one wedding and a scripture

Last night, Ethan, Sam, and I went to Austin and Lilibeth's wedding. Austin and Lilibeth are our college small group leaders from Austin New Church. When I say small group, I mean it. There are only seven of us, and I absolutely adore it. God has truly blessed us with this small group. Not only has He opened up opportunities to meet other God loving people our own age and build relationships with them, to serve our city with our group, and brought Ethan and I to Austin New Church, but Austin and Lilibeth truly have been the most supportive and inspirational leaders we have the honor of calling our friends. Ethan and I went through a bit of a rough patch in our relationship this past fall and Austin and Lilibeth were there for us 100% and have kept us in their prayers and have been such an awesome example of a fun loving, God honoring, totally in love couple. They have shown us what all of our hard work in our relationship with each other, and more importantly our relationship with God will bring us. We couldn't be more excited for them as they open this next chapter of their lives that God has blessed them with and we are so excited to continue on our own journey with their support behind us.

If I had to pick one thing that I have learned from Austin and Lilibeth over the past months, is that relationships are so so so important. Whether it be with God, Ethan, my family, my friends, strangers, people in need, anyone... It's God's purpose for us to take opportunities to build relationships in His name and truly love people. One of my biggest faults is that I am very shy when I first meet people and sometimes I let that nervousness that someone might not like me prevent me from building a relationship. Or, I let busyness or laziness get in the way of feeding my relationships and its simply not an excuse. I have by no means righted this fault of mine, but I have recognized it and am working towards the goal. My goal to love Ethan as God wants me to love him; my goal to love my family above and beyond what they deserve; my goal to love the friends I have and be outgoing enough to build new friendships; my goal to stop my anxiety from reaching out and loving people as Christ reached out to love me.

I'm not saying that I have this all together, that I have it made. But I am well on my way, reaching out for Christ, who has so wondrously reached out for me. Friends, don't get me wrong: By no means do I count myself an expert in all of this, but I've got my eye on the goal, where God is beckoning us onward—to Jesus. I'm off and running, and I'm not turning back.

Philippians 3:12-14 (Message)

over and out.