And it's a letter of love...

Hallie Miller, my lovely roommate, maid of stinkin' honor and soul(friend)mate, showed me the most precious blog. Read a few ---> http://www.todaysletters.com/

The amount of love this couple shows is beautiful and inspiring. If everyone loved like these 2 do the world would be a little more like our wonderful creator made it to be. So this post (and probably many more) is greatly inspired by and in honor of The Loerke's, 2 people I do not know, but reminded me what love should look like.

Dear Precious Roomies, I couldn't have better roommates. If it weren't for my loving fiance and his desire to spend the rest of his life with me, I would sit around on our living room bed forever watching trashy shows with you until the day we die. Dear Calendar, you give me anxiety every time I look at you, but I love that you are color coded. Dear fiance, comparative politics is already my favorite class this semester, not because its awesome because I promise it's not, but because I get to see you in my peripheral vision for an hour every other day. Dear Jesus, you love me and redeemed me and saved me and I have NO idea why, but thanks times a billion!

And this is my heart cry...

He must become greater; I must become less. John 3:30

But I will rejoice...

I am learning a lot right now. Some of the knowledge I am acquiring is deep and meaningful, some not so much. I would love to take time to go deeper into everything but there isn't enough time. There is never enough time though, right? Anyway here is just a little insight to the things I am learning. Maybe, just maybe, you can learn something.

-God's timing is perfect. That means his timing is better than mine (and yours). I think that is evident in the relationship I am in. You see, I have wanted to get married for a long time now. I am talking about 9 years of imagining my wedding type of thing. My time in high school and college was spent searching for "Mr.Right". Finally, sophomore year of college God and I had a heart to heart and I just gave it to the Lord. A month later I was going on a date with my future husband. My point is God's timing is perfect.

-Wedding's are expensive, stressful and exciting.

-The best thing about being engaged is being able to pray with Daniel. I strongly believe prayer is something intimate and Daniel and I wanted to wait until we were engaged/ married to pray together. I mean we would pray before a meal when we were dating but it is nothing like sitting there praying over our relationship together. It is easily the best part of our relationship.

-Everything isn't about me. I have an issue where I am often times self-centered. I think my prayer for myself over this year is that I become more God centered. If I cared less about myself, maybe the Lord could use me more. I mean my desire is to be a vessel for the Lord and I think a lot of the time I stand in the way of that.

-I have some of the best friends ever! To see how excited they got for me, when we got engaged, was a blessing. It was reassuring of how much they cared for me and our friendships. What a blessing it is to have them (y'all) in my life.

-It is time I begin to sing my song in this desert place. Last Sunday our preacher spoke over Exodus 15. It's a song Moses and the Israelites sang in the desert place. Dr. Higgs talked about the importance of singing in the desert and rejoicing in our sorrows. I think it really hit home to me because when I am "in the desert place" I like to roll around in my self pity. So many times I forget to rejoice. I kind of feel bad that God has to listen to me whine and complain. He deserves so much praise, even when I am low, even when I am without water.

The Desert Song by Hillsong

This is my prayer in the desert
And all that's within me feels dry
This is my prayer in the hunger in me
My God is a God who provides

And this is my prayer in the fire
In weakness or trial or pain
There is a faith proved
Of more worth than gold
So refine me Lord through the flames

And I will bring praise
I will bring praise
No weapon forged against me shall remain
I will rejoice
I will declare
God is my victory and He is here

And this is my prayer in the battle
And triumph is still on it's way
I am a conqueror and co-heir with Christ
So firm on His promise I'll stand

All of my life
In every season
You are still God
I have a reason to sing
I have a reason to worship

This is my prayer in the harvest
When favor and providence flow
I know I'm filled to be empited again
The seed I've recieved I will sow

And you are the love of my life...

Yesterday, was Daniel's dad's birthday so we made plans for Daniel to pick me up from work and we would go eat with his family. So, come 7 o'clock I got in his car and he told me there had been a change of plans and I needed to shut my eyes. I laughed and told him no and he said, "Jodi I can blindfold you or you can shut your eyes". I finally agreed to just keep my eyes closed and he began to drive. After about ten minutes the car came to a stop, he told me open my eyes. There we were in the parking spot at my old apartment building where we spent numerous hours talking, getting to know each other better, and trying to figure out if we should date or not. He looked at me and told me that parking spot was where our relationship became official and real. He talked about how that was the place he really started to fall for me. You see, Daniel and I really struggled with timing and whether or not we should date when we were first talking. I know we were both in prayer constantly over whether the timing was right or not because we were going to be intwo different places for that summer and our lives were already so crazy. In that parking spot we decided to follow our hearts and trust that the Lord knew what he was doing with the timing. Anyways, then he put a rubberband on my ring finger and asked me to close my eyes again. After about 5 minutes he had me open my eyes and we were at Chili's. He talked about how this was the place we would always go on little lunch dates and that was where our friendship grew.He talked a little more about our friendship and then took off the rubberband and put on a metal ring like a small keychain thing. He made me close my eyes again until we arrived at a friends old house (well down the street from it but close enough). He talked about how that was the house we had our very first date (which if you do not know our story I had no idea I was on a date but I guess it all worked out). It was a halloween costume party (date party don't forget). We showed up that night and there were tons of couples there all dressed like each other, which I was not prepared for. Daniel talked about how this waswhere he saw how I can gracefully handle awkward situations (hahaha). He said this is where thesparks flew and this all began. Then, he replaced the metal ring with my Memaw's old wedding ring (except the diamond was missing). That was so special to me because myMemaw meant the world to me and she left me her wedding ring when she passed away. So I closed my eyes and shortly the car came to a stop and he got out. He came around got me out of the car walked me a few steps and told me open my eyes. I opened my eyes to see us standing in the parking lot where we first met for impact (incoming freshman christian camp at A&M). He didn't waste too much time there after he talked about how we met and claims he schooled me in four square (which we know isn't true). Then he just got down on one knee and asked me to be his wife (it was obvious he was slightly nervous). And I said YES! So he replaced my Memaw's wedding ring with a very beautiful engagement ring. It's a round cut solitaire (the diamond being the one from my Memaw's ring). Everything was so perfect for me, the proposal the ring, HIM!

I woke up this morning in disbelief. The beautiful ring on my finger quickly reassured me it wasn't a dream. I am engaged to the love of my life. I know we're young but honestly this is the most God centered relationship I have ever been in. He is nothing I was looking for, because he is more than I could imagine.

(Also I would like to shout out to the beautiful ladies who helped Daniel. Even though you are all secret keepers, I love you for it!)

But they will never know, that I will never forget...

I have always lived by the assumption that if I do not leave my mark on people, if I do not change lives, I have failed at truly living. I don't know how many lives I have touched or how many people could honestly say their lives would be worse off had I not been born. I don't think that is something I will ever know but I have come to peace with that. I may never see the harvest of the seeds I plant today but the God I serve is faithful.

I have images of the children from the communities, in Zambia, stuck in my head. Faces that I can't seem to forget, of children I may never see again, are running through my head. These children have planted seeds of hope in my heart. They have planted seeds that will change my character into a better woman God. Thats something they will never know. So, I have hope. Hope, that I am planting seeds, despite not seeing the harvest.