Sneak Peak

What a great wedding day.......

I'll post a few pics when I can, but I just wanted to say ~ what a great day we all had on Saturday!! It was so beautiful and meaningful! I'm so grateful to everyone who helped. Many people from my church jumped right in and joyfully gave their time and energy to make it beautiful. Today the Cases are flying out to Arizona to visit Jeff's two older sons, and Sylvie will get her first taste of that intense Arizona sun and heat.... Lots of sunblock will be applied while we're there, I'm sure! :)

One Year Today!

These beautiful red roses (18 of them) are a romantic reminder that one year ago today Jeff and I got hitched!!

Wedding Bells

Well... for those of you who don't know, pretty soon Miss Sylvie finally gets to wear her white wedding dress! I'm so excited.....

Jeff's and my first anniversary is this Thursday, June 24, and because we eloped last year, we thought (well, I thought) how lovely it would be to have a wedding at our first anniversary! Jeff doesn't feel the need for it, of course, since he's a guy and was married before and all that. But knowing that it's important to me, he is very supportive. I actually acutely feel the need for this. In some ways and from time to time over this past year, it has seemed like we aren't really married. We eloped at a courthouse with no family or friends present, and without that support around us it didn't feel real. At least, to me it didn't. And this first year we've had our unique set of challenges. We're hoping and praying that this wedding will be a point of newness, and the beginning of "times of refreshing" for us.

So I've got my white dress from last year... Dad is officiating and making the bouquets.... Mary is my maid of honor and Nancy and Kiff are my other bridesmaids... Phil will stand up for Jeff.... We've got the church reserved.... Several of my new friends here are helping assemble all the food...... Another friend has volunteered to take the photographs....My iPod is ready to go with almost all the music for both the ceremony and the reception.... And I am planning to have a beautiful day filled with my family and friends around me to celebrate what God has done in bringing this amazing man into my life!!

Jeff is an incredible blessing to me. He has what it takes to handle me (and believe me, it takes a lot!), he's kind, generous, a hard-working and faithful provider, he makes me laugh, we balance each other out perfectly in many areas, he's a spiritual rock, he tells me I'm beautiful all the time, he supports me in my gifts, he talks sense into me when I need it (which is often) while at the same time understanding my womanly needs with gentleness and patience, he buys me pretty things, he seldom gets angry, he is gracious and forgiving, he is Kingdom-oriented and utterly devoted to Christ, he makes goofy faces, he's wise, he loves to cuddle... and we're just having fun becoming deeper and deeper soul mates. :)

One major difference between this year and last year, when I freaked out and couldn't go forward, is the level of support that's behind us. Last year we weren't part of a local church together - we were actually in the process of looking for one - and so we didn't have a group of mutual Christian friends who we were in fellowship with on a weekly basis. Complicating that is my recent diagnosis of OCD. One of the symptoms I experience is excessive need for approval from people in my life. I'm very easily influenced and I feel like everyone is watching me and I want to prove myself to them and have their approval - and I experience all these things to such an extent that it's unhealthy. I'm in the process of working through all that with my awesome Christian counselor... and maybe that's another story for another post. She is a wonderful answer to prayer. But anyway, looking back, I can see that the lack of nearby support around me (except for Mary and Rob, who were amazingly supportive, and I am extremely thankful for them) led to unfounded doubt and fear in the extreme ways that people with OCD tend to experience.

This year, Jeff and I are knit in with a truly beautiful and loving and supportive and fun body of believers at Blue Ridge Bible Church, and they are so excited that we are having a wedding celebration at our first anniversary! Everyone thinks it's the neatest thing that we're doing this. I have so much support around me, it's just fantastic. I feel like a bride! Of course, my counselor says that my goal is to get to the place one day when I don't have the need to be surrounded by an army of a church supporting me in order to be free of anxiety and fear. :) But for now, it's a sweet blessing to me. And knowing that people are coming in from out of town - people from my past who I have loved and been close to for years and years - brings such joy to the occasion and healing to my soul. Old friends being more special than new friends, I am truly, truly grateful for the support of these dear friends of mine who are coming in from Pennsylvania and southern Virginia. I am so thankful for the body of Christ!!

So..... it's all set for Saturday, June 26, and afterward you may be sure that I will post a few pics here!

Back Home

So I'm back to being a full-time homemaker... and boy, it is good to be back home. I found that the new job at Healthway wasn't really fitting into my life very well. I put my notice in a few weeks ago, and my last day was last week.

Why I left......

One - it was taking time away from my being able to take care of my home and my family's needs. I found myself always rushing to get things done, and I wasn't able to really take care of things well. It was really stressful for me, and undue stress is one thing I don't need right now! Being newly married and a new step mom ~ all that stuff.

Two - I found that I'm not as interested in health food and vitamins and all that as I thought I was! It was actually dreadfully boring. I like researching solutions to my own health concerns, but they were trying to train me to be an expert about all kinds of health problems and what vitamins, minerals, herbs, and homeopathic remedies were the answer to this, that, and the other health concern. I was encouraged to give customers advice regarding their medical conditions, and I felt that was wrong - I'm no expert. They were also extremely anti-modern medicine - unfairly so - and I just don't agree with being that extreme about it all. Like one time - I mentioned something about a study that Johns Hopkins put out about a particular food and how it helps with a particular physical problem, and as soon as I said "Johns Hopkins", the manager got this look on her face like, "Yeah, whatever." She went on to say how if it came from Johns Hopkins, it was worth nothing. I couldn't believe she could be so narrow-minded! I said, "Well, I have a great amount of respect for modern medicine," and she told me that if I worked there any longer, I wouldn't, because customers come in all the time complaining of the havoc modern medicine has wreaked in their lives. Okay...... first of all, I hardly ever heard customers trash talk their doctors. And second, I hardly think getting any kind of poll from health food store customers is getting an accurate picture of the population at large! Sure, sometimes the solutions that modern medicine comes up with might do more harm than good. But I don't think we should throw the baby out with the bathwater.

But I am thankful for my 2-month job there - I worked there just long enough to pay for the wedding. :)

My Other Favorite

I'm writing to you today from sunny California... Jeff's here on a business trip, and we had a free airline ticket that we had to use by July, so I was able to come along for free! We're in the LA area ~ yesterday we were in Burbank, and today it's Newport Beach. It's not as warm as I might like - it's hovering around the 70 mark - but the sun is warm. Since Jeff has meetings all day, I have to entertain myself... I worked out at the exercise facility here at the hotel, then sat at the pool for a while and had lunch there. I'll head back out to the sunshine shortly, but I thought I'd take a little time to tell you all about Mrs. L - my other favorite at Morningside House.

Mrs. L is also a widow, a believer, and a sweetheart, just like Mrs. A. (In fact, these two ladies are good friends and spend time together going on walks and to entertainment events and such.) She was a missionary to Africa for three years in her 20s before she got married, so we have a bit in common. She's always wanted to go to China (the doors to missionaries closed there just as she was graduating from Bible college), and I always wanted to go to Africa, so we had fun sharing sharing our stories with each other! She showed me her Africa album and I showed her my China one. And oh my goodness - the stories she told..... She was a nurse there, working all alone in a clinic in the middle of nowhere - I forget which country. Since she was the only medical expert in the area (besides the local witch doctors, of course), she had to deal with all of the ailments herself ~ crazy ones! Ones she wasn't even fully trained to handle - but she did, as best she could. I tell you what, I have a lot of respect for this woman. She was brave and resolute in her calling to the African people.

She's a New Englander, and when she left home for Africa she left behind a man who she shared a deep love with. Some people told her not to go, because if she did this man might not wait for her. But she knew she wanted to go to Africa... and that young man did wait those three years she was gone! They corresponded (via snail mail - remember that?) all of that time, and then they got married when she came back. They enjoyed many wonderful years of marriage together before he died - I'm not sure how long ago that was. She longs to go back to New England, but she can't. Her sons live in Virginia now, and there's just no way she could live away from them.

Now she lives with daily physical pain, and it's a severe trial for her to go through. Every day is a struggle. She longs for the day when she can be free from her body and present with the Lord. The last time I visited with her, she opened up about these things a little more to me, and her tears flowed... Goodness, it's hard watching an old lady cry like that. But we prayed together, and hopefully that brought encouragement to her spirit. What a precious woman of God!

Orphans and Widows

James 1:7 "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."

Over the past couple years I have been thinking and meditating on what it really means to live to please God and do his will. As I've studied scripture, I have come to believe that if we live lives according to the wisdom spoken to us through the Bible, and as we walk in sweet communion with the Holy Spirit, we will inevitably please him. No divination of his "perfect will" is required. One of the scriptures I love to guide me in my Christian life is James 1:7. Caring for orphans and widows... It's so simple, and so necessary. I love that many Christian families are adopting orphans from not only the States but around the world ~ what a powerful testimony to the redemptive grace of our God! I doubt I'll be an adoptive mom, but I am blessed by those families around me who do adopt. I find my heart being pulled toward the opposite end of the spectrum: the widows - and, in general, the elderly who may not be able to care for themselves like they once were.

After Jeff and I were married and I didn't need to work full time anymore, I began to think about how I could invest my time for eternal purposes. I got involved in the worship team at church, naturally; but I felt there could be more. And it occurred to both Jeff and me, separately, that I might consider volunteering at a retirement home. I looked into that back in February and immediately began volunteering at Morningside House in Leesburg. It's an assisted living facility, and volunteering there is one of my regular weekly commitments. I LOVE IT. Can I tell you about it? :)

One thing I do there is have sing-alongs in the recreational room... And let me tell you, these precious older people love music!!! Especially the music from their generation. I bring my guitar and play all sorts of songs for them... When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again... Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree... God Bless America... My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean... You Are My Sunshine... Daisy, Daisy... And you should see the looks on their faces! This one sweet little old lady loves to sing Dixie ("Oh I wish I was in the land of cotton, old times there are not forgotten, look away, look away, look away Dixie Land...") and everytime we do, she gazes up at me with joy in her eyes and a childlike smile, singing away. Love it! We sing some hymns too - How Great Thou Art, What a Friend We Have in Jesus, Amazing Grace... One of the ladies (who has a sparkle in her eye as she gives me a tight hug and a kiss on the cheek) tells me over and over how much she enjoys singing these songs from her younger years. She hasn't heard them in a long time!

I like to put myself in their shoes as I spend time with them... I think it's good to remember that we will all grow old someday, unless the Lord takes us early. All the sweet men and women at Morningside (and the grouchy ones too) were, at one time, young and vibrant, full of dreams and plans, raising children, making a living, traveling the world... They've lived full lives. Now they find themselves in a world quite unlike the world in which they grew up. And they are nearing the end, on the brink of eternity. Until that day comes for them, their lives are defined by quiet and rest - and, often more than that, pain and loneliness. Why does it have to be that way? It breaks my heart.

Mrs. A is my favorite resident. When I began at Morningside, the volunteer supervisor suggested I might want to visit Mrs. A, who couldn't see very well and seemed to be depressed and lonely. So I went on up to her room, knocked on the door, and she sweetly welcomed me into her nicely decorated little apartment. We had a lovely visit together... I asked her about her life, I told her a little about mine, and we talked for maybe 45 minutes or an hour or so... I found out she is a believer, so we talked about that too. It was such a sweet time! And when the time came for me to leave, a disappointed look came over her face and she said, "Oh... oh, I wish you could stay!" I smiled and told her I'd be coming back... And as I was saying my goodbyes and getting myself together to leave, she suddenly exclaimed, "I love you!" And so what could I reply but, "Oh, well I love you too!" :) And she immediately said, with determination, "I love you more!" *giggle* Such a sweetie!

The next week, I went back to visit with her. She met me at the door with a firm, "Thank you, but it's okay. No need to come in." I acquiesced, she shut the door, and I walked down the hallway with my heart in my stomach. Why in the world did she shut me out? Did she really not want my visit? Did she simply not want to take up my time? I wasn't sure, but I was sure that I wouldn't give up. I went back the next week, and from that point on we have enjoyed visit after visit. I even took Kiff with me one day, and of course she loved her. :) Sometimes I bring my guitar and give her a private concert. Sometimes we pray together. And whenever I leave my visit with Mrs. A, she tells me, "Thank you so very much," and "I love you," and on and on. Oh my goodness, I can't tell you how fulfilling it is to befriend this dear lady! I just love her.

Yesterday, I had helped her downstairs so she could be a part of the sing-along, and then I walked her back to her room afterward. As we were saying our goodbyes in her little entryway, she just clung to me and thanked me over and over again, told me she loved me over and over again, and said "I pray for you every night. You bring me so much joy!"

Do you see why I absolutely love volunteering there?

I'll tell you about my other favorite resident, Mrs. L, next time. :)

In the meantime, let us all look after the orphans and widows in our areas of influence. We are needed!

Doukenie Winery and Harper's Ferry

Jeff and I took advantage of the nice weather on Sunday and went to Doukenie Winery, which is right near us, for a wine tasting..... and then headed to Harper's Ferry (at the border of VA, WV, and MD - about a 20 minute drive west of us) where we didn't end up staying very long because it started to get really hot... But it was a fun day. :)

The lake at Doukenie Winery


Inside where the tasting bar is



Still the winery
Love that Virginia countryside
A main street in Harper's Ferry (it's a very historic town)

More thoughts coming soon.....
Have a great day!