Sweet, Sweet Fall

“I loved autumn, the one season of the year that God seemed to have put there just for the beauty of it.”

― Lee Maynard

I love the fall! It has so much promise of excitement, relaxation, fun and thankful hearts. In celebration of fall yesterday because October 1st had finally arrived, I made apple butter and pumpkin streusel spice muffins. Though it doesn't quite feel entirely like fall outside yet, our home definitely smelled like it! These recipes were SO easy, try them yourself!

Crock Pot Apple Butter

(Found here) 

12 Apples (any flavor)
1 cup regular sugar
1 cup brown sugar
1 tbsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp salt
1 tbsp vanilla
2 tsp lemon juice

1. Add apples to crock pot and pour sugar, brown sugar and spice in. Stir around to coat apples.

2. Set on low for 8-10 hours (overnight works well!)

3. After the first hour or two, stir it around a bit to make sure the apples are coated

4. After 8 hours, stir in the lemon juice and vanilla. Leave lid open for the remaining two hours so that the moisture evaporates a bit more

5. Blend if you desire a smoother texture (makes approx. one and a half pints)

Easy Pumpkin Streusel Spice Muffins

(Found here)

1 Spice Cake Mix

1 can pumpkin
3 eggs
1/4 water

1/2 cup of oatmeal

1/2 cup of white or milk chocolate chips

1. Mix the cake mix, pumpkin, eggs, water, oatmeal and chocolate chips together and separate into muffins tins (make approx. 18 muffins) 

2. Mix together the remaining ingredients and top the muffins with it

3. Bake at 350 for 15-18 minutes

What are some of your favorite fall recipes?

Dreading the Wedding: Jesus Turning Water Into Wine

I would be lying if I didn't say I've discussed the idea of eloping with Tyler more than once.

And then, once we laughed for a moment, thought about pressing in further and making it evident that I was serious.

Engagement is so different than I expected. It's definitely a world all its own that I never planned. It is full of so much joy and expectancy, and I am so blessed by it. There is no other season I would rather be in right now. But it definitely is hard.

I've been tossed and turned by the threat of uncharted waters recently. We have so few friends that are married and I can hardly think of more than two couples near our age that are married. None quite as young as we are, however, and it's such a surreal thing sometimes. Engagement is such a crazy time - this crazy collision of meshing our lives together yet remaining separate. I've been spending so much time consumed in these waves of trying to plan where we will live, how and where we are going to get furniture we need or things for our home, how to knit our finances and accounts together and change my name and do another million things that unexpectedly have come with what everyone said was going to be one of the happiest times of my life.

And on top of trying to figure out how to blend our lives after we are married, we still have to plan the wedding itself. Weddings are full of unspoken but seemingly unbreakable social etiquette laws and no one can ever seem to tell me the same thing. What I'll hear in one place, I'll read is offensive in the other. What I hear from one person, I'll hear is so pointless from another. Where there is one way to do things, there are a thousand different ways to get a similar result. When you say you like the idea of something, someone will come along and compare your wedding to another or disagree with you.  One person will tell you you're right, one will say you're wrong. One person thinks you're tacky, one person thinks your clever. One person thinks your idea is beautiful, another person thinks your ideas are just unoriginal. Of course, I've been so excited to get married. But all of the extra things outside of vows being said - I haven't understood the need for them.

Trying to throw a party for all of your closest friends and family and please them all is exhausting.  

And so again, I'd be lying if I didn't say that I had thrown the idea of eloping around more than once.  I've just been going into this with the "everything will be okay after this is over.." mentality, and it's been heart breaking.  I want, with everything in me, to enjoy this in the way that everyone makes it seem it should be enjoyed. But honestly my idea of a good time is not sitting around and focusing on a day that seems so inwardly focused.  I've been teetering between feeling so selfish when people ask about the wedding because I hate feeling like I'm being self-centered, and on the other I feel inadequate because I haven't been able to pull it all together yet and meet the Wedding Etiquette Lawbook's timeline.

Tyler and I have spent many, many, many hours in prayer and reading in the Word and Christian books about marriage and we are so excited for what it will mean. I can't wait to be married to my best friend. He is one of the most kind, compassionate, gracious, forgiving, strong, generous, selfless and joyful people with the heart of a servant. He is more like Jesus than anyone I know. I have loved to see Him grow closer and closer to God over the last four years since our story together first started, and I am humbled by the blessing of getting to spend the rest of my life by his side. God has been teaching us so much about how marriage is the earthly picture that God designed in order to show His love and commitment to us.  The bond of a husband and wife as one flesh shows the covenant that Jesus made to us that He would never leave us or forsake us.  That bond shows that Jesus will always pour out grace, justification and grace upon us as His bride marriage is the God-breathed demonstration of His relentless and unconditional love.  Though we are all human and it will be a learning experience to come closer and closer to understanding this dynamic, I am beyond excited to live out this ministry of showing unconditional commitment to my husband and to show what it means to constantly seek after growing in serving one another, forgiving one another, supporting one another and dying to ourselves. Marriage is designed by God, is through God, and is to glorify God(1). Though it will be hard, it will be fruitful. There is no one else in this world that I could imagine living out that ministry with.

But what about a wedding, then? I know God does so much in singleness, and I know He does so much in marriage. But I have always thought that the stage of engagement and an actual wedding ceremony were simply man's stalling of a big life change.  My heart has been turned to think about that question. If marriage is a pivotal part of God's plan to show His love, than a wedding is not simply just a good excuse to have everyone you love in one place.  It's so much more.

The Bible promises that every temptation and struggle we go through are common to man and also that Jesus was God in the flesh so that we could know and believe that God understood and empathized with any struggle we could face. Everything we could face. I've been begging for a heart that could celebrate this time of my life because I want to fullness of abundant life that Jesus promised - in every season.

And then it occurred to me that Jesus knows this need.  Wasn't His time on Earth so similar to an engagement to His bride? The anticipation and display of sneak peaks of the joy to come once we were finally forever reunited with our Father? John 2:1-11 tells the story of Jesus turning water into wine. Jesus and His disciples were invited to celebrate a wedding with friends and once the wine had run out, Mary prompted Him to do something about it. He ordered servant to fill canisters with water and serve the first glass of water from them to the host of the party. The water quickly turned into wine and remarked to the bridegroom that this wine surpassed all others. In verse 11 it says, "What Jesus did here in Cana of Galilee was the first of the signs through which he revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him." 

It was the first sign in which He revealed His glory. Turning water into wine in order to bring the joy, the freedom, the peace and the provision into the celebration of marriage.  

This was the first sign of His glory. The glory which declares He is the Messiah. He is the God in the flesh, who came to unite us with Him in the unbreakable, unconditional and gracious covenant that is the very pulse of marriage. From the moment of a ceremony until death do we part, God's love is in every second. A wedding ceremony isn't just a good reason to throw a party. It's not just a celebration of getting to now file taxes together and getting the opportunity to change your last name. 

It's the full blown celebration of declaring that Jesus is alive, Jesus is love, and Jesus is here. It is the celebration of two becoming one because we fully believe with everything we have that God is who He says He is and that through Him and by Him, we are sold-out and all-in and we are committed to exemplifying Him through our lives. It is the beautiful coming together of people who love and support us and will continue to do so as we return the same love and support, because not only is this a union between husband and wife but a victory for the family found in Christ that He has overcome the world. 

I've spent the last two months being so stressed out about our wedding - but I am so excited for this day to come now. I'm so excited for a day to celebrate that God truly has done what only He can do and will continue to show His lavished love and grace in our lives as He shines through us. I can't wait to spend a day celebrating with the ones I love that I'm marrying the love of my life so that we can exemplify Jesus at the center.  It's not about the right etiquette or stuffy decorations or unnecessary formalities. In every other area of my life, I am so blown away and filled by joy at seeing God in every part of it. And He is here, too. I can't wait to throw a party to celebrate and be immeasurably excited that our God is immeasurably more amazing and gracious and loving than we could have ever asked or dreamed.  

Our wedding probably is going to not be one that makes it into a fancy, elegant wedding magazine.  Our wedding invitations aren't going to have things like "Two-thousand and fourteen at seven o'clock" spelled out in calligraphy, and we won't be spending $26,000 like the average American on our wedding, and I'm opting for sunflowers and my hair down, and I'm not going to wear shoes because wearing high-heels makes me want to gag, and my bridesmaid dresses aren't going to match because I would love for all my of best friends to feel beautiful and comfortable in their own ways.  I frankly can't care anymore who likes it and who doesn't. Because no one will remember a year from now what my cake looked like or what center pieces there were. But I am praying and believing that Jesus will turn water into wine and make our wedding such a sweet and special day because His presence is the best part, and that is what we cherish the most about it.

But our wedding is going to have a whole, whole, whole lot of laughter, smiles, hugs, family, friends, joy, and sugar.

And a whole lot of Jesus, because in the end - it's all for Him.

I can't wait. :)

(1) A phenomenal resource we have been reading from recently, and what this concept is drawn from is a book called The Momentary Marriage by John Piper. Check it out!

When Failure is the Only Option

The past year of my life has been more a blur than anything else.

It's a blur of long shifts and of sleepless nights. Full of homework that never ends and studying always to be done and never being quite caught up. It's a blur that burns with the aftertaste of too much coffee consumed. It is a jumbled mess of moving and moving again. Boxes and boxes. It's a blur of missing friendships and overwhelming feelings of loneliness and of isolation because of the demands of school and work. It's a blur of feeling shaken because school wasn't allowing time for church or time for others or time for sleep or even, sometimes, time to breathe. It was a blur of oftentimes being too overwhelmed to even be able to respond to a text message or return a call.

It was a blur of often being too busy to try glean from my Father's Word for more than a few minutes each morning when already only 4 or 5 hours of sleep was normal. And if the time did come it was fleeting and I would be too worried about what else needed to get done that day that I never felt present in the moment. Again and again and again I would try each day to chase after Jesus and live a life for Him. Time spent diving into the Word was time spent pouring over pages and pages of the psalms, adding to tear-stained pages and scavenging for refuge in reading about David's kindred, troubled and relentless heart.

My prayers began to ring the only chorus I could conjure -

Jesus, I'm doing all of this for you. It's all for your glory. But I can't find you in it. 

I'm tired. I'm worn. I'm unable.

I've failed.

Have you ever felt that God has led you to a place and left you in that place?  With everything in me, I knew that God has directed me to pursue a particular avenue in school. With everything I had, I was rearranging my life to be able to devote myself to doing all I could to see that come to fruition. I changed my job schedule, my living situation, my budget.  I sacrificed time with friends, ministry opportunities, and time with my fiance.  I've spent the last few years of my life working to have a perfect GPA and working to build a resume in order to open doors for nursing schools. I spent months planning every detail of the next few years of my life to prepare for the even more rigorous school ahead.

And I had never felt more alone. More inadequate.

I had never felt more like I had failed Jesus in my life.

 But thank God His ways are higher.

He's brought me swiftly to a new direction through a series of beautiful confirmations and a heart that feels revived and alive again. I know with all that I am that for a season God asked me to pursue nursing, and He has recently pivoted me to pursue social work.  I can't wait to dive into it and use this as a tool to pour into people's lives.  But more importantly than a career change for the sake of a job, God has really been pouring a peace that transcends all understanding into my heart to know that this past year was about so much more than a career.  

I am so thankful for a God who doesn't limit his pursuit of us within the confines of our personal comfort. I can't articulate just how broken this past year had left me - but in the best way possible. God is too loving to let us stay in a place of idle idolatry. Of complacently seeking God yet knowing your heart is rooted in other desires or fulfillment. I'm so thankful for a God who will stop at no great length to show his extravagant love. The past year of my life has been a journey of humility for God to bring me to circumstances where my heart could find no refuge in anything except for trusting Him. I was pouring out my life into a career field I hated, losing friendships that I loved, letting church be sidelined and letting my pride and personal capability be the rock on which I stood. 

And God is gracious enough to lovingly hold my hand as He walked me into valleys where all I could do was hold onto His hope and crawl through it all, searching for the hem of his garment. I had become selfish, prideful, impatient.  I felt like my performance would dictate the level of glory brought to God and had fallen into a mindset of fighting to earn the cross. The better I could do in school, the more glory. The more I could prepare for the future, the more glory. The better I could do at work or the more I could master sleeping less or the better I could become at managing my own life and making it display excellence, the more glory for my God. It was all for Him. This show was for Him. Surely this is what He wanted. Surely this was taking up my cross. Surely one day I will wake up and this would be easier.

But each day I was failing more and more - tests would fall on the same day or extra shifts would get scheduled at work or extenuating circumstances would interfere with homework getting done. Grades started to fall behind and friends got completely ignored and church attendance started to be optional and life started falling apart. I had no other place to go but to just pray a prayer of surrender. I knew He promised His yoke is easy and His burden is light. I needed Him to do what only He could do - and whatever changes I needed to make, I would. I knew in my heart that we are not just created to fight to survive, but to flourish. I knew there had to be more.

It's beautiful and painful when God brings you to moments when your humanity is blatantly staring back at you. I had fallen into a mindset that the moment we claim to live for Jesus, our lives must be flawless, fast and fruitful. If we don't meet a mark or don't display the inerrant efforts of the God we claim live inside of us, we aren't truly saved. I had began to believe the faulty system that if we aren't living at a standard of excellence then we aren't living as Christians. The harder I worked, the more I realized that even though I was giving every bit of energy and time and sanity I had, I still wouldn't be able to pass the classes I needed to meet school deadlines I had set.  I was trying to live for God and did everything the best I possibly could, yet my best wasn't good enough. 

But God has it in mind to use this season as a season to teach me that regardless of what we do - He is enough.

God will definitely bring you to a new place, but not to leave you there. He is teaching me a new thing about His grace and a new understanding that He knows us more intimately than we know ourselves. He knows our strengths and our weaknesses - He created us with both. We are created purposefully with specific and unique needs that only He can help meet. He know when we sit and when we rise. He knew is when we were knit together in our mother's womb and knows the moment of our last heart beat. It's easy for us to believe that He is Alpha, the beginning, but we are so quick to lose sight of Him truly encompassing the Omega. He is the beginning and the end. He didn't create you, love you, and send His Son to die for you in hopes that you might be His only last hope. He created you, loves you and sent His Son to usher you into His eternal hope. His eternal victory. His perfection that can't be marred by our failures, His grace that can't be changed by our frustration, His love that can't be tainted by our anger and His mercy that can't be shaken by our shortcomings. He is our All and All. He makes it all beautiful in His time and in Him all things are held together.

But it is in these moments, through temptations of brokenness and regret and pain and suffering, that He will show us that it was never even about our success. It was never about our accomplishments. It was never about our quota of jobs well done. 

It was, and is and always will be about Him. He was, and is and always will be on the throne. We aren't fighting and holding our breath to see who wins this cosmic battle of good and evil. God doesn't need us, He loves us. We aren't here to be orphans trying to earn our stay; we are heirs to the King.

But until we choose to let His victory be won and to believe that, regardless of what we can do, He has overcome... it isn't until then that we can truly see the His strength made perfect.  In our weakness, He is strong.

The moon will shine like the sun, and the sunlight will be seven times brighter, like the light of seven full days, when the LORD binds up the bruises of his people and heals the wounds he inflicted.
 - Isaiah 30:26

Mercies Anew

So much has changed. But after going through a long season of feeling as though God was calling me to spend time observing rather than recording, my heart quickens at the idea of writing again. Everything is so fresh and so different since my last entry in A Woman in the Dust, so I thought it would be a perfect time for a fresh and different blog. This is the beginning of a new story and a new chapter.  This is the beginning of approaching a new season of marriage and a new season of ministry and a new season of career change.  This is the beginning of a new blog, a new chapter, a new story.

Welcome to Under the Cherry Tree.

“Why, then, do I set before You an ordered account of so many things? It's certainly not through me that You know them. But I'm stirring up love for You in myself and in those who read this so that we may all say, great is the Lord and highly worthy to be praised. I tell my story for love of Your love.”

― Saint Augustine