I've Been Waiting My Whole Life for This!

Would you believe that in the last year I have experienced more "firsts" in my life than I ever thought possible?  

The truth is that nearly every day brings an opportunity for a "first" if my eyes are open in childlike wonder to them. I want to be like my four-year-old student who exclaimed when it finally snowed this January for the first time in his memory: "I've been waiting my whole life for this!" And he quite literally had!

But in order to have this joy in the new I have to welcome the fringes of my comfort zone.

I have to keep my priorities sturdy enough to motivate me yet soft enough to be moldable by the Holy Spirit.

I have to never lose a child's zest for exploration.

So maybe today's first is as seemingly banal as going to a new cafe or reading a new book, but it might be as life-changing as meeting a friend for the first time or starting a new job.  I should celebrate all of these firsts with child-like joy: I've been waiting my whole life for this!  So here is me choosing to celebrate:

1. As Mikaela already alluded to, I became an auntie!  I could type ferociously for an hour on how adorable I believe my nephew is and I could bog down your internet with pictures by the hundreds, but since Mikaela already promised some of that for next week, suffice it to say that I am in love.  And when I met him at only a few weeks old, I could hardly let him go. 

2. Last September a lifelong dream came true the moment I stepped onto a plane bound for the UK.  This unbelievable dream of a trip to Ireland, England, and Scotland brought:   
a cascade of first-time experiences {first time to use my passport!}
a flood of delight {charming castles by the side of the road!}
an insatiable wanderlust {can I move to Scotland?}
and an awe at this great world God has created {the world never before seemed so reachable yet so vast at the same time}.  

Here is just a taste of my two weeks:

 First time touching the Atlantic Ocean {in Scotland, no less!}

                        First time realizing what it feels like to step into a storybook castle...

 Devotions at sunrise in Edinburgh with an amazing group of people

Threave Castle.  First love. 

Edinburgh, my favorite city in the world.

 My travel partner in the most amazing trip ever! 

What wonderful memories we made together.

3. Some firsts I've recently experienced aren't so delightful as a trip to Europe or a new nephew, but nevertheless they have shaped the story of my life these last months: things like being sick on Christmas Day for the first time, or having my bank account information and $1500 stolen from me, or being a passerby in the street at the perfectly wrong moment and getting pepper-sprayed in the face.  But if those tiny drops of suffering soften me to be moldable by the Holy Spirit, then they are just as important and needed as the sunny days of joy.

4. 2016 in itself is a brand new experience with no mistakes in it yet!  January is already old news--folded up and shelved--and February is swiftly joining, but here is what I want to remember this year for all the firsts that await:

I've been waiting my whole life for this.  
What firsts have you experienced lately?

It's So Nice to See You Again!

Suddenly, it has been 227 days, 8 hours, and 19 minutes since I last posted here. In that time, my firstborn has arrived! Does the exhaustion of the last two months of pregnancy, the haze of recovering from labor, and the steep learning curve of being a new mother excuse me from my unplanned absence? 

I debated about whether I should just post as if everything was normal (sort of sliding into my desk in the back of the classroom, hoping the teacher doesn't notice my tardiness), or whether I should call attention to my long silence by announcing: "I'm back!" 

I've missed writing and am elated to be at it again. Furthermore, as I was coming up with my new and improved bio (read it under the "about us" tab if for no other reason than the fact that it contains a picture of my son!), I realized just how much of my life this blog has encompassed. This month marks the 7th year that One Bright Corner has been around, which is nearly a third of my life--and certainly the most eventful seven years of my life. It's a record of events and thoughts and trivial interests and lots of growth for which I am so grateful, and a record I am so excited to continue.

Look for new posts most every Friday around here. Lauren will be posting next week, and in two weeks I'll be back with heaps of pictures and as many words as I can manage to describe the birth of Liam and how he made me a mother.

Looking Back and Looking Forward

Six years ago, on this exact day, we posted our very first post to "One Bright Corner." Since then, it's been an unforgettable experience. Through blogging, we've made friends with ladies we still keep in touch with to this day (we love you Keilah and Charae!), and we've gotten to know in-real-life friends all the better (we love you Elanee and Ruthie!). We got to ride the wild ride of being named Blogger's Blog of Note and have had the privilege of having many thoughtful people contribute to "One Bright Corner" in the form of guest posts.

We started our very first post only a year out of high school with so many events unexperienced, so many lessons unlearned, so many plans for the future, and so much love for writing. We've now completed 500 posts and find ourselves six years older with many experiences, lessons, and plans fulfilled. Yet life keeps rolling, the learning keeps happening, and our love for writing never wanes! We're so grateful for you, our dear readers, for supporting us, reading what we put up here (the good, the bad, and the ugly!), commenting, following, and sharing. Your encouragement is such a treasure.

Nine inches of snow and a week of temperatures in the single digits and teens have left Maryland a very frigid place (at least in comparison to the verdant, spring-like Washington State!). But good things do come of such weather: meet Hugo, the gentleman snowman. Isn't he cool? (Pun intended.)

Baby and I are now 17 weeks into the pregnancy and doing very well! Here, at his 14-week ultrasound, you can see him waving to his Mama and Papa, which of course prompted tears of joy, love, and awe. Is this truly our baby, already so perfectly formed yet so tiny, whom we'll get to hold in 23 weeks? Can he really begin to hear us now, with his fully developed ears, as the doctors tell us he can? What should we name him? Is that his tiny foot I feel, or merely lunch digesting? How can I love a little being so much, when I have yet to meet him or even know his name?

Becoming a parent is an incredible experience!

Small Beginnings

Life these days is measured not so much in dates or days, but weeks. Every week brings prosaic tasks and ordinary living, and in those tasks and living I find new awe, for each week also brings new milestones for the baby and I and brings Joel and I closer to the day when we can meet our baby and hold him* and love on him. This week, he has grown to the size of a peach, which is adorable. I am told that my morning sickness should begin to dissipate (would someone please alert my stomach?). We're creeping through a baby name book (there is no short list of favored names yet; all we have is a very long list of mostly girls' names since we have yet to reach the boys' name section); I'm adding to my maternity clothing stash (thanks in large part to Mama!); and I've read enough on baby feeding, umbilical cord clamping, and labor and delivery to know that I have a huge amount to learn in the next six months. It's a happy task!

Joel and I have also been taking advantage of the quietness of DC in the winter to visit museums (Smithsonian Postal Museum was excellent!) and monuments (we're partial to the Lincoln Memorial, since it was the location of our engagement almost two years ago). Truly, "the world will never starve for want of wonders, but for want of wonder {G.K. Chesterton}."

Snow has been a regular occurrence of late, and three beautiful inches currently cover the ground outside. I've been highly tempted to go build a snowman!

This city continues to entrance me with its 250 year old buildings and adorable tea shops. Exploring is always an adventure, and while I've gotten pretty good at walking anywhere within a 3 mile radius, please don't ask me to navigate the multitude of one-way streets by car!

I'm looking forward to teaching music again--I've missed teaching and my dear students so much! So it is with great delight that I'm taking on three siblings from a sweet family at church.

Small beginnings, these. And yet God is so faithful to grow them. He grew a childish admiration into a marriage more wonderful than I could have imagined--and which long-married couples tell me will only grow better. He is growing me to rely upon Him in a place so far from where I called "home" for the first 24 years of my life and so removed from everything comfortable and familiar. Yet He is also growing my friends, activities, and familiarity here, so that I no longer find new and overwhelming experiences every week. And, of course, He's growing this precious child of ours. From two small cells, full of life and humanity even then, to three inches long now and more complex than man can understand.

These small beginnings are beauties to me--miracles which "are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole world in letters too large for some of us to see {C.S. Lewis}." What small beginnings and miracles have you experienced in your life lately?

*We’re not planning to find out his gender until the birth, but I refer to the baby as a “he” for no other reason than ease of communication (grammatically speaking, the masculine pronoun is always used when the gender is unknown).

For Everything...Thank You

Dear Lauren,

How long ago my last post seems--as though a lifetime of living and a full capacity of changes have transpired in the intervening 7 weeks. In that time, we spent two family vacations together...

We turned 24 together...

We attended two bridal showers together...

We planned, we organized, we stressed, we talked, we laughed, we cried, we stayed awake, stayed awake, stayed awake (keep calm and don't sleep!). Not just you and I, of course--you and I and Mama and Melanie and Susanna and Sarah. Somehow in the past seven weeks, we lived life fully, crazily, intentionally, and beautifully.

I'm still smiling over the "Hen Party" (the Brit term for a bachelorette party) you all threw for me.

And I'm still crying over the speech you gave at my wedding.

Wedding? Did I forget to mention that somehow--by the grace of God and a whole lot of cheerful elbow grease from my dear family and friends--Joel and I were married on August 30? Yes, I know you were there--my rock as always--but you know I just can't help mentioning it in case anyone eavesdropping on this letter might not realize.

A more beautiful, precious day I couldn't possibly fantasize. Everything about that day was an emblem of love--the incredible love I felt from you and Papa and Mama and Melanie and Susanna and Micah and Jonah and Sarah and so many other dear family and friends. And of course and especially, the day served as a covenant between Joel and I and God of our love and commitment to one another.

Yes, I know you know all about that too. And the honeymoon in the San Juan Islands; I showed you pictures of that perfect week, didn't I? The week in which hardly anything went wrong and God blessed us above and beyond what we could imagine? While I was relaxing and enjoying marital bliss, there you and the rest of my family were back home, packing up wedding decorations, packing up wedding supplies, packing up wedding clothes, packing up wedding rentals, packing up wedding purchases, packing up borrowed wedding items. And then you packed me up, lock, stock, and barrel--packed my room, my clothes, my books, my junk, my dishes, my gifts, my everything, so that by the time Joel and I returned from our honeymoon, my room was cleaner than it had been in months and strangely empty. What a labor of love that was, and it continues to awe me.

And then, after a lifetime of happily dreaming over brides and flowers and dresses, and three months of bustling employment and overloaded schedules, the long-dreaded morning dawned, and suddenly I was saying goodbye to all of you. I cried intermittently throughout the cross-country trip. I am overjoyed to be Joel's wife and to be with him at long last, yet heartbroken to be 3000 miles away from my family. It is a wonderful, beautiful, happy time, and a sad, difficult, bittersweet time too. 

I have a Maryland driver's license (with my new last name!) and address now, a cute little yellow house to call home, a welcoming and kind church body, and the most wonderful, amazing husband with whom I am madly in love. Over the next couple of weeks, I will be delighted to share hundreds of pictures and scores of memories from the whirlwind wedding weekend until anyone still reading this corner of the internet cries "Please! No More!"(yes--"One Bright Corner" is officially resuming weekly Tuesday posts).

That can wait, however. I'm writing you this morning because I love and miss you and Papa and Mama and Melanie, Susanna, Micah, and Jonah. Thank you so much for all the love you poured into me and all the sacrifices you made for me. I love you all!

Love,

{Right Now I Am}

Seeing...my messy bedroom
Hearing...the swoosh of air through my vent
Smelling...smoke on my clothes from tonight's bonfire
Tasting...my s'more!
Needing...sleep
Wanting...this shirt
Regretting...not finding music earlier for a duet with Micah.
Feeling...tired
Wishing...I was with Joel.
Thinking...about Joel
Laughing...with my siblings at how stupid I looked in Fred Meyer this evening as I uttered several sentences in a busy aisle. The strange glances from fellow shoppers caused me to look around and realize that Lauren was not behind me as I had thought, and I was talking out loud to myself.
Recovering...from an energy-sucking cold.
Believing...God is good!
Anticipating...my wedding!
Dreaming...about seeing Joel
Praying...for the freedom of Meriam Ibrahim
Reading...Love Letters from Cell 92: The Correspondence Between Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Maria von Wedemeyer, 1943-45

Singing..."All Hail the Power of Jesus' Name"
Wearing...a coral swiss dot skirt with a bright teal t-shirt
Preparing... for my students' recital this Friday
Remembering...my fun Saturday in Seattle with dear friends this weekend
Trying...the gluten-free diet (a month into it now!)
Questioning...the Scriptural soundness of the popular "I-went-to-heaven-and-came-back" stories
Fearing...to open the letter from my library. I knew I should have returned that book sooner!
Loving...Joel

Googling...swiss dot *grin* I had to make sure it meant what I thought it meant!
Choosing...to see the bright side of the 80-plus days that remain between now and the wedding
Working...with darling children and one charming 88 year-old man as students is the best job ever
Emailing...my dad (is anyone else guilty of emailing someone in the same house?)
Sewing...nothing. That's the problem--I have a scarf, a dress, and a camisole I should be sewing!
Texting...I hardly text : )
Cracking...my ankle 
Considering...wedding invitations
Turning...certain responsibilities over to others. Delegation is not my strong suit, but I can see it is going to be essential to survive the next few months!
Reducing...my summer schedule
Longing...to see Joel
Suffering...from regular headaches but glad to be free of them today
Recognizing...that I am only responsible for my actions--but I am responsible for my actions.
Checking...with wedding photographers
Organizing...the recital, my wedding, my last month of teaching, and where my students will go for lessons after I'm done
Practicing...patience
Reckoning...how many hours of sleep I'll get tonight
and
Smiling... about how blessed I am.

Idea taken from Olivia at Fresh Modesty

♥ Thinking about February ♥

February generally gains its glory in chocolate and hearts, leap years, and something called a “Super bowl” {whatever that is}. Around here, it memorialized itself in snow, a conference, two get-aways, concerts, and definitely an ample dose of chocolate and hearts!

You’ve already heard about the Piano Guys’ concert, which started the month off in a rousing fashion. That same week, we were covered in 10” of white, fluffy snow that lasted five days. While the East Coast, the Midwest, eastern Washington, and…OK, everywhere but the South…chuckles at the Northwest’s inept greenness when it comes to living with snow, suffice it to say that this was “The Big Snow of ‘14” and shut down the entire area. 

Micah and Mikaela in the snow!

Lauren and Papa teaching at the Creation Conference

 We continued as planned, however, with a local Creation Conference, largely helping in the children’s program, which Melanie directed for the third time. Despite the snow and an understandably smaller group of attendees, it was a great weekend. A symphony concert happened in there too—though it was postponed several days because the weather was so bad {if you’re not a southerner, please refer to the previous paragraph before mocking our snow squeamishness}.

Susanna and Papa acting in a Star Trek-themed play

 Now I may not have seen a football game in my life, but the Olympics are our Super bowl. Our obsession means that every free night for the 17 days of games, we troop over to Ron and Sandi’s house and have a grand party. We don’t just watch the games, though. We act as though we are sitting in the stands, as though our cheers, shouts, and nail biting are actually helping the cause of the athletes. Bodie Miller, the skier, has grown up! And Noelle Pikus-Pace, the skeleton racer, made us laugh and cry at the same time when she jumped into the stands to kiss her babies and her husband after her silver medal winning race. The good sportsmanship of Shawn White was wonderful to see, and I’ve completely changed my mind for the better about Evgeni Plushenko, the Russian figure skater. But don’t get me started about the US men’s hockey team. “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all,” says Thumper and my mom, so I’ll keep quiet.

Papa, Lauren, Susanna, and Melanie

 Meanwhile, we went skiing for a few days at Mt. Bachelor, along with our awesome cousin Cody. He, Micah, and Susanna looked like the boarders and skiers competing for gold, but the rest of us were just happy to enjoy the occasional black diamond, going fast, and getting a foot of air every so often.

Jonah!

February has also been a month of waiting as Joel completed a 2.5-week research project for a potential job at the beginning of the month. We hope and pray every single day that this will be the employment God has for him, but we’re also so grateful for all that God has taught us and worked in us during this time of waiting! Regardless of the outcome, it will be for our good.

On the spur of the moment, Mama took her daughters to a women’s retreat last weekend, where we savored the rich fellowship of friends old and new and soaked in the Truth that Mrs. Nancy Campbell was teaching: life is a battle—but through God, there is victory in that battle!

Today marks 30 years of marriage for my dear parents—happy anniversary Mama and Papa! And wait! The month isn’t over yet! Do you think there’s still room for more adventures in February? What are you looking forward to? And what filled your February?