9 months engaged

Today is the day I send out requests for readers for the book I am working on having to do with the liturgical year and working through anxiety. I am also hopefully optimistic to solidify March 17th as our new date. Christmas and New Years were times of tremendous reconciliation and growth in some of my closest relationships and I see now how the Lord allows hard times to befall us for our greater benefit and growth in holiness. During the month of December as I celebrated, I also worked more hours on my book than I had in a long while and completed the first draft. Now as I write this, I am preparing to send the manuscript out for feedback. In addition to this manuscript, I have just begun on a 365 day devotional against anxiety. I am so happy to be writing again and to pursue my dreams and passions in the area of the written word.

Now as we embark out into this new year, Everest came to live with my family and has been thriving well here. For Christmas, I gave Nathan some hobby crafts projects that he enjoyed in his youth: origami, perler beads, and a coloring book. It makes me happy to see him taking up hobbies again. We have begun reading a marriage manual together by Dan and Danielle Bean, given as a gift to us from my parents. We are also embarking on Father Mike Schmitz 365 day read the Bible in the year podcast.

While I am worried and restless about many things, I am continually reminded by those I love to center my life on the Lord. I have also learned that my family and friends are true gifts from the Lord and will love and support me through all of life’s challenges. I am so grateful for them and love them dearly. If it were not for the love of my family, particularly my mother, I would certainly not be where I am today in my relationship with Nathan or in my wiring. I am also learning that no human being can completely satisfy ever desire and hope that I have, but that true peace and fulfillment dwells in Jesus’s gentle heart. Nathan and I will always have much to learn and improve upon, but together our strengths purify us and our weaknesses refine us as together we are drawn more into this unfathomable love that is God.

Semper Fidelis,

-Allison