Day one-hundred-thirty-eight

I needed a day like this. I needed a day of fellowship and reminders of how much God has blessed me  and how much I have to be thankful for. God is always good to me and I very much needed to be reminded of that reality.

Also, today I heard a very eye-opening message in our fellowship group at church. It made me see something about my faith that I had been struggling to understand. I saw that my faith is weak and it very much needs to grow. I learned that prayer and obedience to God is how we grow our faith, and I had been struggling to obey and trust God as I ought to be. Also, I learned just how important the basic truths of Scripture are in combating temptation, with our model being Jesus' own temptation by the devil after forty days in the wilderness.

However, even just seeing what's been going on and learning how to grow in faith and combat temptation has already been an enormous encouragement.

…

Today is the first anniversary of the marriage of two of my friends, Joshua and Samantha. Not many times in my life are so memorable as that weekend, but then, there's a lot worth remembering.

That weekend started the evening of Thursday, May 15th. I went to a midnight screening of the movie Star Trek Into Darkness. I had been looking forward to that movie for the two years leading up to this release. I saw it and enjoyed it at the time, but in retrospect, it's a little lacking. Benedict Cumberbatch is great as the villain that didn't need to secretly be Khan Noonien Singh (a literal whitewashing of an Indian Sikh character originally played by a Mexican actor, the great Ricardo Montalban). It doesn't help that the movie is painfully hamfisted in its politics, either.

Anyway, that Friday evening, I was invited to the rehearsal dinner despite not being a member of the wedding party. I helped Samie and Josh find the tables and chairs for the ceremony and reception, and a few other things here and there, I guess that's why. Because of that, I got to know Julia Dandurand, a friend of Samie's who sang at the ceremony. In particular, I never would've learned the story of how it had been her responsibility to kill opossums that would threaten the chickens in the pen in their backyard. Even more specifically, I wouldn't have learned about the time Julia once killed a pregnant opossum with a shovel.

I related that story to my sister Laura. Her response: "That's kind of badass."

The day of the ceremony was a blazing hot day. I wore my brand new black suit, the first suit I've ever owned. I never had a reason to get one until then, but I was happy to get it. I remember that it was such a long day getting everything ready at the park for the ceremony and at the Dandurands' house for the reception.

At one point, as we finished up at the Dandurands' house, I needed to get home in order to get changed for the ceremony. Mom had to run a last-minute errand and I had to wait for her to return. As a result of waiting out in the sun and having trimmed my hair to near-bald, I managed to get the worst sunburn I have ever had, and I got it literally on the top of my head. It was so bad, my scalp swelled. It was one of the most painful things I've ever experienced and it was all my fault. My scalp eventually healed but it's been a little sensitive to the heat ever since.

Still, it was a very beautiful ceremony, and as much as I'm sure they enjoyed it, seeing Samie and Josh coming together in God's presence in marriage made me hopeful for myself, that The Lord I hoped meant someone for me and was (and is) making us ready for one another.

We're almost done. I didn't realize this would be so long, but in recapping a weekend, there's a lot of information to cover. I just didn't realize I would be this productive after yesterday's morsel of mediocrity.

Monday morning, May 20, I had to take care of the last bit of wedding business. The party rental place had to come back and pick up all the tables and chairs. The Dandurands said I didn't have to come, but I said I would take care of it, since I had been left in charge of it. It was a good thing I had come, since there were tables that were not used and were stashed in the garage, when the pickup man came to retrieve them and we couldn't figure out what had happened to them at first. This was briefly problematic as whoever had set them up and hadn't told anyone they had put the tables away, if I hadn't come, the Dandurands would've been stuck dealing with a problem that wasn't theirs.

That's it, that's everything I have to stay about that whole weekend. It's been a blessing to know Samantha and Joshua, and I holt that I've been a blessing to them as they've been to me. I'm very thankful to The Lord for having had them in my life.