living in the shadows....

Warning: This blog contains actual excerpts from my journal so prepare for the transparency....

As the oldest sibling, I never expected to feel like I was living in the shadow of one of my sisters (yes, Tiff, I'm talking about you). Lately, though, I find a fairly unfamiliar feeling of....sibling rivalry? no...jealousy? maybe a little....inadequacy? maybe a lot....creeping up more and more. As much as I ADORE having Tiff in the same town as me, I can also feel the comparisons between us brewing. Maybe these are mostly in my head and are tied back to that feeling of inadequacy thing (which seems to be pervading so many areas of my life lately), but constantly hearing how awesome Tiffany is makes me feel distinctly un-awesome. Here's the thing... she is awesome...I whole-heartedly agree! But more and more I have begun to feel invisible in comparison.

The thing about living in the shadows is that it's easy to get lost there, to stay in the dark and have a pity party, and that's the opposite of what I want. I want to live in the light of Christ. I don't want to seek my worth in the opinions of others, but I can't lie, what others think (especially those who I am closest to and living in community with) matters to me. And as much as I want to seek my complete fulfillment in Christ alone, I am trying to balance that with our call to live in community, to encourage one another and to spur each other on to righteousness. Somehow I can't reconcile always feeling poured out and never feeling poured into with Christ's will for me. Maybe that's a flaw in my own logic but that's where I am right now....trying to navigate my way out of the shadows and find the light.

brief update

So I am apparently a huge blogging slacker these days. Just wanted to give a brief update with more to follow soon hopefully :)

• My life has been pretty much swallowed up by school recently so if you haven't seen or heard from me that's why. On the upside, God is faithful and I have passed all of my tests thus far :)
• I am currently reading Irresistable Revolution by Shaine Claiborne and highly recommend it...more on that later.
• I got to go to Huntington to visit my youngest sister, Ashley, and her husband, Adam, this past weekend. It was great to see them and their house which is super cute!
• I am now officially 27 as of two weeks ago...eek...jk...feels just like 26 but I am including a pic of the hilarious cake my sister got for me. Look to the previous post if you don't understand why there is a trophy on it.
• I have been married for 2 months on Thursday and married life is great! Just wish sometimes that I had more time to spend with my husband instead of studying. And I think Jamie is still adjusting to my multi-tasking, hectic lifestyle...ha.
• God has been challenging me and teaching me some really cool things lately that I hope to blog about soon. Lately I have been struggling to see what, if any, impact my life is having for Christ and God is teaching me slowly what it looks like to be His hands of feet even in the midst of my crazy life.

That's all for now....More coming soon, I promise. Grace and peace!

mrs. rickard

well, it's been a little over 2 weeks since the wedding so at least i'm not as late on this one as uganda, but i am proud (and completely blessed) to announce that i am now officially mrs. rickard. overall, i am constantly amazed at God's hand in bringing jamie and i together and still blown away from time to time knowing that i am married to such an awesome, godly man and that God truly was working everything out for my good even in the times when i didn't recognize it.

now on to the actual day.....after all the stress and planning, i am happy to say that the wedding day was completely awesome and everything seemed to come together really well. i didn't sleep much the night before (partially due to excitement and partially due to a huge storm) but i woke up to a house full of awesome girls (my bridesmaids) and bagels (thanks to tiff) so that started my morning off right. my first act of the day, besides a shower, was getting my hair done so we'll start there...

first of all, let me say that getting my hair done was completely fun (other than the 83 bobby pins jammed into my head...yes, we counted them that night when we took them out of my hair)....you can probably tell why since this is the picture of my stylist, David and i at the practice run...

and though my hair looked like this for a while:
the finished product turned out great


the rest of the morning basically consisted of running around like crazy trying to get everything (the reception location) and everyone ready. it was during this time that i found out jamie's phone had been confiscated because he was trying to send me a text so i wouldn't be able to communicate with him at all until the actual wedding (kent apparently took the not seeing each other before the wedding thing to a whole new level).... i did however get a wedding gift delivery, which was an awesome SLR digital camera (the Canon Rebel XTi for those you camera people)...don't i have a great husband?

after much waiting around and killing time by practicing the thriller dance, it was time for the big moment....

me walking down the aisle with my dad:

this is apparently jamie's face when he first saw me (thanks ashley for snapping this one!)
pouring the unity sand...
the big kiss.....(and probably the only time you will catch me with a "kissing picture")
and introducing mr. & mrs. jamie rickard...

a few of my favorite moments from the ceremony:

• when i got down the aisle and was just looking at jamie while standing with my dad and he mouthed "i love you".... great memory
• praying with jamie right after communion.
  

after the ceremony and pictures it was on to the fun of the reception....

our cake
it got a little messy....

after the crying during the toasts (mostly thanks to tiffany) it was time for some dancing....

both serious (our first dance)
and fun (thriller)

i think the thriller dance went pretty well but i haven't seen the video yet so who knows?....it was definitely fun though and there was apparently an encore performance at the after party at bent willey's.

after much fun...(including the mom dance below)
it was time for us to leave (or at least fake leave for the camera)

the real depature involved my first time riding in a limo (which was stinkin' awesome)

the best part of the day (besides marrying jamie of course!) was being able to spend it with those we love.....we are so blessed to have an amazing family (both blood and in Christ) and it was awesome to get to share the beginning of this new adventure with them. the people i missed so much on that day were my grandparents, especially my grandma....she wanted me to get married more than anything so i know that she would have been overjoyed to be there, but instead she got to watch it all with our Matchmaker, which is even cooler.

to see more pics from the day click here and enter the password: TheRickards