A Psalm/Prayer

O God, my God, You are the God of
Death to life
Chains to freedom
Brokenness to healing
Guilt to forgiveness.
You are the God who brings breath to dry bones; hope to a people without hope.

Lord, come and bring Your divine exchange to my life.
Awaken things within me that have been sleeping.
Let me wipe away the dust of complacency from my eyes.
Rinse away that which tricks me into thinking I can't come close to you.
Instead give me urgency, vision, and boldness.

Breathe, breathe, breathe into me!
Fill me with Your breath of life.
Let hope saturate my blood and flow through my veins;
always multiplying and bringing life to dead and broken places.

O God, My God, You are the God of nothing into something;
Come and bring Your divine upside downs into my life.

I want to be awake and alive!!!

I'm smitten...well, more than that actually

I've been dating a wonderful, funny, talented man who loves Jesus (!!!) for almost 10 months now and yet some of you don't know anything about him because I don't write about him that much.

Well, I think it's time that I write about our relationship. I've held back in the past for several reasons:

No one wants to hear mushy relationship stuff all the time.

I'm not one of those people who stake their whole personality and life off of another person and wouldn't want to worry anyone.

I'm busy.

With that being said, here I go... complete with timeline appropriate photos.

First, here's some basic info about Nate:

He's a junior theatre major/ religion and philosophy minor who recently discovered his natural ability to interpret Greek and his love of Biblical studies. He's been a camp counselor tons! He's from Norco, CA. He plays drums and guitar. He's tall. He's awkward like me!

Nate and Sam: The Abridged Version

Nate and I had been close friends for two years before we started dating. We dated very briefly freshmen year (about 2 weeks) before I decided that the constant nauseous feeling I had was because I didn't have peace about being in this relationship. We broke up and I said, "I still want to be friends." Which was TRUE. I knew that though I couldn't be in a relationship with him that I had found a really great friend.

After about 2 days of post-break up awkwardness we couldn't handle it and forged ahead in our friendship.

From that point onward we had lots and lots of DTR's (the Sterling term for 'define the relationship'--this means going for a walk or sitting on park benches and talking about where each person is at and how they feel about the other person). Mostly they were caused by Nate really wanting to date me, me liking Nate but not liking Nate, me not wanting to be in a relationship, Nate respecting that, us remaining at our 'just friend' status. The DTR's varied between being hard, annoying, stressful, hilarious, and great.

God used that year and a half or so to draw us closer to Him and mature us. We also grew in our friendship.

In that time we:

Made up lots of inside jokes

Went on Choir tours together (see left: Nate and David-my two favorite guys. Enacting a scene from Baywatch in CA)

Won a swing dance competition

Played in praise band together

Had late night talks in the union

Hung out with my family

Hung out with our friends.

And just had fun!

And the best part is that the core of our relationship is our friendship. This past June we decided to date(there are so many different terms people use-courtship, dating, etc. I think the best way to explain it is that from the start we took our relationship seriously. We felt strongly that it could head towards marriage but still wanted to enjoy 'dating' and getting to know each other even more.) It was amazing to see how God prepared us to be in a deeper relationship with one another.

Nate is a huge blessing in my life. He is a confidant, someone who understands and shares my random sense of humor, and a wild man; he strives to be who God made him to be and won't be tamed by others.

Nate is also a great spiritual leader. He reminds me of the truth when I need to hear it. He prays for me and with me when I am discouraged. He constantly reminds me with his words and actions of God's love and mercy. I'm excited for whatever God has for us! As the famous line from the 80's said it, "The future is so bright, I've got to wear shades."

Here are some more pictures of us: