loving someone in a way that your heart feels so much it hurts, like it’s going to burst in a mess of crazy, painful, overflowing joy.
Taking photos of the beautiful @mirwin13 today with Ms. @elisabethhuijskens
Looking up from my computer to see this guy working on wedding stuff in front of me. In 11 days, he’s mine forever. 😍 #somanyryanphotos #itsokcuzimgettingmarried
Guys! Ryan and I are taking a moment before our vows to share with each other our hearts and to praise Jesus for his faithfulness in our lives. It is some incredibly personal and emotional stuff. But together, with my vows alone, it is 7 minutes long. I cannot bear to take anything out…..it’s all so important to me. but I know this is ridiculously long. Have any of you been to a wedding where they did this? Do you think it is acceptable to have long vows or should I really just shorten them? Thoughts??
Going through old and new photos and reading our letters while writing my vows. Me bawling in the middle of Booksamillion is creeping people out, so I’ve now resorted to finishing them locked in my room. :)
Going through old blog entries makes me sick. honestly, the person who was Chelsie 4 years ago was so full of life and opinions, richness and fullness. She overflowed with grace and understood the heart of her savior. She looked at people with love, because she had learned to see herself and others through the eyes of redeeming blood. As I read through my blog entries, I see where the change happened. I actually see when I gave up up grace and where I allowed Satan shape me into a pillar of hardness and resentment ……and it breaks my heart.
I have come out of sorrow and into a season of joy, but shaking off numbness is a process. I am called to confidently approach the throne of grace, to allow grace to permeate me in a way that causes my sin to not even matter, to stop dwelling on the things I loathe about myself, to fix my eyes on my savior and him only. When I can love myself the way Jesus does, I know my hardness will leave and I will love those around me in the way I was created to.
In this new season, I will allow nothing to stop me from pursuing a life that abundantly lives out the grace of my Jesus. I will not allow the guilt of my sin to damage the beautiful future planned for me. I will not allow the weight of my sin to destroy the ministry of my husband either. Jesus took the weight of my sin…he took my stupid quirks….my idiosyncrasies …my guilt…my shame….and to continue feeling this does not glorify the one who took it for me. Jesus deserves nothing less and Ryan deserves nothing less than a woman filled with grace.
Marry your best friend. I do not say that lightly. Really, truly find the strongest, happiest friendship in the person you fall in love with. Someone who speaks highly of you. Someone you can laugh with. The kind of laughs that make your belly ache, and your nose snort. The embarrassing, earnest, healing kind of laughs. Wit is important. Life is too short not to love someone who lets you be a fool with them. Make sure they are somebody who lets you cry, too. Despair will come. Find someone that you want to be there with you through those times. Most importantly, marry the one that makes passion, love, and madness combine and course through you. A love that will never dilute - even when the waters get deep, and dark.
The Dune Shacks of Peaked Bars Historic District.
From The Provincetown Design Group:
Nestled into the ever-shifting shapes of the Province Lands dunes, they are primitive in structure, but surrounded by a rare sort of richness – the mesmerizing environment of the ever-changing dunes, great undulations of sand that are constantly swept by the ocean’s winds into new shapes and that have long been a place of withdrawal for artists, eccentrics, writers and Cape residents.
Since the mid 1990s, area non-profits have offered solitude in the dunes to writers, artists, scientists, historians, musicians, and dancers through summer and fall shack residency programs.
Photos by Chris Seufert, Paul Neumann, Debra Bacon, and Stephanie Foster.
(via bittenails)
What is your view on sex before marriage? —Anonymous
I believe that God gave us sex as a beautiful gift of intimacy, but one that provides the most tremendous results when used for his purposes within marriage. I believe that sex outside of marriage dilutes the true meaning of what Jesus intended it to be, a way to experience pleasure and intimacy with one that you committed your life to. (though there is obviously grace…Jesus is such a loving God and he forgives and restores. So please don’t translate my beliefs as judgement). I also believe that sex is so spiritual, so it is the most satisfying when used with your spouse.
Ryan and I have made the choice to wait for sex until marriage, and it has been the most hard and the most rewarding decision we have ever made. It has honestly made us so close, and I trust Ryan so much because I know how self controlled he has been in order to honor me and put God first. It has also allowed us to make Jesus the center of our relationship, instead of getting distracted by the physical.
We are so happy that we made the personal decision to wait until after our wedding to be intimate. I really do think Jesus gave us sex as such a spiritual and pleasurable thing - and I am so, so, so excited to have the blessing of experiencing sex with such a hot husband on May 27th! ;)
We found the apartment!! And somehow, it was cheaper to sign the lease now. So, even though we will not be moving in together until after we get married, we officially are renting an apartment that is ours! It’s little and cute and has a balcony and lots of windows. Its the biggest thing that’s ever been “ours” and I love you and it and all the beautiful memories we will have in it.
Apartment hunting with this cute guy!
Me being tired from wedding stuff
and my sister (light-house-keeper.tumblr.com)being creepy. :)
how are you djing your own wedding? what dance songs did you end up including? —Anonymous
Basically you use a really good DJ app and cut all the dead space out of every song. Then you transition songs before the ending, so there is no dead space between any songs, and pre-record all your music playing with the transitions and sound snippets you want. Get speakers and a good computer when at the venue, hook them up, and hit play. I will have someone man it all night and watch it - but it should be ready after I finish it.
Oh goodness….I have three hours of songs, no way I can list them all! Basically all the popular dance songs were included in my playlist. I want people to know the song, which will make them feel more comfortable dancing to it. I love to dance, so the songs are definitely more current. I chose most top 100 dance & hip hop songs that are played in clubs - but I of course chose songs that were clean, edited, and did not contain overtly sexual lyrics. :)
DJing my own wedding is harder than I thought and there have been a whole lot of tears tonight. But, at the end of cutting and editing music and adding sirens and foghorns, and listening to Justin Bieber’s voice bleed into JT’s, I’ve decided that I should definitely be a professional DJ. In the middle of my wedding, I may just run up to my computer and start scratching proverbial records.
Happy Mother’s Day to the most world changing lady I know! From homeschooling all of her kids, to empowering women all over the world, to traveling to foreign countries, to training up church planters, to serving in ministry, my mom has shown me what it means to be a godly woman who looks to Jesus for strength. (Did I mention that she’s preaching the message today??) I am so proud to have been raised by such a fun, crazy, faithful, and godly woman
