wedding venue.  If this is news to you, here is the link to the post where you can read all the details!

We also bought our first home!

And it’s a 5th wheel...

...This may make us rednecks...

...Or hippies...

...I’ll look into it.

    Ok, so obviously we aren’t trying to start some novelty RV-themed wedding business. For some reason, I don’t think the “Mobile Home Wedding” industry is exactly booming. HOWEVER, and as a completely unrelated side note, this post did tickle my curiosity, so I googled “trailer weddings” and found this site, which actually had some cute and quaint ideas. I’ll wait while you look at the pics and experience unexpected delight. Can you tell I’ve had coffee?

    Ok, focusing now. The fifth wheel. Our home! Here’s how that came about:

    First off, If you’ve never bought a home or land before, I need to let you in on a little secret: they cost money. Here’s another secret: teachers don’t make very much money. Don’t get me wrong, Isaac and I love being teachers. We find our jobs rewarding and challenging and fulfilling, but when we tried to pay for land in the currency of “the joy of changing children’s lives and making a difference in the world”,  it turned out that real estate agents don’t really barter.

    So there you go. We could scrimp and save, but it would be many years before we even had a down payment for the amount of land we are looking for in the location we would like-- Magnolia, Texas, if you’re wondering. Possibility two was to borrow. Again, this would be tricky because we would not have a respectable down payment for a while, and we, as our own personal preference, do not want to finance anything that will take a significant portion of the rests of our lives to pay off. So that left us with only two more options: change our income or change our dream.

    We prayed for a way to change our income. I’m going to be very brutally honest here-- with a music degree and English degree between the two of us, we were literally praying for a miracle. I have a feeling this comes as no surprise to anyone...











    So we prayed for our miracle, and surely enough, God provided. You see, at this time, Isaac’s father had recently begun considering changing careers as well. He has a friend who is a retired pipeline welding inspector. I am not certain I knew before now that this job existed, but as explained in the name, it is a person who goes around the country and looks at the welds on pipelines to make sure they are strong and up to code. As it turns out, these fellas make a lot of money-- about three times more than Isaac and I make combined. Well, both Isaac and his father have a good deal of welding experience, so we prayed again, and began looking in to this possible job opportunity.

It looked bleak at first.

    The certification prep. class for this job? Not cheap. The book? Not cheap. The certification test itself? You guessed it, also not cheap. I should also mention that Isaac and I could not afford a honeymoon when we first got married, so we had been saving up for a road trip to New York, and had just depleted our accounts with all of the hotel reservations, tickets, and other expenses involved in a trip. So there we were, wondering if this were God’s will for our lives. If we had found out about the job and the expenses required to get certified a few measly days earlier, we could have cancelled our trip and had the money to pay for all of it. But we didn’t and so we didn’t.

    The money for everything was due in 7 weeks, and if we couldn’t come up with it, we would be locked into our teaching contracts by the time the next class came along and would have to wait until next year to give this whole thing a go. And this is where I need to let you know how happy I am to be married to a prayer warrior. Isaac did not get discouraged; he just kept praying. I was fortunate to get some extra hours after school running tutorials, doing private in-home tutoring, and making cakes. Isaac received several orders for custom made rods, which he is awesome at making, and we both tightened our budget until every extra penny popped right out.

    As you can guess, we were able to come up with the money. Praise God!

    With all of these doors opening for us, we talked, planned, and prayed and decided that it was time to take a step of faith. If Isaac passes his certification test and gets a job as an inspector, we will be hitting the road and traveling wherever his job needs him. So, we saved and worked some more, and bought ourselves a truck and a fifth wheel. We made it a point to purchase within our means as teachers, understanding that God is God, and He, in his goodness and sovereignty, may choose to close the door on this opportunity, in which case we would still need to be able to make our payments. Either way, we’re camper people now. :)

    And so there it is. Our dream of owning a wedding venue is still far out on the horizon, but if Isaac gets this job, we will be able to move towards it much faster.

    Friends, if you’ve made it this far into the post, I’d like to ask you a favor. Will you please pray for us, particularly Isaac and his dad? The certification test Isaac and his father will be taking on July 19th is incredibly difficult with an extremely low pass rate. (It is thankfully MUCH higher for people who take the class they are currently in.) They have been studying their hearts out since they received the materials a month ago, and are sitting in class every day for the next two weeks to prepare. The course gives them about 4 hours of homework a night, and weekend work. Isaac and his father are both mentally exhausted but pressing on because they see this as a chance to serve and provide for us, their family, well. They’re not looking for an easy buck; they’re working HARD. If you don’t know them personally, they are two of the most honorable and hard working men I know. :) I feel confident that we are moving in the right direction and that they will both pass with flying colors, but if you don’t mind, can we all just lift this up in prayer together? Any time you have a spare moment between now and July 19th, just send one up for us. Thank you in advance!

    I will keep posting with updates as we find out any news! Thanks again, everyone!

Our Dream... and Some Big News!

Hello, all!

    If you read my last blog post, Give Up On Your Dreams, you know I told you that Isaac and I are getting ready to embark on a new adventure in our lives.

Now let's just go ahead and kill the suspense: we are NOT pregnant-- neither one of us. :p

I'll give you a moment to get over your disappointment...

BUT...

We DID just buy our first home! Yipeeeee!

Now, before I tell you about the home, I want to tell you our dream and the story behind it:

    In one of my first years of teaching, I had the honor and privilege to accompany one of my lovely students prom dress shopping. This particular gem happened to desire a white prom dress, so we headed on over to a certain bridal store that shall remain nameless, as I’m pretty sure the events that transpired in said bridal store probably occur in most.
   
    As I sat outside the dressing rooms, alert and ready to be helpful with my nods of approval or pantomime puking, depending on what the dress my student was modeling warranted, I noticed a group of bridesmaids doing the same for their lady of the hour. When the bride-to-be would walk out, they would “ooooooh” and “ahhhhhh” and give plenty of commentary, as all good bridesmaids do. After trying on several dresses, the young woman came out of the dressing room in a gorgeous gown, and with gasps and smiles, the bridesmaids all knew she had found HER wedding dress.

Now here’s where it got weird:

    As she gave that tearful nod of approval, that nod that most girls can’t wait to give, that “this is the ONE” nod, the saleswoman handed her a shiny, golden bell.

   “It’s time!” the saleswoman excitedly whispered to her, and the bride held that bell high above her head and rang it with shouts of joy and reckless abandon.

Seriously.

    Simultaneously and inexplicably, all of the customers and employees began jubilantly clapping and cheering. Feeling my eyes become watery, I looked down only to find my hands clapping in approval as well! The excitement was hypnotic and addictive.


And we wonder why men don’t like to shop with us...

   
    Amidst the celebration, there was one thing I happened to notice. That bell, while seemingly an innocuous way of making the bride feel special, was actually something completely different: It was a signal--a signal to every salesperson in that store to start circling; there was blood in the water. Within seconds, women surrounded the bride-to-be and began adorning her with a veil, tiara, shoes, jewelry, and anything else you can think of. How could she not feel like royalty?

The princess had no time to waver--
“Oh, you’ll want to go ahead and get these shoes; they may not be here tomorrow!”

“This veil is a perfect match! That almost never happens. Aren’t you a lucky girl?” 


“Oh, you’ll want to go ahead and get this tiara. Once the dress is off, you may forget what it looks like, and you certainly can’t cart it around from store to store to shop for accessories!”

That blasted tiara? TWO HUNDRED FRAPPIN’ DOLLARS!

    I could see the bride beginning to buckle under the pressure, and, not being able to help myself, I leaned over to one of the bridesmaids and mentioned that I just happened to see a tiara that was almost identical for $15 at Claire’s a few days ago. From a distance, you wouldn’t know the difference, and maybe it would be a good idea to encourage the bride to get a good night’s rest before making a decision that was quickly adding up to north of a grand. The maid got my drift and rescued her friend by politely shooing away all of the, possibly well-meaning but most likely manipulative, salespeople. She must have been a truly amazing bridesmaid and friend.

After recanting the tale to some of our friends, we found that this sort of insanity is actually quite common.

    And thus is the wedding industry-- a frenzy of sharks financially feasting upon the blood of excited, emotionally vulnerable women.  Two years later when I became a bride, no amount of cognizance of this fact could shield me from the temptation to accept the industry’s fake worship. I mean, it’s been ingrained into us since we were little girls. The wedding day is “the bride’s day” and we get to wear our princess dress and marry our prince charming and live happily ever after. Basically, we get one day of our lives to shamelessly worship ourselves, and in keeping with this practice, no expense, regardless of what it means for our future, is too much.

    I get it, those salespeople are just doing their job. Many of them probably don’t feel they are in any way being malicious or manipulative at all; they are just helping make the bride’s day PERFECT. But I wonder if any twinge of guilt would creep in if they pictured the blushing bride 5 years from now, emotionally and relationally stressed to the max because she is still buried under a mountain of credit card debt from her "dream" wedding.

    The point is, these experiences planted a seed of desire within my heart to step in and be something different. There began to stir a longing to meet and interact with brides in an encouraging, positive, and NON-manipulative way. When Isaac and I sat down to discuss our future and where we wanted to be in ten years, we both realized that our gifts and passions were pointing us to the same thing: we want to own a wedding venue.

    Isaac loves to build and till and be creative in many ways, and I love to encourage and plan and interact with women who are in this stage of their life. We both feel strongly that it is an opportunity to be uniquely missional while making a living-- without financially gouging young and unsuspecting people who are entering into a beautifully blessed but often difficult time in their lives. We’ve talked about being able to host many other events and love on the people with whom we come in contact through these interactions as well. Best of all, God has revealed to us some of the unique and special ways that having land and facilities of this nature can allow us to care for people who cannot afford “to be a prince/princess for a day.”

    So there it is. We want to buy land. We want to build. And we want to serve. That is the dream we have been given, and we are actively taking steps to pursue it.

The first step was to buy a home.

Oh, by the way, this is it:


Confused? Come back tomorrow for all the deets on our new RV and the traveling adventures that lay before us! :)

Give Up On Your Dreams

    I was 25 years old when I married. Isaac was 27. Now, while we weren’t exactly pushing walkers down the isle, we felt a little old for first-time (and last :)) newlyweds. As a former education major, I felt ANCIENT. My first year at A&M, I had a professor ask all of us future educators to tell her, by show of hands, who of us was engaged or in a long-term, serious relationship. About half of the students in the class (comprised of almost all females, of course) raised their hand. That was the first day of freshman year, people! By the time I started grad. school, the people who had raised their hand were married and had children, the people who hadn’t were now well on their way, and I, well, I was wondering if I should now, in my old age, just give up and start collecting cats.

    It’s amazing how we perceive ourselves and what life looks like based on who we choose to spend it with. If I had chosen to be a doctor, lawyer, or engineer, I bet I would have felt a lot different about myself and what I was supposed to be doing with my life and when said life events were supposed to take place.

    In a very positive way, the same shaping and molding of one’s hopes, dreams, and future occurs when he or she moves from being unmarried to married. Oh, the world will often tell you this shaping is negative. They may accuse you of “losing yourself” in a relationship or “giving up on your dreams”. To tell you the truth, I am fully convinced that that is one of the reasons many young people are getting married at a later in age in life (on average, and unbeknownst to college-me, age 27 for women and 29 for men). We are told to make our own plans and build our own dreams, which is good, but then we’re pushed past “good” and into “unhealthy” by the insinuations or out-right directives to NEVER unclench our tightened fists that hold those dreams, no matter who comes along. Well, if you are dating a person who is holding their  dreams just as tightly, with the same unrelenting conviction that “If my future spouse doesn’t want THIS, he or she is not my future spouse!” you can see how one’s dating life can be significantly prolonged. If these people do give in and marry, they often end up despondent and disappointed in a battlefield of a marriage.

    As it turns out, and as with most things in life, the truth of the matter lies somewhere in the middle of the extreme “lose yourself” and “it’s my way or the highway” philosophies. There ARE some, probably many, things that need to be non-negotiables when entering into a new relationship. My non-negotiable was finding a man whose life was surrendered to Christ. Period. End of story. An aligning financial philosophy was another important thing to me. These and a few other qualities were attributes I knew I could not and should not let go of.

    And then there was the rest. The stuff I felt was really important, but that I knew was not crucial to my spirituality, sanity, or survival. The little things, “Well I like silver dollar pancakes and he likes plate-sized pancakes...”, tend to work themselves out on their own. Come to think of it, that’s pretty much the entire first year of marriage: talking--or sometimes fussing-- your way through the small stuff.

    One’s “dreams” lie somewhere in the middle of faith and pancakes, and if we have truly laid down our life for someone through marriage, dreams can and should be negotiable.

    Now, I know what some of you are thinking, and NO, I’m not saying that you have to give up your dreams to get a spouse or that marriage kills dreams or some other crazy notion. Instead, I want to communicate from the depths of my heart the incredibly wonderful news that marriage brings about dreams you never knew you had. The things that bring you joy change because as time goes on, it brings you joy to see the other person happy. There is something truly enchanting and delightful about sitting down with the person to whom, by the grace of God, you have committed your life and talking about each other’s strengths and passions and what the two of you should be doing in life to infuse those into a future together. And no, it won’t always look like what it did when you were single.

And dang it, that’s ok.

    You’re not selling out or missing out by holding your dreams loosely. It saddens me when I see marriages or families suffer because one person came into the relationship with “dreams” they just can’t let go of.

“I have always dreamed of being an artist. It is my passion. Yes, my wife worries that we can’t pay the bills and it negatively affects our marriage. Yes, it stirs within her a heart of distrust regarding whether or not I can lead our family well, but this is my dream and she needs to stop being selfish and just understand!”

“My husband’s job requires us to move constantly. Growing up, I always pictured myself in a beautiful home where I could spend time planted firmly in a community with lifelong friends. This isn’t what I signed up for!”

    Oh, how I wish in these moments I could just hug the hurting person and tell them to just “let it go.” Not so as to keep it in their back pocket for later when they need to have a trump card in a fight, and not to rub their spouse’s nose in how holy and sacrificial they’ve been, but to experience the freedom that comes with allowing God, through their spouse, to mold a new and better dream-- one that creates harmony in their home and strengthens their marriage rather than pits spouse against spouse in some cosmic point system of who’s had to give up more. The sacrifices required for the plans you make together can be done with a joyful heart because you no longer feel like you’re losing a battle against your spouse or “losing yourself”, you instead realize you are simply working for your future together.

    Letting go of dreams does feel painful at first; it hurts and is uncomfortable. When Isaac and I married, we both had completely different dreams and plans for our lives. They were comfortable and safe plans that, yeah, involved church and serving others and all of the other good things Christians should like, but ultimately centered around ourselves only. However, when we both laid down those dreams and thought of what the other was good at and passionate about and found joy in, we began concocting a dream that looked beautiful for our life together.  I thought I would be a teacher for the rest of my life, but let me tell you something, if I had clung to that dream in spite of my husband and the changing needs of our family, I would have not only become miserable in my marriage and hurt my one true love, but my dream would have become a burden, not because my husband nagged or guilt-tripped me , but because I would have lost fellowship with him and ultimately ignored the better opportunities God was trying to offer us. Trust me on this.

So, yes, give up on your dreams, for they can often be chains holding us tightly to a past that is but a fraction of what could now be.

   
With all that being said, come back later this week, as Isaac and I are embarking on a new and exciting journey towards our together-dream! I can't wait to tell you all about it! :)