Shelley

Hello friends, supporters, and interested readers,

It's about time I let you all in on a part of my life with whom God has been growing me in awesome ways since early January when I left for Costa Rica.

You see, unbeknownst to much of the world, Shelley and I had spent the past two and a half years with a growing interest in each other, but until now, had purposely never crossed the boundary of friendship within the community group we were both closely involved with.  We hugged and said goodbye as close affectionate friends, but knew we were headed into closer relationship, finally feeling the blessing of God to start growing and fostering a relationship with each other that would add to our close friendship.  

And over Costa Rica, God did that very thing.  He has led us both into growing close with each other, and learning the roles each of us plays in God revealing His love to the other, and we've been seriously blessed simply because of God's abundant fatherly love that we simply get to experience on His merit alone.  

But there's a time for telling of histories, and I want to let you all in on the way things are going between Shelley and I today.

Over the past month since I've been back, I've been kind of in transition, awaiting employment, and left with "so much time and so little to do," as far as busy work is concerned, which has left some awesome time to explore with Shelley both the awesome activities we love to do together and the inner workings of how we interact.  We frequent things such as chasing photos, climbing, anything outdoors and exploratory, REI, the Oakridge Disciple House on Thursday nights, and dancing to her dad's band, the Hot Texas Swing Band.  But we're also learning a lot about each other, how we manage time spent with each other, how we handle and approach conflict, how we dance together, how we each relate with God, and how to best love each other and direct our hearts to our first true love, Jesus Christ.  

And yet the resounding theme in the whole relationship is the posture of our hearts, which is what our satisfaction depends entirely on.  And we've learned that that involves keeping our eyes, our hopes, our desires, keeping the source of our satisfaction, looking to the one who fills every desire in our hearts who is Jesus.  And keeping our hearts set on Jesus has been the number one most relevant and most involved work in our relationship, and that which drives everything else.  We're continually finding ourselves repenting for not abiding in Jesus, and we both see the effects in our heart of not abiding in Jesus almost immediately reflected in our relationship with each other.  Whether that be leaning on each other, selfish desires, or an unhealthy pull to want more of each other before its appointed time, they all begin to surface when we realize that God is patiently yet firmly calling our eyes back to Him.  

And that's what I personally need prayer for in our relationship.  Pray again that Jesus would be the deepest desire and motivation of my heart, and that Shelley and I's relationship would grow into its right place as a means to that end, not as a distraction to that end, as it can so easily be. 

p.s. As always, you should all go look at her blog, and like her business page on facebook