Pre-Reception Photo Shoot...DeJaVu!

I know we had a billion beautiful pictures on our wedding day, but I wanted a little photo shoot before our reception too!

My good friend Rachel Ashley, who took all my baptism pictures, also came to be one of {yes, there were multiples...} our photographers the day of the reception. Rachel came early and fulfilled my desire to have some pictures taken at/around the prayer chapel. {You already saw some of those pictures earlier this week.}

I found it interesting that we recreated some of the same things we did on the wedding day - and not on purpose. It just happened.

 It's just that instead of white sand...

 ...we had white snow. :)

Still the same joy though:

...even if under a different sky.

We're still goofy.

Just not as warm while being silly. :)

Two of the most memorable days of our lives:

Both memorable and amazing in their own ways....

And uh....our sign here?

It has been replaced by a lookalike. {And minus the wedding party.}

Our wedding cathedral:

And our reception cathedral:

So some of the details were different...but one thing was not. Our commitment to walking with the Lord and each other held fast!

Conviction

I so want to dive into the little pile of reception pictures I've collected so far, but I can't. Sometimes I gotta talk about what's happening in the heart before I talk about what's happening in the scrapbook.

My verse for this year...about letting God teach me in the secret places...is coming on strong. Uncomfortably so.

During Sunday School this past week, our friend Brad asked this question: Are you pursuing God as heavily as you pursue your spouse?

Gulp. Could I have another question, please?

Alas, right about then, I saw my sister walk in the front door of the church, so I left class to go meet her. Though class went on, that was the end for me, and the question has plagued me all week.

When I stood in front of the small cloud of witnesses that day on the beach, I promised Ryan that I would live "first unto our God" and then unto him...

...but my heart knew that lately I have struggled to find the same eager abandon to pursue God that I have in pursuing Ryan.

And that stung.

It stung because my Beloved has given me a gift in Ryan and in return...I seem to be late...or worse...absent...to my time with Him. It stung because the woman Ryan fell in love with was a woman wildly and consistently pursuing God...and that's the woman he still needs me to be as his wife. He needs me to keep the promise I made on the sand. The promise that I'll be faithful to God is every bit as important as the promise that I'll be faithful to him.

Last night I drove home from Ryan's house, where we were cleaning again. For the past month or so, it seems that every night had been devoted to either the reception or the house. We're starting to forget what our house looks like. And I think Braeya's starting to forget what we look like. {But I digress.} As I drove, I cried out to God, "I don't know how to do this! I don't know how to be a wife. Teach me in the secret place! What do I need to know?"

I wasn't even sure I knew how to hear His whisper anymore, but without delay, it was there...

"Find me. I loved you first."

So I go back to the vows I made in the sand...Ryan, I will live first unto our God, then unto you.

And in it all, I'm so glad for the unconditional love of these two who hold my heart most closely.

Full Circle

I've written before about the prayer chapel on the IWU campus and how I used to go there on Tuesdays to pray for Mr. Missing. Many, many Tuesday lunches were spent in the front pew on the right hand side, sometimes in tears, begging God to send me the one He chose for me.

Many beautiful lessons were learned inside that chapel. Many battles were fought and won. Many questions were answered and many others were left for someday, whenever God chose to speak.

I'd always hoped that on my wedding day, I could go to that chapel to thank God for His answer to my most long-standing request. Obviously a Florida wedding made that impossible, so when we planned to have our reception on campus, I knew I wanted to spend some time in the chapel.

So before the reception...I went back to the pew.

The pew where I spent all those Tuesdays.

The pew where I prayed to receive a husband.

And this day....he sat behind me.

Right over there. My answer to all those Tuesdays.

Rachel was taking our pictures and she said to me, "Do you always smile when you pray?"

I do when I'm praising for an answer!!

I don't get to pray in this chapel any more because I don't work there...but I love going back to the place that was my altar for so long...

...and kneel AT the altar to say thank you to my Beloved.

Thanks for these hands that hold mine.

The Makings of a Reception

Believe it or not, I actually have very few pictures of our reception...

...on my camera.

Oh please. Like I would have gone without pictures. HELLO people.

I actually had 3 people taking pictures at our reception...and at the moment, I don't have the photos from any of them. But soon. Very soon. Meanwhile, I thought I'd show you what it took to put the thing together!

Ryan and I both had Friday off work, and we started our day with a breakfast date at Cracker Barrel. {Sometimes we're 80.}

Our reception was held in the banquet rooms at Indiana Wesleyan, where I used to work. We chose it because it is close to where we live...and because I was familiar with how things work/where they are, since I spent so many years of my life there.

Besides the two of us, Ryan's mom and Allen came to help us decorate, and my mom came for a while, too. We were SO grateful for their help, but trying to decorate a massive banquet room with five people was...a big task. So here's a little photo essay of our crazy day of decorating. I appreciate Nita's help grabbing pictures...so I at least have a bit of documentation of it.

I present to you...the makings of a reception:

We had 3 sections of banquet hall to decorate. Isn't it a beautiful room? :) This is when we first arrived and we only had linens on one row of tables. Eight rows to go!! :)

We had QUITE the mess of stuff in our dining room prior to the reception. Four vehicles and several carts later, it was unloaded into the banquet rooms...Embarrassing, really....

Ryan, Nita, and Allen working on an assembly line of filling mason jars with sand and pictures...and adding twine around the top. I seriously could not have pulled this reception off without their help. They are all willing and wonderful workers who gave the decorations a polished look.

I was the direction giver extraordinaire. Ryan was so good...he understood I had a vision in my head and did a great job of letting my try to explain it out...

The guys also did a great job helping me put on the rest of the linens. Actually I think I was helping them. They were in charge.

My mom joined us and the organization/assembly line festival continued:

 

My friend Angi made THE CUTEST little stand up labels for us to use so people knew what was what on the dessert line. I went around writing on the labels...

 

And then there was the cutting of the burlap...

 

My husband found my camera:

 And um....he found it again:

Ryan helped me with the guest book table (we had people sign stones like they did at the wedding) - because I already had my nails done and we didn't want them all scratched up. So he dug all the rocks out of the bucket and put them on the table for me.

Then our mamas came back to our house and helped us dip FIFTEEN GALLONS of ice cream for our reception.

Can't tell you how much we appreciated the help of our mothers and Allen. We were EX-hausted by the end of Friday, but so thankful everything seemed to be put together for our day of celebration with our friends and family.

Hope to have actual event pictures to share with you soon! :)

The Shafferland Shuffle

Today begins DST.

We won't talk about it.
 
* Last Sunday, Ryan and I had dinner at his Mom's house...where she broke out this gorgeous China...I felt like important company! :)

We had a great day visiting with them...and then {this'll shock you}...we worked on reception stuff!!! Ryan chopped up ice cream toppings and I sorted stones for our guest book!! And we ended the day cuddled up on the couch watching Double Jeopardy...one of the few action movies I actually will watch over and over and over....

* Monday evening, Ryan and I did the old divide-and-conquer on our chores. He spent the evening at his house, painting, and I spent the evening running reception errands. I know this is gross and sappy but I hate being apart - even for an evening like that. I know, I know. We're such newlyweds. When he came home, I took a deep breath and announced it was time to don the wedding dress again to see if ANY weight loss progress had been made. Y'ALL!!! IT FIT!!!!!!

* Tuesday I went to work with much fear and trembling, as we were expected to get some nasty weather that day. Of course, how many times have I heard THAT this winter - to very little avail? Of course this time it actually happened, and I drove home VERY carefully that evening, taking almost 2 hours for my drive, passing 2 accidents and a number of fishtailing folks. The bright spot in the day? This darling flower puppy delivered to the station!

* Wednesday morning I woke up to a real mess. Marion had snow AND ice, so we were a slippery, drifty, snowed-under mess. I worked from home and enjoyed this view.

After work, while Ryan was over working on his house again, I spent the evening trying to clean up our house and make it look decent again. It's been a hot mess, what with all the reception stuff in the dining room!

* Thursday night I had a fun treat and got my nails done! It is something I've given in up in favor of buying gas, but I thought I'd let myself enjoy a little special nail session for the reception. It was a relaxing evening after a crazy week!

 

* Friday, both Ryan and I had the day off work, and he was such an amazing help in getting ready for the reception. We spent the day at IWU, decorating the banquet room, along with the help of our mothers, and then we came home and pre-dipped fifteen gallons of ice cream. Yeah. You read that right. GALLONS.

 * And then yesterday - YESTERDAY was our beautiful reception. This is the only picture I have to offer until my three (yes three) photographers get me the ones they took:

 

I can't wait to tell you all about it in great detail - but let me just say how much we loved celebrating with everyone! God was so good to us!

Today....

...I get to revisit this day:

I get to wear my fancy dress and have my hair and makeup done by those with far more talent than I possess.

I get to watch our video again...and remember how much I loved every moment of that day:


Rebekah + Ryan from Visual Effects by Seth on Vimeo.

I get to have another snack of Sarah's delicious mocha cake:

 And I get to celebrate with friends and family who are coming to share in our joy - and to eat lots of this:

 That would be ice cream. Lots and lots of ice cream.

If you think of it...pray for us? There have been a lot of bumps in the reception road, and we want so much to be able to enjoy the day and our friends...and not worry about everything that seems to go wrong at the last minute.

Can't wait to share the details of the day with you!

The Things We Remember

Yesterday on BLT, we talked about the year in school that was toughest on us. I picked my freshman year of high school. With poofy bangs, enough fat to house a second person, and a face suitable for a game of connect the dots, I was just a mess.

I wondered if I would ever be normal. Ever fit in.  

Ever.

The one place I felt I mattered most was at church. I loved the kids...so much. I worked in the nursery every chance I found...and I loved teaching the kids during the midweek service, too. The church didn't have much money and I hated to ask for fresh curriculum for just a small handful of kids, so I scrounged through the church library and found old teacher guides.

With a little piecing here...a little tweaking there...I turned the old lessons into something new and presented them {along with a small snacklet} to the kids every week.

They were typical kids...and I wondered from one week to the next if what I was teaching made any sense or settled in their minds in any way.

And then one night, after she picked up her two boys, one of the moms said to me, "Rebekah, I just want to tell you what a gift you have."

I stared at her until the heat on my face jolted me back to reality and I busied myself with cleaning up the room. Compliments made me extremely uncomfortable. But she continued....

"I couldn't do what you're doing. I couldn't just pick up old books and make something new out of them. I couldn't put together something the kids would like. But they love it. Every week they tell us what they've learned. You should just know that you have a gift and I appreciate the time you put in each week."

Funny that today...the kids are the ones that intimidate me the most. The last time I was asked to teach a kids' class, I panicked and asked for a helper. The last time I was asked to write curriculum for kids, I paid one of my friends to write it for me.

But those days instilled in me a deep love for teaching and writing Bible studies, even if my target audience has changed.

And the one thing I've never forgotten was a mom who took two seconds after a midweek service to let a poofy haired, overweight, insecure teenage teacher know she was appreciated. Two seconds. Two seconds that gave me an ounce of confidence in a time when I felt none.

What if I slowed down and did the same?


{I linked up to Kristen's Out of the Blue Thursdays!}

Snow Day, Baby!

The great travesty of being an adult is the lack of snow days. Unless, of course, you're a teacher. I'm not.

Here in the big, bad midwest, we'd been waiting on the latest snowstorm, which they now apparently NAME, like hurricanes. What was this one? Saturn? Isn't that a planet? Or a car?

Anyway, I think my Facebook friend, Stephanie, said it best: Winter storm warning...7am-7am, wait no, 1pm-7am, wait no 3pm-7am....4-6 inches of snow, wait no 8-10 inches of snow, wait no... How about not reporting on a storm that is in North Dakota...wait until its in Illinois??

Took me 2 hours to get home, Tuesday night...and by Wednesday morning, I decided it was best to work from home. We had snow, we had ice, we had {no} plows, and it just seemed safer for all concerned if I stayed home and worked from the couch.

And so I did.

But not before venturing outside to take pictures of the beauty:

 Yep....this is our grill!! Doesn't it make you want an ice cream cone in the worst way?

 Bird bath makes me want a cake. {Essentially the fit-back-into-the-wedding-dress salad diet makes me crave all manner of desserts.}

 Oh so pretty. One of my favorite winter views - pine trees covered in snow.

 I hunkered down on the couch to work while Little Miss {or The Hairy One, as Ryan calls her} blew kisses...

 It was a good day...got lots done at work...all the while guzzling a pot of coffee. Ahh, how I love my coffee.

 Once work was over, I ventured outside to shovel...and I wore Ryan's heavy boots to do it. Those things are like fire gear! SO HEAVY!!! But much warmer than my rain boots...

 Next time it snows, I want to make a snowman. I don't know that I've ever made one. Perhaps when I was a little kid, but I sure don't remember it. And every good snow day should contain making a snowman.

Even so, I'm so grateful I was able to work from home - and Ryan was able to use the good-on-snow car to make it safely to his job! 

Coffee Chats

I admitted yesterday that my posts were likely to be fluffy this week, due to my reception brain...but this one might be a little less floofy than the rest. My heart is so heavy to talk about this, so we're just gonna talk about it right now.

Lately, I've been getting some emails from Bekah's Bits lurkers who have poured out their own stories of desire for marriage and for morning to come...and my heart is just breaking knowing that there are so many of you out there who hurt like that. The hurt I remember SO MUCH. So today I want to talk to you. And because I love coffee, I'm just going to call this a coffee chat. Feel free to pour a cup for yourself while you read. Chances are good that wherever I am while you're reading - I've got my own cup.

Let me say this to you. This picture, taken of my sister, Julie, and me was taken in May 2010. I had just turned 33 and I was just over a month into my desert season after Isaac walked away {initially} from our relationship.

I was smiling but my eyes were dead that night because my HEART was dead that night. I was brokenhearted, swimming in rejection, and wondering when God was going to heal Isaac's heart. I had to talk my way through every activity every day - from getting out of bed to getting ready to going to work to paying bills {you get the idea}. And honestly, if I'd known this night that Isaac wouldn't ever come back, I would not have had the will to go on.

Our ignorance is God's gift.

In that season, He carried me, He taught me to push on with grit and He showered me with His grace. And in that season, He prepared me to be Ryan's wife, though I had NO idea that would be His answer down the road.

Ryan and I are amazed that there are so many of you out there who have stories like mine. We're amazed at how many of you email and say our story gave you hope. We love that part of it.

So today, if you're hurting about love - for whatever reason, wrap your hands around your coffee cup and let me say this to you.

* God wastes nothing. Even if your season right now is dark and feels hopeless from all directions, HE IS STILL WORKING. You might not see or feel it now - but one day - at some Divinely appointed time down the road - you'll see how He was working. And such gratitude will pour over you on that day...it will be such a gift. In the meantime, this season you're living is not wasted. He'll find a way to use it.

* Sunrise can come so quickly. Ever notice {especially in the winter} how long it's dark? From 5 in the evening until 8 in the morning, it's dark out. But when the sun comes up - it goes from the horizon to the sky so quickly. And your morning might come on that quickly too. I had no idea last summer that I'd be married by Christmas. NO IDEA. But when God began to move in our love story, He moved at a very fast pace.

* Push. Like I said earlier, there were some days that the only reason I got out of bed was because I had to go to work. The only reason I did anything fun in that season was because my friends came over and dragged me out of the house. But though I felt like hiding under the covers, pushing myself to go to work or go out with the aforementioned friends was so good for me. So if you don't feel like doing it - try anyway. It'll be good for you.

* Pray. Hours and hours and hours of driving...pacing...walking outside...and curling up in the fat chair in the living room were coupled with deep groans poured out to the Lord. I was just honest in that season. Whether I was grieving, angry, confused, or something else, I told Him. No hiding it. He heard every ugly emotion and He proved faithful.

* Trust Him. There was a time in that desert when I said to God, "I'm not sure I trust You anymore. You didn't keep your promise." Not the nicest thing to say to God, but He helped me see that HE was trustworthy - even when people are not. So if you're in a place where you feel like you just can't....let me tell you He IS trustworthy. He is. Always.

If you'd like to come out of the lurking shadows to share your heart with me {and Ryan} - but you don't want to leave a comment for everyone to see - you're welcome to email at readingrebekah at yahoo.

Know that you are SO LOVED by our Abba!!

Just Some Dreamin'

I should probably have admitted yesterday that the eternal significance of my blog this week is likely to be lacking. I'm in the throes of the reception details and it's far more consuming than the wedding ever was. So until that's over, I'm not sure how deep my thoughts will be. HENCE yesterday's post on Easter dresses...and today's post on the perfect master bedroom.

Y'all know I'm a Pinterest addict and what happens when a Pinterest addict has the hope of a someday new home? Non.Stop.Dreaming.

So today I'm letting you crawl inside my head for a minute to see what our dream master would look like(ish). And no...these are not all my own ideas. We've talked about this and this is our together dream.

Our bedroom right now is 3 shades of purple, and Ryan's willingness to sleep in there every night is sheer proof of the power of love. I love our room but I'm eager for our new home together so our master can be OURS - starting with the color. We've decided on sort of a beachy/cottagey theme, so here's my color palette:

Source: design-seeds.com via Rebekah on Pinterest

Not purple!! I love the blues...and the brightness. {Shades may not be the final ones - but you get the idea.} I think with a neutral carpet or a hardwood - it would make me feel very much like I'm just steps from the water. {Unfortunately said water will just be in a bathtub! HA!}

Ryan has an amazing bed frame that is white with sort of a wide beadboard look - PERFECT for a cottage bedroom. And we've picked out some bedding that we LOVE...

And I don't think it's all bad to have a big ole sink-your-toes-into-it white fuzzy rug...just sayin'.

We want to use a lot of our wedding memorabilia in here, and add to it with other beaches we visit. :)

Here are some of my ideas:

Source: twogirlzstuff.blogspot.com via Rebekah on Pinterest

I don't like the frame...I would want a different style, but I LOVE the idea of using our AND sign...with either our actual names or with the words You/Me. So adorable. And I do love it inside the chunky frame.

Source: Uploaded by user via Rebekah on Pinterest

Not sure where we'll end up or if this would look good in the real life space, but I do love the beadboard look on the wall - just to mix up the textures.

Source: bellemaison23.com via

I love this beachy look...and I'm recently addicted to the idea of cloche jars...so I'm thinking rope in one of those.....

Source: apartmenttherapy.com via Rebekah on Pinterest

And depending on what our room looks like in layout...I also really like this idea of curtains on either side of the bed even if windows aren't present there. We also like the idea of a bench at the end of the bed. If we did that now, we would officially have no walking room and would have to crawl OVER the bed to get to the other side.

So those are my dreams for someday. Thanks for eavesdropping in my Pinteresty mind.