1st Anniversary

Yesterday, was our first anniversary!  I personally think that is a great milestone.  Not that I didn't think we could make it, I knew we could, it's just that I didn't come close to a first anniversary with my first marriage and it makes me appreciate this one so much more.

We left town for the weekend and enjoyed a relaxing time in the hill country of Texas.  It was perfect.

Our "cabin"

These deer were about 10-15 yards away.

Peeking over the ledge

My handsome man.

Guadalupe River

Relaxing

I was there too!

I am so blessed to have married this man.  God brought him into my life and I couldn't be happier.  I'm looking forward to many more anniversaries with him!

Addition

In my last post I told you about how we had our plan, but God had His.  The plan that was changed was about making some more room for us.  When we purchased our one bedroom home back in November, we knew we would either eventually add on to the house or build another house on the acreage that we bought along with the house.  To create some more room for our stuff, our plan for the time being was to build a shed to put all our tools and yard equipment in and finish out the existing shed for other stuff that we would like to move out there from the house.  We've talked about it since purchasing the home and about two weeks ago we decided to proceed with that plan.  That's when we learned that God wasn't letting that happen like we wanted.  We ran into different issues and it was extremely vexing.  We then began to think about what it would look like to actually add a room onto the house.  We called the man (the former owner) who originally built our house and he thought it would be fairly easy and agreed to help us.  That solved one of our problems!  We also figured that we would add value to the house by adding a second bedroom and we would eventually recoup our initial cost.  This plan seems to be the direction that God wanted us to go in the first place because things are beginning to proceed.  The guys spent a couple of hours last night building forms for the foundation, there is still lots of work to be done before the concrete arrives, but at least it is a start!

I'll probably add more pictures as things continue, to document the progress of the construction.  This is a big undertaking, but as with most things, we think it will be worth it.

Randomness time.  Here are a couple of quotes that I heard last week that made me stop and think.  They are both by my favorite author, Elisabeth Elliot. 

Whatever happens is assigned, my assignment entails my willing acceptance of my portion.

The secret is Christ in me, not me in a different set of circumstances.

Have a good week!

Plans

Mr. E and I have been talking a lot about our plans for our future.  At the end of last year, literally on December 31st, we wrote down what we thought this next year would bring and what we wanted to accomplish.  However, it seems as if whenever I try to plan something, inevitably, those plans will change.  That has been a recurring theme in my life for the past five years.  Sometimes those changes are seem good and sometimes they don't seem good.  Sometimes those changes create a domino effect and alter other things in your life.  I think God puts a stop to plans that He knows won't be beneficial to us.  That was the case this weekend.  Mr. E had been planning on doing some projects at our home and it just wasn't working out way that we thought it should have.  After we both got frustrated, we sat back and did some re-thinking and praying and we kinda felt like God wanted us to perhaps go a different direction.  We still aren't sure if our conclusion is the plan that we need to go ahead with, but having to stop what our plans were, started me thinking.  I thought of the verse, Proverbs 16:9, The mind of man plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps.

We can plan all we want to, but because the Lord directs our steps, those plans can or will change.  Instead of getting frustrated, like I did this weekend, I need to realize that God knows what is best for us.  He knows the way that will direct us in the way that He wants for us, not the way that I think is best for us.  A concept that I find very difficult to grasp.