My Year of Yellow

My life was consumed in my twenties by my ministry job which was devoted to helping people. It was hard but fulfilling work, and I didn’t have a lot of energy, time, or money outside of it to have much of a life or to develop hobbies. My color-coded schedule in my google calendar represented the major categories of my life: blue for work, red for church, green for finances, and yellow for fun. There was very little yellow in my calendar.

So at the end of my twenties I decided to change that.

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The Gift of Sex, by Clifford and Joyce Penner

This book was given to me by a friend at my bachelorette party. She called it a “classic” although it had only been published in 2003 and I’d never heard of it before. But the more I read, the more I could see how The Gift of Sex could easily become one of those “classic” books that get gifted at bachelorette parties, much like What to Expect When You’re Expecting being a staple at baby showers.

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Couple on retreat

Couples Retreat

A friend of mine once told me that thousands of years ago in Israel, newlywed couples would retreat for a year to get acquainted with one another. They’d be isolated from the people they knew, leaving behind the former ties and making new ones with their spouse, before re-emerging in their society as a couple united in mind and purpose.

I don’t know where she got her information, and whether it was historically true or not, and generally I thought something like that was kinda unnecessary in the day and age (and the type of society) where couples actually do know each other very well before getting hitched. But something about it drew me to the idea because I was in the kind of long-distance relationship that didn’t allow for us to be around each other very much in normal everyday experiences. We talked a lot on Skype, and I was sure that he was the right guy for me, but I knew that sharing a home and a life would be a hard transition for a couple who couldn’t act like a couple most of the time and who essentially turned back into independent people as soon as the computer screens closed or as soon as one of them got back on a plane to go home.

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Hiking in mountains

Mountains of Decisions, part 2

Prologue from part 1:

I am not a hiker. And though I appreciate the beauty of green and flowering things from behind the glass of a window, I’m not even really that fond of being outdoors. So I was surprised to discover that the image that came to me year after year as an analogy to describe my life, was a mountain. Complete with hiking trails.


The second time this mountain imagery came up, I had already decided to sign on full time with the ministry I’d been part of for 6 years. I’d been offered the choice to move to another city in a nearby state, or to stay at the campus I knew and loved. They asked me to pray about it, and when I did, the same mountain image emerged from my subconscious. Only this time, there were two ways up the mountain.

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Internet Dating

Online Dating Your Way

I met my husband on Match.com. It feels so weird to admit that, even though the stigma about online dating has decreased over the years. It doesn’t help that Match doesn’t have the shiniest of reputations when you put it up against eHarmony’s long and trusted compatibility process. But hey, eHarmony was more expensive, it took a lot longer before they let you communicate with potential dates, and my original goal was not yet to fall in love but to go on as many dates as I could to practice dating before upgrading to finding true love on eHarmony. I never actually got that far, though. I ironically found my Love on the website with a hook-up reputation.

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The Present Moment

I have a difficult time staying in and enjoying the present moment. Always looking ahead to the next “season” to be a little better: when I’ll finally have enough money to buy more than the essentials, when we can finally move out of this apartment, when I can finally get that degree. Of course, goals are a good thing, and it’s great to have things to look forward to, but when I only look ahead I miss out on the beauty of now.

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Tools for adventure

A New Adventure Begins!

Adventurous isn’t quite the word most people would use to describe me. Before attempting something new, I err on the side of caution, make pros and cons lists, calculate the potential risks, and run it by a handful of trusted advisors. But even with all of that, there comes a point where I must make a decision without having all of the information. And if I do decide “Yes,” then that is an adventure to me.

So it is with beginning a blog.

In reality, the decision has been a year in the making, but this first post marks the official beginning of my latest “Yes.” Let the newest adventure begin!

 

Image by Dariusz Sankowski from Pixabay.