The Decade Before

Depending on what time of day you're reading this, you can close your eyes {which makes it hard it read, I know} and imagine your two favorite Shaffers cooped up in a car trekking to Florida for a WEDDING. Because four years ago right now, we were in the middle of doing just that.

 We played games and drank extraordinarily large amounts of coffee and pulled over at a rest stop for a quick 3 hour nap before resuming our trek.

And if you're reading this in the late morning or around noon, you can imagine us stuck in traffic for three hours, with no access to a bathroom or lunch. You can imagine a bride-to-be crying because she thinks all her cakes are going to melt in the backseat when she is literally less than five miles from her destination.

If you're reading this in the afternoon, you can imagine us taking our first peek at the beach where, in one day, we would exchange vows, or you can imagine me curled up on a bed trying to sleep off the sick yuck that came over me after 24 hours in a car with little sleep.

{You can also read all those fun stories here if you'd like.}

If you're reading this in the evening, you can imagine us at our "rehearsal dinner," which was a gathering of the family and friends who had come to town, all packed into the little condo where my parents were staying, eating delicious snacks prepared by a handful of my friends back at home.

It was a busy December 1, four years ago now.

But you know what else? There was a busy decade leading up to that.

This week, I organized my collection of journals, which date back to 1993 in all their embarrassing glory. As I put them all in date order, I opened one at random and read Ryan an entry from the summer of 1994, when I finally got my driver's license.

I say "finally," because I was the one teenage weirdo who actually did not CARE to get a license. Driving petrified me. I got my license because my mother {wisely} dragged me to the branch to take the test before my test waiver ran out. {I don't know if they even still do those anymore, but back then, if you had a high enough score in driver's ed, you could skip the driving portion of the test and just take the written portion. But the waiver only lasted so long, and mine was about to expire.}

I read Ryan the journal entry about how I'd been so nervous, I was shaking, but I got my license and it would not need renewed until 1999. And by that time, I wrote, I was sure I'd be married anyway and have a new last name for the license.

1999...2012...you know. Similar.

So I journaled about the happenings of my life until 2002, and actually I kept right on "regular" journaling even then, but I added a prayer journal to the mix in 2002.

And for the next ten years, God heard more than a few prayers. This many, actually:

{Overlook the hair. I hadn't prepped for a photo opp that day.}

These books hold my prayers, my wrestling, my questions, my faith, my offerings, my failures - all as I prayed for a husband I had yet to meet.

In these pages, God began to mold me in earnest to become the woman I needed to be. He had to do a lot of bending and breaking of my stubborn will, say many no's to my begging requests, and teach me much about Who He is and who He made me to be.

These ten years, in all fairness, weren't my favorite. And I'm sure some of the words attest to that. But these years were so necessary. Such foundations were laid in this time. And the girl who took the longest.car.ride.ever.to.Florida could only do that with such confidence because of the ten years represented in these fifteen books.

December 1, 2012 was a whirlwind of a dream come true. {Not the traffic jam or the feeling sick part. But the "carriage ride" to my wedding and the beauty of being surrounded by a representation of those who loved me.} But dreams come true because of the years leading up to them when God molds His children.

Don't resist the molding. {And I remind myself of this as I say it to you.} He has His holy reasons. You can trust them to lead to beauty.