Lord, please take away my desire to have children.

My husband and I have had eighteen failed pregnancy attempts in our roughly two year marriage. That means there were only about six months where we were not trying to get pregnant. After eighteen attempts and three pregnancies that didn't last into the second trimester I walk into every Doctor visit waiting for the words “I'm sorry, but you'll never have kids.” In some ways I wonder if that might be easier. I could cry and be depressed and ask God “Why?” and get it out of the way.

I always end up hopeful instead. I believe every time that “today's the day!” until it starts getting closer to time to take a pregnancy test. Then I start to try and be reasonable. I tell myself the test might be negative. Or the test might be positive and we might lose another baby. I tell myself to be prepared for anything, not to be surprised or anxious. I tell myself not to get my hopes up.

Then when the test is negative I'm crushed. I immediately start to think I'm never going to have kids, or maybe I was pregnant but I had a really early miscarriage, or I don't deserve to have kids, or sometime in the next ten years we'll try to adopt.

It's getting harder to keep living this way. I can't just think “it'll happen someday” because I've been taking fertility drugs and ovulation tests. I'm constantly having to pay attention to trying to get pregnant again. I'm always either hopeful or ready to crawl back into bed and cry.

So the other night while I was crying when I should have been sleeping I started to pray. I wanted to ask God for children, but I've asked Him before to not let us get pregnant if we're going to have any more miscarriages. Lord, your will be done? What if His will is for me to remain childless?

Then Lord, please take away my desire for children I can't have.

I don't want to worry that helping out in the nursery will send me into a depression. I'm tired of having hope that doesn't do anything but break. I'm tired of hormones and ovulation tests and blood draws for no reason. I just want to mourn the children we lost, not children we haven't lost yet. 

What it comes down to is this, I want to be content with the blessings God has given me and live my life that way.

My name is Eustace

My name is Eustace.

2013 was not a very good year for me. It was my first year of marriage to my wonderful husband and  was filled with happiness in that regard. We were growing closer together and enjoying being able to be completely open with each other. The world continued to move though, and the world is a broken place.

I had never really encountered death before, so I was horrified when I suddenly miscarried last February. After that it seemed like death would not stop coming. An elderly friend of mine passed away not long after the miscarriage, and then only a few weeks after her funeral a young man my husband knew was killed in a motorcycle crash. We had another miscarriage, and a month after that I found out that a girl I had been praying for had been raped and murdered.

When I had the second miscarriage I began to have trouble coping. I was afraid of death, not for myself since I know that I am looking forward to joining God in Heaven. I was afraid of losing someone close to me and started having nightmares about my husband being killed.

I also started to have body image issues, which I had proudly said I had never dealt with. I simply could not feel pretty in a body so broken it couldn't even keep my children alive.

Through much of this year I found it very difficult to pray. What was the point of talking to God when all I wanted was my children back and I knew I could not have them? I knew that I should rely on God, and I wanted to. I desperately wanted Him to give me peace so I could stop feeling so utterly broken.

I don't think that was the point though.

We were talking with friends the other night about the lie cycling around that God will not give you more suffering than you can take. We read an article (And I can't remember what the article was or I would cite it) explaining that comes from the verse 1 Corinthians 10:13.

“No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.”

The verse is not talking about suffering, it speaks of temptation. The Bible is filled with great suffering. The early church saw many martyrs who we look up to now as great examples of faith, but realistically they died terrible deaths. At the end of Job it skims over him getting everything he had and more, but he lost so many children and I can't imagine that not continuing to hurt him. Even Jesus suffered. Not only did He suffer physically (one more stroke of the whip would have been considered a death sentence) but He took all of the guilt of all humanity, everything that has or will ever be called sin and laid all of the blame on Him and His heart.

My name is Eustace. I'm not used to this.

In the Chronicles of Narnia The Voyage of the Dawn Treader there is a boy named Eustace. He started the story as the one everyone loves to hate. When I was reading the story with my mom we used to call him Useless. Halfway through the story Eustace goes off on his own, steals from a dragon's hoard, and is turned into a dragon. Before the story ends he meets Aslan and tries to remove his dragon skin on his own, but no matter how many layers he sheds he remains a dragon. It is not until Aslan digs in His own claws, and Eustace goes through that pain, that Eustace is turned back into a boy.

In my own way I believe that God allows us to suffer beyond what we can cope with until we are completely broken before Him. Not because He likes to see us in pain, but because we have to know that without Him we are completely helpless. We can say it all we like but until we loose everything that gives us more comfort or security than we rely on God for, we are clearly not relying completely on God. I would go so far as to say anything we rely on more than God becomes our god, our idol.

I had been trying to just be okay. The days when I crawled back into bed crying felt like defeat. When I prayed I asked God to give me peace and help me make it through another day. It felt like those prayers were not being answered, I still felt broken and some days I still feel crushed with sadness. However, God knows what I really need. I don't need anything like I need Him, children, health, sanity. If I need to be stripped of everything to finally say that God is truly all I need, then God in His mercy is taking it away from me.

My Name is Eustace.

Crafty Girls Introduction

Evil Scheme:

1.Get the Crafty Girls to let me on their server (check)
2.Build something amazing (check)
3.Worm my way into their hearts (check)
4.Become a Crafty Girl (check)
5.Build amazing things (to do)

I'm a Crafty Girl now! If anyone is new to this the Crafty Girls are a group of girls spread around the world who play Minecraft together and make youtube videos.

Stef, the leader of the Crafty Girls (after she fell for my evil scheme) allowed me to join up. Then she told me I had to blog once a week and I started having second thoughts...

So far I've built a couple of things for the Crafty Girls. The Diamond Tower of Light to mark donations from fans.

Tower of Light

The “office building” on their Holiday map, and a market just down the street.

Building with Stef

And I have plans to build so much more.

My Fail Name Chart

There are times working at the Phunny Pharm where I and my coworkers find ourselves wondering just how to spell a customer's name. Let's see if you would have guessed these fail spellings. (Just a note, to qualify for this list the customer had to tell me the name without offering a spelling and make me guess, or be offended when I asked for the spelling.)

Heard        -    Spelled

Heather    -    Hethar
China        -    Chyna
Miranda    -    Myranda
Kathy        -    Kathi
Micha        -    Myka
Christine    -    Khristine
Karen        -    Charon
Marissa    -    Maryssa
Cody        -    Kody
Martin        -    Maarten
Vanessa    -    Anessa
Karen        -    Karyn
Amber        -    Kamber
Tia        -    Tiha
Jordan        -     Jordyn
Cosi        -    Cocy
Jeremy        -    Jerimie
Sydney    -    Cydneigh
Abigail    -    Avigail
Kelly        -    Kayleigh
Leah        -    Lia
Erica        -    Arica
Antione    -    Annetwan
Austin        -    Austyn
Megan        -    Meaghan
Denzelle    -    Denizilye
Donita        -    Dawnita
Autumn    -    Autymn

And some names that just makes you wonder what their parents were thinking.

Raishaun
Charisse
Priscah
Tyrek
Kelleen
Lika
Pevis
Jaquavieus
Brandice
Jermonie
Rowshawna
Nathaly
Shaquala
Sunshine
Dazhane
Marquisa


The fails aren't so much in the spellings here, the fail is expecting me to already know it.

I love my friend Stef'ney because she knows to spell her name for people.

(Also! Watch Stef in Crafty girls! Shameless plug! XD )
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_AIIjpg0JE

How I Feel Now: Miscarriage and Abortion

The mythical Children of Lir

I was planning this blog entry to be very different. I was planning on announcing how excited and a little nervous I was about a new little life coming into the world. We were going to have a baby, and he would be my baby. He was about 10 weeks along.

I lost my baby on the thirteenth of February.

I think that was quite possibly the worst day of my life. And it wasn't until the next evening that my husband and I could sit down and just weep together because we were no longer going to have our child.

Through this whole nightmare I've learned two things. The first is that it doesn't mean that God is less in control, and it doesn't mean that God doesn't love our child. I still struggle with why He took him, especially at work where I watch one specific, pregnant, customer smoke and drink and stuff herself with a drug cocktail that makes it seem to me like she wants her child dead. So why does she get to keep her children when I was trying everything to keep my child safe and still lost him? I know it's not a good thing to think, but it does cross my mind when I see her.

The second thing I've learned through this is that a staggering number of the women I know have had miscarriages. My mom never had a miscarriage, and we live in a modern age with great medical... stuff, so I never really believed I could miscarry. I think God did try to warn me about a month or so before the wedding, but I didn't really listen.

I'm wondering now just how many women have lost children in the womb. Out of all the women I've spoken to only four have told me for certain that they have never lost any children, and two of them are pregnant as I write this. Most of the women who I've spoken with have said “I lost two before I had my oldest.” or “I lost one between these two children.” or even “This child was a twin but we lost their sibling.” For some reason I hope I never understand, the last one seems to be the most heartbreaking.

The day I miscarried my doctor sent me to the emergency room where they rushed me into surgery before my husband and I knew what was happening. I kept thinking “I don't want to have surgery, I just want my baby back.” I knew enough not to say anything and ask the impossible of the nurses.

They brought me into the pre-surgery room and so many people were running in and out taking blood and hooking me up to machines and asking questions and robotically saying “I'm so sorry for your loss.” I was lying in a hospital bed having papers put in front of me to sign. They had already taken out my contact lenses so I couldn't see, but the nurse read off “This just says that we're finishing an incomplete abortion, sign here.”

I started crying but I signed it. My mom asked them if they could write in “Spontaneous” in front of “incomplete.” Randomly enough the doctor who took out my ovarian cyst just so happened to be working in the hospital that day and was prepping to do this procedure on me. She knows me and agreed to write in “Spontaneous.” That did make me feel a whole lot better, but it got me to thinking.

Why would anyone anywhere ever have an abortion?

But! Rape! And Incest! And it's a woman's body!

I Don't Give A Crap.

I don't have a great intellectual argument here, but this has been on my mind ever since I lost my baby. Out of all the women in the world who have been pregnant how many of them, I wonder, have lost a child? How many of them lay awake at night wishing they could hold their child for just a moment, like I have. How many women have been sucked into believing that their child is so worthless that they're better off dead?

Abortion is marketed to girls as an easy way out of an uncomfortable situation. It was even marketed to me that way, and I thought abortion was wrong before my miscarriage. Now my only response is,

“How DARE you.”

Who are any of us to decide if a baby lives or dies? Who are doctors to decide it? Who are court judges to decide it? Who are mothers to decide it?

How dare anyone willfully murder a child who would have otherwise lived when my child is dead?

Several people have said things to me like “Maybe it was a good thing, now you and your husband can be alone for awhile,” or “Maybe it was a good thing, you must not be ready for a child.”

Shortly after we told my husband's family about the baby my brother-in-law asked me what it was like to “not really be alone” when I was alone. I didn't know how to answer, but I don't have to think very hard to notice an emptiness now. I'm sure that whatever God's plan is, my child's very brief life was a part of it. However, telling me that it was good for my child to die is wrong. Accepting abortion as an option is wrong. Thinking that removing a child from their mother removes the woman's motherhood is dead wrong, no matter if they wanted the child or not.

I have a good friend who had multiple abortions before she was a Christian. She was fifteen and abortion was marketed as the answer. Abortion did not give her the freedom it promised her, it gave her time in a mental institution. The people telling her that it was a good thing to abort two children did not have her best interest in mind. They will probably never understand the harm they caused in her life or the guilt that she still struggles with.

If anyone still reading has had an abortion I do want to take a moment to say that God can forgive anything if you ask Him. He forgave my friend of her two abortions and many other things she won't even speak of with me. I'm confident from verses like 2 Samuel 12:23 (Where king David says that he will go to his dead son someday.) that my child, along with all of the aborted children and other miscarried children, are in Heaven, and that God is keeping them all safe. The point of Jesus dying on the cross was to take the blame for the shameful things we all know we've done. Because He died you can be forgiven and not even God will remember what you did before.

I'm tempted to sit and think things like “If I hadn't had the cyst maybe this wouldn't have happened,” “If I hadn't gone on birth control before the wedding,” or “If I had only gone to the doctor sooner.” I live with thoughts like that which I can set aside knowing that God was the one in charge of my child's life.

I cannot imagine the guilt that must weigh on the mind of a mother who knows beyond a doubt that she gave the order for her child's execution. I cannot imagine how doctors and judges and lawmakers and voters can help to make it possible and still sleep at night. I cannot sit by and watch it continue.

And that is how I feel about abortion now that my child is dead.

A Married Woman's Blog

A Married Woman's Blog

Yes, the wedding is over, but the marriage has only just begun. Other things are beginning too, but I'll save some things for later.

So how's being married you ask? It's a lot more fun than I thought. The Honeymoon was lots of fun because we were always together. We spent almost the entire week talking and talking and talking because suddenly we felt so much more free to. Now we get to watch whole movies together too, I don't have to leave and go home because I'm already home. Plus, our apartment doesn't have a couch yet (We have a futon frame but no mattress yet.) and now that we're married we can sit in bed together and watch movies. (I know, so risqué!)

Being married to the Captain has it's interesting sides too. Like, I asked him to start the dishwasher the other day while I was at work. There's this little cup thing for dish soap in the dishwasher that I usually put one or two drops of soap into. He filled it to the top.

Apparently he was carting foam out by the bucketful.

Also, no one warned me about his sleeping habits before the wedding. (I have received a full apology from his brother already.)

So, we're on the honeymoon and one night at about 3 am he sits up and starts saying something. (I wish I could remember what it was, it was probably hilarious) He had mentioned shortly after the wedding that sometimes he talks in his sleep so I asked him

“Are you talking in your sleep?”

“What! No! No I'm not! I'm wide awake!”

“Ok, well, can you go back to sleep?”

I didn't understand just yet. But after the honeymoon we came home and started settling into our apartment. One night about 3 am when I was deep in sleep he woke up, and started shaking me.

“Hey, hey, wake up.”

“huuuuuh?”

“Are you hungry? Lets go get food!”

“Whuut? What time is it?”

“Three in the morning! It's always three in the morning when we wake up and we're hungry! Lets go get food!”

“I don't wanna go get food, I wanna go back to sleep!”

Then, about a week ago, I was sleeping peacefully when he suddenly sat upright and started drawing with his finger on the blanket.

“Sweety?”

“Yeah?”

“What are you doing?”

“I'm making an unbreakable fuel tank!”

“Oh... can you lay back down?”

“In a minute!”

So the moral of the story is ask important questions before you get married like “What do they do in their sleep?”, “Do they call scrapers 'spatulas' and really confuse you in the kitchen?”, and “Is there anything weird I should know?”

Because there is, just, nobody really thinks about it until you're finding it out at three in the morning when he wants to sleepwalk up to the Lido deck for brunch and there is no Lido deck because you're already home from your cruise.

But seriously, being married is a lot of fun. I like taking care of our apartment. I like getting to see the Captain all the time. I like getting dragged off into his crazy schemes. I like showing him off to everybody... ^_^

One more thing though. I was getting dressed for church a week or so ago and yanked a pair of black pants out of the closet. When I went to put my phone in my pocket I recall thinking “These pockets seem a lot deeper than the pockets on my black pants...” but I ended up wearing them out of the house. We were halfway across the state before I thought “I'm not sure these are my pants. Are these really my pants?”

Ask the important questions people, they were not my pants.

The Tale of the Cyst

Why would a bride have surgery a month before her wedding? Not plastic surgery. Though, I might need that to put my bellybutton back the way it was...

The tale of the cyst begins almost four months ago when the stress of wedding planning and switching Phunny Pharm's was only beginning. I started complaining about odd pains in my hip. About a month later I couldn't even come in to work unless I had filled myself with over the counter pain medicine.

One night at work I convinced myself I was having a side effect from the drugs I was taking and my dad took me to the Emergency Room. I felt ridiculous since I wasn't actively in pain, but I didn't know where the pain was coming from. They did a CAT scan and left dad and I in a room while the Captain changed his tire. (He was amazing through this whole entire thing.) The Captain came in just before the doctor did and the doctor informed me that I had an “Ovarian Cyst.”

My response was something like this face O.o

Nice sterile picture of the HORRORS going on inside my body. Seriously, do not image search ovarian cyst.

The Captain went home because it was nearly eleven o'clock and he had been working all day, and my dad did some research on his phone.

“They say that if it's more than five centimeters across it has to be surgically removed immediately.”

“Ok, well, the doctor doesn't seem worried so I guess mine must be pretty small.”

I went to my doctor the next week. The doctor wasn't in, but I was asked if I wanted to be seen by her nurse.

“I don't care, I just want someone to look at this.”

“The CAT scan shows it's about four centimeters across. These things rupture on their own, but it will really really hurt when it does.”

“Alright, then what do I do?”

“Oh, just wait for it to rupture, but just to let you know it will really REALLY hurt when it does.”

“...”

“See you in six weeks!”

After about three weeks I had to start taking the pain medicine the ER doctor gave me, and two weeks after that I could barely stand up at work. To make it more interesting, the pain killers were running out.

The doctor wrote me a new prescription and I made it through the last week to my next appointment. The Ultra Sound tech looked around for about a minute before I saw a huge black mass on the screen above her.

“It's about six centimeters across now.”

YIPE!

“You're not scheduled to see the doctor today, would you like to?”

“Yes please.” o.o

“I'll go see if she can fit you in.”

About twenty minutes later I got to see the doctor. She said it was still likely that the cyst would pop on it's own, in six or seven weeks. My mom pointed out that the wedding was seven weeks away.

“Well, now we could start to consider surgery.”

She held up a chart showing two little metal sticks pointing at an ovarian cyst. It looked fine. One goes in and pops the cyst, the other sucks all the mess out, they close me up and I go home cyst free. Sign me up!

The day before the surgery I was elated. In my life I think I have only ever been more excited about my wedding. Why was I excited? I had no clue what was about to happen.

The Captain came over the morning off and he and my mom drove me to the hospital. I sat down with them in a waiting area for about a minute before a nurse came and walked me to another room with a cot.

My doctor came in and went over the plan again. This time with more detail than when I had been in her office. “We're going to put air in your abdomen so when you wake up your shoulders might hurt, it seems strange but I don't want you to be frightened.”

Okay...

“And I don't plan on taking your ovary out but in case I do I don't want to have to wake you up to ask your permission so please sign this.”

Okay...

“And in no time you'll be all healed. Are you going somewhere warm on your honeymoon?”

“Yeah a cruise to the Bahamas.”

“You'll be able to wear your bikini and show off your belly, it will look fine.”

Cool. I don't have a bikini, but cool.

Then the doctor left and the nurse came back. The first thing she asked of me was a urine sample. I forgot to mention that every time I went near this place they would find a reason to draw blood and give them a urine sample.

“It's for a routine pregnancy test. I just need four drops.”

I don't like to be trouble but I had to say something. What came out was “Oh, I... um... I'm not. I'm... ... a virgin.”

“It's just policy.”

Okay...

I hand off another sample and in no time at all I'm laying on the bed in a hospital gown covered with about six pre warmed blankets. I could get used to this surgery stuff.

I forgot about the IV.

I hate needles. I cannot stress my fear and loathing of them enough. My arms were already bruised from all the times in the last few weeks that I had been really really good and let them draw blood. My poor little arms had had it.

I had a plan though. I was going to think about the Captain and I wading through the creek shortly after we had first started courting. I was going to think about how happy and calm I was then, about picking shells out of the water, about watching the Captain pick up little critters in the water. This nurse had other ideas.

“It just won't advance.”

ADVANCE!

My hands and feet went numb and I started to squirm. Even thinking about it almost a week later I'm still starting to squirm and my breathing is getting short. (Doesn't help that I'm still all bruised up both arms.)

“Don't pass out on me.”

No, it would have been easier for both of us if I had just passed out. But I tried to calm down, tried to go back to that nice autumn day in the creek.

“So when is your wedding?”

She was trying to help I know, but I had decided I didn't like her so much then.

When she finally got the stupid needle in my arm she let mom and the Captain in. They started chatting with me and I was fine until I felt something in my arm and remembered the needle. I started squirming and crying and panicking and my fingers and toes got numb again. But then the Captain was there. He stood up next to me and kissed me on the top of the head. By the time they came to get me I had calmed down to my mostly reasonable self again.

Mom took my glasses and I remember them wheeling me through the halls into a big cold room where I could see big blurry metal things. They moved me into another bed, one that wasn't very wide. I was afraid of the IV pulling and my arm wouldn't quite fit on the table. I voiced my concerns and a nurse made more room for my arm.

“My elbow feels cold.”

“That's the doctor putting you to sleep. Don't worry, in no time we'll have you back out and you can see your mom.”

I remember saying “The Captain is here too.”

An hour and four incisions later I woke up to them moving me back onto the cot. They moved me into another room and I slowly became aware of where I was. And pain.

“How do you feel?” a nurse asked.

My entire middle hurt, my throat was dry and ached, my legs hurt, and both of my shoulders felt like I had been carrying boulders on sticks for a week.

“... ow...”

I wasn't much better when mom and the Captain came in. Before I even really knew what was happening the nurse and my mom had me sitting up trying to dress me. The Captain had fled because the nurse had started uncovering me in front of him.

I was freezing the entire way home. Everything hurt and I was shivering, which shook all the things that hurt. I ended up throwing up all the water they had given me in the hospital and shooting it all over the car, and myself. When we got home mom helped me in and got me cleaned up. While she did that the Captain cleaned up the vomit in the car. Then he sat with me the rest of the day, making sure I was warm and had water.

So now it's a week later and I'm healing. I found out that the cyst was caused by endometrial tissue that crawled up into my ovary and my ovary went "AAAAAHHHH! MUST GET RID OF!" and tried to get rid of it by turning it into a cyst. However, if that had popped it would have been bad and surgery was about the only way to go. Oh, and I got to keep the poor abused ovary.

 The wedding is coming up and now I'll be cyst free and able to enjoy all the festivities. The best part of it all (besides knowing that God is in control) is knowing that I'm going to be marrying the most wonderful man in the entire world. He cleaned up my puke! Guys don't just do that! Besides, he's been amazingly caring and concerned. Other than nearly tearing me apart at the seams by making me laugh.

Also, surgery is not fun. Do not be fooled! O_O

Plans

I stopped at my old high school the other day. I was there to pick up some papers from one of the teachers, but I ended up stopping and chatting too. They asked me how things are going, where I'm working, how my plans are going.

While I was there a bunch of students came into the room and started to sit down, and I remembered coming in to class every day. I chiefly remembered all the things I was concerned with during my senior year there. I had to do really well in class to get really good grades, had to get a really good score on the ACT, had to look for scholarship opportunities, had to apply for colleges, had to figure out the rest of my life then and there and not do anything that could mess it up.

My plan back then was that I would go to college for four years and study something I liked, then get a job I could tolerate and wait for the Captain to notice me.

My plan before that had been to be a singer and an actress or fight pirates.

Neither of those plans worked out, thankfully. But back when I was the one sitting there in my plaid skirt, trying to figure out the rest of my life, I didn't know what was really going to happen. In 2009 I wouldn't have been able to imagine that I'd be getting married in 2012, that I'd have a full time job at a pharmacy that I (for the most part) enjoy. I couldn't have begun to guess that I'd end up right here right now. I'm right where I want to be, and right where God knew I needed to be.

With that said, I still have plans. My plans right now are to get married, continue working at the phunny pharm until the Captain finishes school, then have kids, stop working, and homeschool all the kids. God could have any number of other plans for us though. At the moment I'm concerned about a health issue that could potentially make it difficult for me to have kids, and that's only one of very many things that could change our plans.

God is still in control. He was in control when I was finishing up High School and worrying about drama. He was still in control when I was miserable at college, and when I was miserable at my last job. He was in control when He gave me the job at the Phunny Pharm, and then switching to a nicer, safer, Phunny Pharm with more hours. He's in control now when I'm worried about wedding planning and about my health.

The same goes for all the kids trying to sort out exactly what will happen the rest of their lives. You don't know what's coming. You have great plans and hopes and dreams, and there's nothing wrong with any of it. I want you to know that God has plans too, and that His are better. We aren't capable of dreaming up the great things God can do, but that doesn't mean He can't make them happen. Try not to be too upset when your plans fall through, I promise it's not the end of the world. As long as you move forward with Him, He'll get you where He wants you to be.

Brother

I've been freaking out about wedding planning. Almost every week I have one or two wedding related nightmares. I was driving my brother around today and telling him about it.

I had a dream where someone had picked out my dress for me and it was purple instead of white. I had another one where The Captain was marrying me and some other girl, or somehow had another wife. There was one where I didn't have any bridesmaids or anyone to help me dress or do my hair. In a more recent one everyone was angry with me and I was all alone just wishing that someone would be happy.

I explained my frustrations and my worries right until we got in the driveway. We got out of the car and I was feeling overwhelmed and miserable when my brother stopped me by standing in my path. I was ready to be frustrated with him but he put his arms around me and said,

"I'm happy for you."

He's a good brother.

I really wish I could take back making him wear that tutu when he was five....

Frequently Asked Questions

**DISCLAIMER** I was told I should probably put some kind of warning on here to let everyone know that I talk about sex in this blog entry. I didn't put anything explicit, but there it is.

Over the past several years I've heard a lot of questions about Courting from friends, family members, random people at school, almost everyone I've ever spoken to. I was thinking about them recently and thought I'd respond to them at last. Just a note, these are all real things that real people have said to me.

“You're never gonna date anyone? How are you ever going to get married?”

I heard this one before the Captain and I were courting. I thought the obvious answer was that I'd meet a guy who also didn't want to date, who met my requirements for a good husband (my requirements were that he had to love God, had to want to homeschool our kids, and be mentally and financially stable), and we'd get to know each other before gettin' hitched. Oh look! That's what happened.

“You only want to marry him for his money.”

What money? If there was money it wouldn't have taken us this long to get engaged.

Oh right, the whole “I don't want to work, I want to stay home with the kids” thing. There's a big difference between sitting on the couch eating bon bons and spending all my husbands money, and spending the entire day washing dishes and telling kids they need to get their school work done before they can go play.

“Is he really into all that old stuff too?”

You mean old stuff like when I dress up in Medieval dresses and run around at the Renfest? Actually, he's not, I think he's afraid I'll try to make him wear tights. If you mean “Did you drag this courting thing up because you're trying to live in a fantasy version of olden times?” the answer is no. We both hated the idea of dating and decided that we wanted to use the more old fashioned term “Courting” because it doesn't have the connotation of “Hey! We're sleeping together!”

“You're sleeping together right?”

No.

“Are you ever going to?” “Don't worry, I'll explain it to you before the wedding.”

Whoa! We both have parents to explain it to us, and it seems like a pretty simple concept to me. Also, if a couple of middle schoolers can figure it out in the locker room I think the Captain and I will be just fine without your help thanks.

“Why don't you just do it?”

If it was just about sex we wouldn't be courting, or probably planning on getting married. The point is really to please God. I believe He would be disappointed in us if we were just like “Well, we're almost married let's not wait anymore.” And frankly, knowing that God was disappointed in me is the worst thing I can imagine doing. I would die first.

Also, it's proving our commitment to each other and that our relationship is based on more than sex. Because the Captain has been working so hard to get to a point where we can get married instead of just doing whatever, has really shown my family (mainly my dad) what an amazing guy he really is.

“I wish I had waited like you.”

Cool, then can we stop talking about how stupid it is to wait?

“Do your parents approve?”

Why wouldn't they?

“Do you like his family?”

His sister is my best friend and his mom and other sister are probably the closest other friends I have. I love his family.

“You don't kiss?! Do you hug? Do you hold hands?” “You're gonna look stupid at your wedding if you've never kissed before.” “What if he's a bad kisser?”

It's hard for me to not get really passionate about this one. I've been holding back calling the girl who told me we'd look stupid all kinds of names ever since she said it. Luckily I haven't seen her in years. Still, at least I won't look like a slut at my wedding.

UPDATE: We did look silly at our wedding. It totally didn't matter, and we've had lots of practice since ;)

And what if he is a bad kisser? I've never kissed anyone either, what if I'm a bad kisser? Should we call off the whole wedding just in case? It's about more than kissing just like it's about more than sex. More on that later though...

“You're never alone together?”

For the whole not having sex thing to work you have to draw lines somewhere. If you're kissing and hugging and cuddled up together alone in your bedroom under the blankets, you're not about to go “Oh but we have to stop now and not have sex.”
Mom made it clear my whole life that boys were not allowed in my room and I wasn't allowed in a boy's room. I also decided when I got my purity ring that I wanted my first kiss to be at my wedding. I felt that it makes that kiss much more special, it's not just “Mwah we're getting married” it's the first kiss ever, but also as man and wife.

“What if you get married and find out he has an STD?” “What if he's secretly a girl?” “What if...”

If the Captain had some big awful secret he was keeping from me his sisters probably would have told me, if not his mother. And, if he had an STD he'd be dead cuz his mother would have killed him. My mom would have done the same to me.

Also, if he was a girl his mother wouldn't have named him Gabriel. She probably would have named him Susie and I would be a lot less interested.

“You two are never going to have a fulfilling sex life if you don't have sex before you're married.”

Selfishness abounds! Since when did promiscuity become equal to fulfillment? If all you care about is really good sex, and you're willing to toss people aside like trash when you get bored with them, do you really feel fulfilled when you look back on it? And similarly, if you have been cast aside, (ladies especially) didn't that hurt? Even just watching kids at school date around while not necessarily sleeping together, I saw so many broken hearts. That's why I determined when I was young that I would never have my heart broken. I gave my heart only to the Captain, and he has been taking very good care of it.

The idea that having lots of sex with lots of people will somehow help you have better sex is ridiculous to me. Treating people like they don't matter at all, and being used by people who don't think you matter at all doesn't make good sex.
My Senior year in High school we walked into Marriage Family and Finance class (A required Senior class at my school) one day, and the teacher had written on the board “The Best Sex Ever.” The point she made was the exact opposite of “I'm gonna run around and sleep with everyone in sight because that will give me fulfillment!” Her point was what I believe, that faithfulness and only having sex with your spouse, saving it for marriage as part of your covenant to them that you made before God, is the best sex. (And in a perfect world would be the only sex.)

I don't understand how anyone got the idea that sleeping around would lead to a good marriage. Maybe that's why there are so many divorces, because people are so focused on themselves that they can't work together, or even love each other, the way God intended. If you've trained yourself to throw people aside for more interesting sex, how long are you going to stay with one person because you married them? You might looooooove them, but do you care about them enough to keep all of your marriage vows so long as you both shall live?

It's what I started to say about kissing. Who cares if we're good at kissing? Who cares if we're good at sex? You shouldn't, it's private. Plus, sex isn't really what's important,what matters to me is being completely faithful to my husband, and being secure in the knowledge that he is (will be) completely faithful to me.


“What does your wedding dress look like?”

White.

Respect

Our church college age group has become the engaged group. I think the Captain started a trend because a month or so after he proposed at least four more couples were engaged. A few months before that when we were looking for a new subject for us to go over when we meet we didn't know that we'd all be planning on getting married soon, and we picked the Love and Respect marriage conference series. We've mostly gone through the part about women, the love part.

To be honest, I don't remember much about that part. I do remember the guy saying to men to use the word “love” when they speak to their wives. I also remember driving home with the Captain and he said a sentence that had the word love in it five times, and that he was talking about me, but I cannot remember what he actually said. So that was lots of fun, and now we're on the Respect part.

The speaker said that he has asked women to write a note to their husbands signing it “with all my respect” and that most women have trouble with that. While we were sitting there I was thinking “I could do that, I don't understand why some women have a problem with that!” Until I started thinking about actually writing the word “Respect.”

It isn't that I don't have respect for the Captain, I have no trouble telling him that I will be obedient to him, or that I'll submit to him like it says in Ephesians 5:22-24. It's something about the word Respect.

When I was in Junior High School we had a Vice Principal who I had absolutely no respect for, and oddly enough, his two favorite words were Reiterate and Respect. “I just want to reiterate that we need to have respect for each other in this school!” He said practically the same sentence over about six times every morning and afternoon in the announcements, and I think everyone in the school got sick of it after he had been there for about a week.

More recently I went with my family to an urban ministry to kids in our city. The kids were roughhousing and picking fights with each other. My mom finally asked one of the boys why he kept yelling at the other children and he said that he wanted them to respect him.

I'm afraid that, to me, and potentially to a lot of other people, the word Respect has absolutely no meaning. Telling the Captain that I respect him to me seems like walking up and spouting nonsense, or not saying anything at all.

But the way the Captain described it, he made it have a little bit of meaning again. If someone tells him that he has their respect it means that he has earned it, is what I remember him saying. That they think he means something. So, even though the word sounded strange coming out of my mouth I wanted to say it to him because the Captain has done so much that deserves recognition in some way.

I think just saying “Respect” was too small though, it doesn't show how completely blown away I am when it hits me just how much he loves me. Or how impressive it is that he not only finished a book, but agonized over perfecting it and publishing it. Or how hard he's worked at college and jobs he didn't like because he knew he had to get through it. Or how he went back to my dad after being told no, fully expecting to hear “no” again. Or how he always does what is honorable and right to serve God.

I like Wonderful better. I think the Captain is wonderful.

Phunny Pharm Customers

To the customers at the Phunny Pharm,
To all the customers who know what drugs they're taking by name, and why they're taking them. To the customers who pick up their prescriptions when they say they will. To the customers who call their own doctors and insurance companies. To the customers who bring in their insurance cards, and their prescriptions before they expire.
To you good people who spell your names and don't give us nicknames, and who tell us when a name has been changed. To you people who don't act like copayments are our fault, and don't ask other people to pay them for you. To you who say those sweet words "I'll pick it up tomorrow."
To everyone who always takes their medications as directed. To everyone who doesn't loose or "break" bottles. To everyone who has never pharmacy shopped to get early controlled substances.
To everyone who chooses not to use the drive thru, and to you who don't smoke, eat, talk on the phone, or yell at your children in the drive thru or at the counter.
To all the men who don't flirt with us, or act like we're attracted to you.
To the people who don't curse at us, the people who don't defecate on the floor, don't steal, and wash regularly.

You're allowed to come in more often!

Thinking Back

Taking Engagement photos with the Captain the other day made me think back about our relationship. When I thought he was stuck up and didn't like me while secretly hoping he'd like me. Or when we were finally friends and I was terrified that my having a crush on him would drive him away. Going to proms together, playing Stratego over Skype, watching what felt like every other girl flirting with him, and Aisling trying to console me without giving anything away while we were living in the dorm together.

The more I think about it the more extraordinary our story seems to me. The Captain is the only boy who ever gave me flowers, and I still have the first one he ever gave me pressed in my old journal. He's also the only one who ever told me I was beautiful. Other than my dad the Captain was my first dance partner, and neither of us has ever been in another relationship.

Looking over the pictures the Mouse took of us it's ... I don't really know how to describe it. They make me think of heros from my childhood. Wesley from the Princess Bride, the prince from Sleeping Beauty, Morgan from Magic Island, Caspian from the Narnia books, Jim from Treasure Island, Ivanhoe, Aragorn from Lord of the Rings. The Captain is like all of them, or twice of all of them. They seem so... halfhearted now. I don't know how else to explain it.

We took some pictures out on the bridge the Captain built over the creek. When we started courting he took me out to show me the cables they had just recently finished stringing across. When we were walking to the bridge I commented that we were standing somewhere nearby when he asked to court me. He took me a few steps closer to the bank and said that we were standing there exactly looking at a recently fallen tree which is still there. I'm blown away that he remembers so well. All I remember are the flowers and him smiling, but knowing that he remembers it makes it twice as sweet.

Writing

Working on my book. Gonna work on my book... book, book, book... I just thought the word book over and over instead of actually working on my book.

Ok, Character names! I'll work on Character names. I need lots of Character names! Character names will bring the whole book to life and make everything seem so real! But if I have too many character names will I confuse my audience? Does giving a character a name mean they have to be more than a background character? Nah, it'll be fine, besides I can remember at least 12 of Gandalf's names from Lord of the Rings.

Ok, Character names! What kind of character names?

Ugh! Naming Characters is so difficult! Why does it have to be this difficult! Do they need names? I can invent a culture that doesn't use names. That would be a really confusing culture. 

Frederick... that sounds cool. Wait, that's just a fancy way of saying Fred. Come up with some original character names! Elden. That's just like Eldon from that other story you just wrote! Oh yeah... Uh... Serlin! Sweet that sounds awesome! Wait... it's Merlin with an S...

No one will notice right? Sure, keep going.

Geoffrey, I like Geoffrey. It sounds regal and it looks cool. My main characters should name their son that. Or should I save it and name a kid Geoffrey someday? Can I wait that long to use that cool of a name? Geoffrey deserves to at least be the main character in his own story, even if I don't name a kid that.

What was I doing? Right, names.

Bored with names, back to the plot! Oh right... I was introducing a ton of characters who all need names...

Maybe I'll number them. Guy 1, Guy 2. No, I'll just put 1 and 2.

This is really dumb I'll just give them names. Names bring the whole book to life and make everything seem so real!

Naming characters is so difficult!

*A real inner monologue. Yes this is what I count as "working on my book." It's also why I've been trying to write the same book for eleven years.  =(

Fairness

Have you ever walked into a store, picked up the items you wanted and walked past the register without paying for them? I did once, with a pack of gum when I was about three. My mom drove me back and made me apologize for stealing.

But, what if I really needed something, and I didn't have the money. But I really really needed it. Does that justify stealing? How about this, say you are on food stamps, and you know you won't have to pay out of your pocket for the food you're buying. Do you just walk out without giving the cashier the food stamp card? That's still called stealing, because the store will not get paid back for the items.

How about this one. You walk into the Phunny Pharm where I am behind the counter. You drop off a prescription and tell me “I have medicaid,” and then leave without giving me the billing information. When you come back and I tell you that it costs three hundred dollars and you repeat “I have medicaid,” and then grab the prescription and leave, you are still stealing that prescription because the Phunny Pharm will not be paid back for it.

But the Phunny Pharm is part of a big evil corporation right? They can stand to loose three hundred dollars right? The thing is, the Phunny Pharm and all the Phunny Pharms across the country loose money every day because of thieves and insurance companies who take money back for every prescription they can get away with. The Phunny Pharm isn't just one evil head of the corporation lounging on a throne made of money, it's some guy who I think my dad actually knew growing up, who is a person just like the rest of us except that he risked everything and started a company. The Phunny Pharm is also lots of little techs like me, who, when they look at their pay check find that they have money taken from them to pay for medicaid. The people on medicaid seem to think that everything is paid for by magical government money, and in a way it is, except that magical government money is taxes. Taxes that come from people who work so that the government can fling it at people who don't.

I know this isn't news to most of you, in fact I really hope it isn't news to anyone at all, but the whole thing is weighing on me because of it's blatant stupidity. Yet, as stupid as it is, it seems like no one ever tries to fix it! I've seen people who will leave their child's medicine that they made us fill right now because it cost less than three dollars. One woman had spent the entire time we were filling a prescription for her child's inhaler telling us how the child was wheezing badly and desperately needed the inhaler, only to tell us it could wait five hours until the insurance company came back online.

She did say that she didn't have any money, and as much as I try to understand that I really can't. I can understand not having money in my wallet, but not having so little money that I couldn't go and find some. I understand that there are poor people, but I do not understand the “poor” people in our culture today. The people who are on medicaid and food stamps come into the Phunny Pharm and buy cigarettes before they think about their prescriptions, they'll buy booze like there's no tomorrow, they come through the drive thru with a hamburger shoved halfway through their face using their newly manicured plastic fingernails to shove it there, and then say that they don't have money. They have money. Medicaid doesn't pay for all the television channels they watch. Food stamps won't buy your beer. It's the priorities I see in these people that sickens me.

The movie Hunger Games just came out. I read the book series not long ago and loved it. In the world of the books there is a city called the Capitol and twelve districts surrounding it. The people of the Capitol live a life of excess. They want for nothing because the districts provide them with everything. The big highlight of their lives is watching the Hunger Games, where each of the districts is forced to give them two tributes who all have to fight to the death. The survivor is named victor and gets to live in luxury the rest of their life. To the people of the districts it is a terrible display of the Capitol's power and very possibly a death sentence, but to the majority of people in the Capitol it's just a really fun television show. And that's all they care about.

It doesn't matter who they hurt when they urge children to murder their peers, it doesn't matter to them that the people in the districts starve to death while they work to provide for the demanding Capitol. As long as they have food overflowing their tables and really great television they're completely happy to have the world fall to pieces around them. And their world does fall to pieces. In the third book the Capitol is taken over by rebels, basically led by a communist society. The people from the Capitol have no clue how to live in a world where food is scarce, where it doesn't matter how they make themselves look, and where their lives are in danger instead of the tributes from the districts.

When I finished reading Hunger Games I was sickened by television. Someone in the house had a reality show on, one where you can vote for your favorite singer or whatever. The announcer said “Your vote can keep your favorite contestant alive in the competition.” And all I could think of was Rue in the books with thousands of people watching, and only a handful actually mourning her death. Maybe it's a bad analogy, no one actually dies on tv. But there are so many shows out now, and audiences are getting bored. All it took to bring the world of the Hunger Games to it was a civil war against the Capitol where the Capitol won and had to exercise it's power.

But back to the point. I was talking about stealing in the very beginning. No, I was talking about selfishness this whole time. Customers who come in to the Phunny Pharm and demand that we cater to their every whim, like calling their insurance companies left, right, and center, demanding that they never have copayments, walking off with their prescription and messing up our computer records because they don't want to wait to be rung up and “it's free anyway.” One of my future sisters-in-law works at a grocery store where she actually had to deal with a woman who ran out of the store with her groceries when her foodstamp card wouldn't work, because they were free anyway. These people don't seem to see that someone has to pay for it, that it comes out of my pay checks, out of your pay checks, out of our taxes. The people in the Capitol didn't see that the people in the districts were paying for it, with their own blood and the lives of their children.

I liked the ending of the Hunger Games books because the people of the Capitol ended up having to learn that if they didn't work they wouldn't eat. The lesson the main character, Katniss, had learned well before the start of the first book. It's a lesson my mom taught me through the example of my Great Grandfather's life, and I cannot understand the world we've made where we reward those who do not work and punish those who do. All we're doing is feeding selfish human desires, creating a generation of people who don't know how to take care of themselves, and watching people depend more and more on the government that, in the end, doesn't actually care about them. Someday they or their children will figure out that the system is broken, but then what will they be able to do about it? And why would we give up our selfishness now to make the lives of future generations better?

Mouse

I'm a Mermaid and the Captain is a Fox. The Captain has a younger sister who is a Mouse.

When the Mouse was thirteen she was in a play of Alice and Wonderland where she played the Dormouse. There was a young man a few years older than her playing the Mad Hatter. The Captain and the Mouse's mother (The Cow since we're going with the critter theme.) likes to tell the story that she saw the Mad Hatter and thought it would be lovely if he would take a liking to the Mouse.

At the end of the last night of the play, when all the actors were standing and shaking hands with the audience, the Hatter approached the Mouse with a big bouquet of flowers.

It basically went like this:

Hatter: Here! Have flowers because they're pretty, like you.

Mouse: Me? =O.O=

Hatter: Yeah! I like you!

Mouse: *Shoves Hatter away* =O.O=

Hatter: O.O

Mouse: Okay =^.^=

And they've been courting ever since. Ok, so it didn't go quite like that, but I'm sure it kind of did.

Meanwhile I was still following the Captain around. I had expected that I would finish High School, go to college, finish college, start a job, and then start a relationship. Then I saw the Mouse walking away with the Hatter following her like she was made of some rare, precious mineral, and a whole herd of girls chasing after the Hatter and I thought “Why can't I have that too?”

Fast forward to today. The Mouse and the Hatter have been courting for around four years and the Captain and I for a little over two. Both couples are planning to get married in either spring or summer of 2013. The Mouse's big plans were to turn eighteen, graduate high school, graduate with a two year degree at college, and get married, all within a couple months of each other.

Married at eighteen! The shock! The Horror! The- ok calm down. First, pause and congratulate her on graduating High School and College at the same time. If you thought anything like shock or horror, or even just a little weirded out, you're probably just a little jealous, like me.

I wish I could have been seriously planning my wedding when I was seventeen. Courting is hard work, especially for the Hatter and me because we found such wonderful people to be utterly devoted to.

When I first started telling people about courting they immediately assumed that we were courting only because we were either not interested in sex, or afraid of it. Then later, when I started having to explain that we do know where babies come from, and know what? We want to get married young because we don't want to wait very long to be together the response was “Well then go do it!”

Is it so wrong to want to get married before having marital relations? There's a very good reason the word Marital is included. You can't “just have sex” you and your “partner” become one flesh (Genesis 2:24.) To be completely honest, I don't believe that a wedding ceremony is what makes you married, I believe sex makes you married, and sex is good only if the two involved have made the commitment to stay together till death do they part.

Not too long ago the Mouse would probably have killed me for talking about her and sex in the same blog entry. (She lubs me though.) Which brings me to the other thing I wanted to talk about.

Probably the best way to make a marriage “work” that I've seen, is for the two involved to be very mature. They have to wake up every day and decide to love their spouse no matter what happens in that day. If, after the Captain and I get married, I found that the Captain poured hot sauce in all the food, stood oars up in all the corners for decoration, told me my writing was terrible, left all his dirty socks all over the house and told me the correct way to wash the dishes, I'd still love him, because I've decided to. (Notice that I didn't mention abuse or adultery.) If he kept it up I'd start to think he didn't love me, but once we make our wedding vows we are bound to each other. There might not be consequences on earth for divorce but I am sure everyone will be held accountable when they meet God face to face. (Just for the record I do believe that there are certain situations where divorce can be acceptable, such as abuse or adultery. Those are very specific situations though.)

To continue to love your spouse you have to give up your selfishness, which is what I mean by maturity. An eighteen year old can be far more mature than a thirty year old if the younger has determined that they are married to be there for their spouse and not for themselves. A thirty year old who has been living on their own for a decade, has a high paying career, and is only interested in marriage so they don't end up completely alone forever, is doomed. The moment it becomes difficult to love their spouse they will leave because the relationship no longer serves them.

This is where the Mouse really comes up. When she and the Hatter started courting she was very young and still very much struggling with her selfish nature. In the time since then I've been completely astounded by how much she has grown up. There was a real turning point where she was asked flatly if she would love the Hatter, and she decided to. This is far more than just having a romantic feeling, she decided to give her heart to him and completely trust him with it. Once she decided that they started working toward getting married, and for them it was the obvious next step. They knew that they had made a commitment to each other and they had already stuck together through plenty of hard times, and the goal was to get married eventually so why not aim to get married as soon as possible?

I'll stop so I don't keep rambling. Suffice it to say that the Mouse and the Hatter might be young, but I think that God has blessed them immensely, and grown them both immensely. It will probably never be smooth sailing, but when the Mouse decides something she makes sure it happens. I'm certain that since they have God's help they'll have a long and happy marriage. Wishing you the best, Mouse.

Foxes and Mermaids

I've collected a few Fox and Mermaid things over the last few years

There's always a Fox for every mermaid

Even this one ^_^

Wedding Stuff!!!

In my last blog entry I mentioned that the Captain and I are engaged. Finally. ;)

He came over on Valentines Day and we were planning a romantic evening dancing and being watched closely by my brother. I like to paint and I had an idea for a painting inspired by the Captain's book, The Flying Fix-it and Odds and Ends Shop (Available in most book stores... soon?). I wanted to take pictures outside and then he insisted on going for a walk even though he was shivering. We went back to take one last picture and then he started digging in his jacket pocket. I was standing there with the camera taking pictures when he got down on one knee and opened up a little box. I still didn't quite understand what was going on while he said “Will you marry me?” so we have a couple good pictures of him on one knee out in the snow. I was aware enough that I said yes and then he gave me the most beautiful ring in the entire world.

He's such a wonderful Fiancé.

So now we've got a very clear direction for the next year and a half of our lives. Get to the wedding. I grudgingly agreed to his August 2013 date, and then started dragging him to bridal shows. Then I dragged his mom, two of his sisters, another friend, and my mom to two bridal stores in one day. Because that's how I plan things. Even though there's over five hundred days until the wedding I feel the need to have it all ready now. They say cake keeps for a year, right?

So after I found the dress and went and started telling people about it they bring up that whole time thing. It might be a bad idea to buy the dress right now because I've rapidly been losing weight the past two years and that could either continue for another year and a half, or stop and I could start gaining weight again. That would cause all kinds of other problems though, I'd have to get the ring resized because my finger used to be a size nine and rapidly dropped to a six and a half this winter. (Which is lucky for me since the ring the Captain had had for over a year was a six and a half. He was planning ahead, he just didn't know it.)

So then on Sunday we sat down to all have a wedding planning meeting. Instead of just being a wedding planning meeting attached to a simple meal my family turned it into... I don't even know. Dad cleaned the house two weeks in advance, mom got up at the crack of dawn on Sunday to start cooking the food, and everybody ended up generally panicked. I was panicked about waiting a whole week to have the meeting, mom was panicked that the food wouldn't be good enough and people wouldn't eat it, and dad I think is always somewhat panicked that the house isn't always spotless. (My brother was completely unfazed, I should add.)

So Sunday after Church we hurried home and cooked furiously! There were potatoes to peel and things from the store that we didn't have! Then the Captain and his family came over and the guys went and played ping pong on dad's new table, and mom and I finished cooking. We laid everything out on a pristine table with knives, forks, and even spoons and napkins. It was a super fancy lunch as far as my family was concerned. (Don't tell the Captain that we barely ever use napkins.)

Then the wedding planning! We talked about stuff for awhile. We decided that we don't know what the budget will be quite yet. Then we decided that we don't know where the reception will be. Then we discussed guests and decided that we had too many on the list. Then we thought of more people who really ought to be invited and added them to the list. Then we took a few people who we don't really know that well after all off of the list. Then we looked at the list and decided we'd cut it down to size later. Then I bugged the Captain about starting a registry because one of my aunt's had mentioned giving us presents. Then we debated about giving online registries our contact information. Then we caved in and gave it to them. Once we set up the registry we spent an hour looking for a comforter we both liked. Then we thought we really should call it quits since our dad's had wandered off to play ping pong hours ago. The general consensus was that the wedding needs to be planned. But we'll get to that later.

Today I dragged the Captain's mom and two sisters to a possible reception site. Everybody else was there to make sure that I didn't just stand around going “Wow! This place is pretty!” and instead point out things like “Did you notice that there's only one bathroom?” or “Will all the guests even fit in here?”

There was a nice tour guide taking us around, making small talk, and giving us general wedding info about the site. We asked him how much it was to rent the space and he gave us a figure. Now, I'm bad with numbers. It's a miracle that I made it all through four years of high school math. When someone says the number twenty two hundred, my brain goes 22,000. So when I thought he said 22,000 I was ready to run away screaming. Then we got in the car after our tour and everyone was discussing the pros and cons of bathrooms and parking and gardens and dance floors, and I was thinking “Nope, dad will shoot me if the reception costs that much.” Until someone said “And I thought the price was really reasonable!” What?!

They had to explain twenty two hundred to me. So now I can see the difference, there's 22,000 and then there's 2,200 to rent the space. Yet still, at the back of my mind I can't quite shake the feeling of “WHAT?!” that I experienced in the room.

When the Captain and I started courting two years ago I started looking for wedding dresses and generally planning the wedding. Now that we're actually engaged I pulled out my notes. They include a full page of all the stuff I need to wear or have done to myself, a full page of what the bridesmaids need to do, wear, and have done to themselves, a half a page on flower girls, a list of random things I didn't want to forget, and not much else that looks helpful at all. I know now where my priorities are.

It turns out that I don't actually want what we commonly think of as a wedding. I mostly want a fancy dress, a terribly traditional ceremony, and someone to kinda throw us a party before we run away into wedded bliss. The one thing keeping me from deciding to have the reception in the church basement is this nagging thought of “But I wanna look grown up and fancy!” which probably proves just how grown up I really am. >.>

Oh well, I'll still end up with the Captain somehow ;)

Glee

Ever heard of the show Glee? I first heard of it a few years ago but didn't watch any of it until last year when I was spending a lot of time at another persons house. All I knew about it before seeing it was that it was a show about high school kids in a group where they sang and danced. What's wrong with that, right? Sounds like a cute little show, right? But by the second time I had watched it I could not stand the show. The episodes that I watched bothered me and I couldn't let it go for a long time. I wanted to grab each of the characters by the lapels and slap them silly. It's not just a cute show about singing and dancing, folks. The writers of the show have a lot to say. To write this blog entry I sat down and watched one more episode, and I was actually impressed at how much they managed to offend me in only the first five minutes of the show.

I chose Glee's Valentine's Day episode for this year, mostly because it was the most recent one I could find online for free. It's called Heart. After a short introduction it shows Rachel and Finn (Who apparently got engaged in a previous episode (Btb, the Captain and I are engaged now, I might talk about that more later on in this blog ;) )) and are surprised by Rachel's “Dads”. It took me most of the episode to figure out who these two were. I thought one was Rachel's dad and the other was a step father who somehow got along really well with her dad. It wasn't until they made a sex joke later on in the episode that I understood that Finn called them “Mr. and Mr. Berry” for a reason.

Rachel and her Dads

Also in the first five minutes, and probably most offensive to me is the “God-Squad.” This group is made up of three kids from the Glee Club including a girl named Quinn who says after her introduction “I'm not even sure who I was praying to really, but it seemed to lead me on the right track.” And I'm going to pause right there. It's pretty clear the rest of the episode that this is indeed supposed to be a Christian group. And prayer does not make you a Christian, acknowledging that Jesus died to take away our sins and agreeing to follow Him makes you a Christian. On the other hand, they did just introduce her, maybe she's a new member and isn't a Christian yet. The problem then becomes that no one gives her any direction, or discipling. Their response is “Amen.” “Praise.” My response is facepalm. Also, on the white board in the background you can read their to do list “Proselytizing” “Pray about Artie's legs” (Artie is a Glee Club member in a wheel chair.) and “Secretly Baptize people” Is that really what people think Christians do? That we all hang out and try to think of sneaky ways to convert people and force them to get baptized? That we walk around going “Amen!” whenever anyone says anything at all?

That's just where I began to get offended, and we're still in the first five minutes. Next they introduce the newest member of the God-Squad, Joe. He says “Uh, I guess I'm a sophomore. I've been homeschooled my whole life, but this past year I realized that my best friend was my mom so I decided I wanted to get out and experience the world.”

Joe Heart

Everybody already knows how I feel about homeschooling (it's the best and public school is inherently evil) but lots of television that supports public school feels the need to bash homeschooling every chance they get. There was no reason at all to add Joe into this episode, except to make fun of homeschooling, and Christians. And I'm only a Christian who wants to homeschool so of course I'm not offended in the least. Or sarcastic in the least.

Joe proceeds to tell the group that he has Bible quote tattoos, his dredlocks are named after books of the Bible, that he only knows Christian songs, his dad only listens to talk radio, and they don't have tv. Oh, and can he take off his shoes? Most of this stuff is pretty stereotypical homeschool family stuff, except the tattoos, it's stuff that I've heard homeschoolers joke about. Only it's not funny when a non-homeschooler makes the joke. They don't let this joke get away either, but that happens outside of the first five minutes.

The rest of the first five minutes is filled with more “Praise” from the God-Squad. They decide to do singing telegrams for Valentines Day to raise money for adopting a highway and starting a shoe drive, ya know, Christian stuff. (Not that that's bad, but that it's presented as only things that religious wackos do, not normal human beings who want to be good stewards of the earth and give poor children shoes.) Or friend Joe agrees to do singing telegrams because Valentines Day is a “Religious holiday” because of “Saint Valentine.” Again, I pause. Christians don't celebrate Valentines Day because there's a Saint related to it, only Catholics, and not many Catholics are the weird homeschooly type. And then we end the first five minutes with this quote from Joe “I'd love to show the school that it's cool to be Christian. That we're not all door to door Bible salesmen like my dad.” I'd like to know exactly how they plan on showing the school that it's “cool to be Christian” what the show is actually saying is they see Christians as losers who really want to be cool, but they're too dumb to get real lives outside of God and saying “Amen!” all the time. From the episodes I watched before I can say that their school is filled with problems. There's bullies, promiscuity, homosexuality, and evil teachers (and I mean evil). It may be cool to have all those things (except the evil teacher) but if Joe, or someone like him, wasn't getting pregnant left and right, dropping boyfriends or girlfriends left and right, having their heart broken, living in regret, or giving extra fodder to bullies, who's the one really missing out?

So then we switch to Puck telling everyone at lunch how he went through the sorority like a “Sex tornado” and Kurt, their gay friend, tells them that he's missing out on true love. Kurt gets a valentine card from his boyfriend, Blaine, and says “See, true love.” They can really say anything with cards nowadays can't they? I would love to go on a rant here about true love, but I was only planning on writing one blog entry today.

The other homosexual relationship in the episode is between the students Brittany and Santana. They exchange valentines in the hallway and just as they are about to kiss the principal stops them. He tells them to stop their public displays of affection because some other student complained for religious reasons, to which Santana replies “Oh, great, so it was some Bible thumper that complained.”

Later in the episode, after the God-Squad does a sing-a-gram for Rachel, Santana approaches the group, asks them if they're a Christian group, and pays them to sing for her girlfriend. Making it very clear that she is in a homosexual relationship. The God-Squad has an “Is Gay Ok?” meeting to figure out this dilemma. Time to be offensive again! When it comes down to it the three members of the God-Squad who are also in Glee Club don't mind gay people, but they can't just say that, they have to come up with reasons why they're ok with it. This conversation follows:

    Mercedes: I know we're ok with it, but Joe might not be.
    Joe: I try my best not to judge anyone, but honestly I've never met anyone who was gay.
    Quinn: Oh I guarantee you have.
    Mercedes: They say one out of every ten people are gay, and if that's true then that means that one of the twelve apostles might have been gay. And my guess is Simon because that name is the gayest.
    Sam: The Bible says it's an abomination for a man to lie down with another man, but we shared tents in Cub Scouts and slept next to each other all the time. So that would make Cub Scouts an abomination.
    Quinn: You know what else the Bible says is an abomination, eating lobster, planting different crops in the same field, giving somebody a proud look? Not an abomination? Slavery. Jesus never said anything about gay people, that's fact.

This whole scene is intentionally malicious toward Christianity and though they never say God's name, it's malicious toward Him and His law. It's clear that when the Bible talks about a man laying with or sleeping with another man it's talking about sex, and the Bible says in Leviticus 20:13 - "If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads." and in Romans 1:26-27 - "Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion." The punishment for eating lobster was that you were ceremonially unclean for a short time. The punishment for homosexuality was death. When Jesus died it was to cleanse us sinful humans so that we wouldn't have to continue worrying about being ceremonially unclean all the time. That's why we can eat milk and meat and we're not still terrified of walking over an unmarked grave, we are clean now. Homosexuality is not just something that makes you ceremonially unclean though, it's a sin, and sin didn't go away when Jesus died. Humans still have a sinful nature that we all will struggle with until the day we die.

As for Jesus saying anything about gay people, Jesus said Luke 16:17 “But it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one dot of the Law to become void.” So when it says in Leviticus 18:22 “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.” Jesus agrees with it. There's also this thing about God, and Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. They make up the Trinity, and it's hard for us to understand but somehow all three are one being, and have always existed together, so when God wrote the law Jesus was also writing the law. Ergo, Jesus had a lot to say about gay people.

And the conversation continues:

Mercedes: So where do you stand Joe?
Joe: I guess I'll have to think about it.
Quinn: You know what, that's totally fair. You have to look at the hard topics and dilemmas and be honest and truthful. If you ask me, that's what being Christian is really about.

Being truthful doesn't make you Christian, looking at facts doesn't make you a Christian, it can help you be a better Christian but will never be the thing that makes you a Christian. At this point I think they're just spouting words that sound good.

Then we go back to Rachel and Finn's dinner with their parents. Rachel and her dads are shown as a good, stable, tightly knit family. Before dinner they're singing together with Rachel and Finn comments to his parents “How come we never do this?” But, in the middle of dinner the parents suggest that Rachel and Finn sleep together, since they're going to be getting married shortly anyway. Finn's mom even packed him an overnight bag.

The reason, it turns out, is that they hope living together will show the two that they don't actually want to get married so young, they were only pretending to be supportive and instead were being manipulative. They even admit (to each other, not Rachel) that they were lying. Then, when Rachel and Finn stop arguing about who uses the bathroom and snuggle up in bed, one of Rachel's dads says “Is he
defiling our baby?” Uh.. yeah maybe cuz you told them to have sex! At this point though, I don't know what they're trying to say. But most of this episode they've been trying to say so much that they weren't able to say any of it well. Which is how you end up with arguments like Simon Peter being gay because his name sounds gay somehow.

Just before they end the episode with one more song our friend Joe confronts Santana. He says “After thinking and praying about it I knew there was only one right answer.”

Pause to build more tension!

“Absolutely! Love is love man.”

Feel free to facepalm. This is another time that they put words together because they thought they sounded good. If Joe prayed about this decision and got the answer “love is love” then I don't believe he was listening to the same God I pray to, the one who completely destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah for practicing homosexuality. The only reason I don't believe God would do the same thing again is that since Jesus died for our sins we can be forgiven of sins that we deserve to die for committing.

Thankfully, that's the end of the episode. At least, that I'm going to cover. The conclusion that I've come to about this show is that it's written by a very specific group who all feel about the same way on several issues, and like music (because there was singing and dancing mixed in there.) But the real point of the show is for that group of people to make them feel good about themselves at the expense of the people they're making fun of. Like me.

I was offended, and I suppose I still am, by this show, but I'm glad now to know that it isn't innocent and cute at all. At first it looks like flashy lights, pretty singing, cool songs, but if you stop and think about what they're saying, and how they're saying it, they are not there to entertain you. The purpose of the show is to perpetuate the beliefs of an immoral, self praising group of people, and to validate their sins. They can have their t.v. show now, but I guarantee they'll regret it when faced with the consequences in eternity. I say, don't join them, shut the t.v. off.