luke 11:11-13

From my last post, some of you may have guessed that Jamie and I have been having some financial problems recently. Things have been really tight lately and long story short, we weren't sure if we were going to be able to pay our bills this month. We prayed about the situation and had to trust that God would provide or show us what was best (which was easier said than done for me since I tend to be a natural worrier).

Then, on Saturday afternoon, as I was cleaning up after the yard sale, I found an envelope on our kitchen counter that said "Luke 11:11-13" on the outside. For those of you who aren't familiar, those verses say:

"What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!"

The envelope was sealed so I asked Jamie if it was his or if he knew where it came from. When he said no, we opened the envelope and inside was $300! We don't know who gave us that money or how or why but I can't tell you how thankful I am for it. It is refreshing and awe-inspiring to experience this example of true community and the tangibility of Christ's love. I am thankful for a living example of some things God has been teaching me through these verses:

"By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth." 1 John 3: 16-18

Most of all, I am thankful for a loving Father who knows just what we need and who cares for us even we we can't see past our circumstances.

one year later.....

This past weekend, Jamie and I celebrated our one year anniversary. It's hard to believe how fast a year can fly by and how much can happen! The picture above is one of my favorites from our wedding day. I love it because Jamie can still always make me laugh. It's one of my favorite things about him.

As Jamie and I were reflecting on married life, we came up with a few surprises from the last year:

• 2 puppies -- definitely didn't think that was going to happen this time last year!
• the adjustment married life takes, especially in the area of finances....God has (and continues to) teach us a lot in this area and through married life in general!
  
• how nice it is to have a best friend that you live with :)
• how much my husband spoils me! case in point my anniversary gifts from him:
• 

I'm sure there are a million more surprising/learning/growing experiences that have happened that I haven't mentioned. I can only pray that God will continue to teach us and grow us in Him through many more years of marriage and that our marriage will be a reflection of His love.

my attempt at being a domestic diva

When I started this blog a few weeks ago (just call me a blogging slacker), it was going to be about how well my first attempt at meal planning was going. And believe me, it did go well for the first week. Then came a few snafus...

Let me start of by saying I never thought I was the "meal planning type"....I don't really know what that means except that it seemed like a lot of work for someone whose idea of cooking for the past few years was sticking a Lean Cuisine in the microwave. However, when Jamie and I sat down to talk about our budget a few weeks ago we realized we were spending WAY too much on food (namely because we were eating out all the time). Because my trips to the grocery store usually result in buying lots of food and then coming home only to realize I have nothing to actually make a meal, I decided to give meal planning a shot.

I sat down with my Kraft Foods magazines and a few other recipes and made a grocery list with all the ingredients I would need for the week's meals. I was surprised to find that not only did planning ahead help me focus at the grocery store (instead of just buying anything that looked good at the time), it actually helped me save money. Score one for meal planning!

Like I said, the first week went remarkably well. Jamie was able to come home on his dinner break each night to eat and I was able to have time after my rotation to cook. The one night I was on call during the week, I made something the night before so that Jamie could have leftovers. Then last week hit....I was on call 4 nights and Jamie worked twenty-some hours of overtime. That is when the meal planning fell apart a little. I was still able to cook a few days and have some leftovers ready for some of the other days but it didn't go as smoothly as I would have hoped, especially compared to the first week.

Overall, I think meal planning is a good thing that we can make work with some adjustments to make sure things fit with our lifestyle. I've realized a few things:

1. I actually like cooking most of the time and feel a sense of accomplishment when I cook a "real" meal that my husband likes.
2. Jamie and I have crazy lives and schedules right now so it may not be a realistic goal for us to be able to cook a meal and eat together every night.
3. My meal planning may not look quite the same or go as smoothly as that of others so I need to stop comparing, but it is a way for Jamie and I to cut back on some of our spending and hopefully a step towards getting our finances under control.
4. Practice makes perfect so hopefully the meal planning will get better as time goes on!
   

jamaica

A couple weeks ago, Jamie and I went on our 2nd trip to Jamaica (the 1st being our honeymoon). This trip came on the heels of finishing 2nd year of med school and Step 1 (the first part of my boards) and on the cusp of beginning 3rd year, which is basically me paying to work in the hospital. I'm not sure either Jamie or I realized how much we needed this vacation until we were actually on it. We both knew we needed some relaxation and a break from the hectic-ness of our lives lately but we didn't know how much we needed that time to unplug, get away and reconnect in our marriage. We try to make time for a date night once a week but somehow those tend to turn into us going out to dinner and talking about all the things we need to get done and then running errands. This trip definitely taught us that we need to make more time for actual connection even in our busy day to day. It was an awesome vacation spent mostly relaxing and doing not much of anything with the love of my life. Here are a few pictures from the trip:

I loved these peacocks! They just roamed the resort hanging out
(I think this one wanted to go shopping)

Our first experience eating escargot.....all gone! It was so good :)

My totally unfried calamari....wasn't expecting that but it was still delicious

Just one of the beautiful views

Us on our candlelight dinner with our cute heart decorated desserts

The beach :)

Our swim up river suite

Us being sad that we had to leave

first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes....

Perhaps one of the biggest differences God has shown me between dating and marriage in the last seven months is that, while dating tends to bring out the best in us, marriage has the potential to bring out the worst. Don't get me wrong, this isn't always the case, but if you want to dredge up stuff you thought you had settled with God a long time ago, get married. I'm not talking about things that happened in the past, because I think Jamie and I talked exhaustively about those during our courtship and engagement (except maybe about the fact that I once interviewed to be the Mountaineer mascot, a fact that I only remembered about myself a couple weeks ago). Instead, these are things that when I lived on my own I was able to conceal from others and "control" for the most part. Things like: selfishness, a bad temper, stubborness...the list could go on I'm sure. To be honest, these things surface much more than I would like these days.

I don't want to paint marriage in a bad light (especially for all those who aren't married that I just scared off) because it is wonderful but I think the point is that God's purpose for marriage is very different from that of the world. I've heard it said a million times, but have found it to be true and so practical: "God's plan for marriage is holiness, not happiness." And as part of the work to make us holy, God uses the context of marriage to bring out our selfish desires and actions. He shows us that no matter how much we think we have it all figured out and no matter how good we look to those on the outside, we aren't as holy as we think we are. I am encouraged that as I work on these issues that come up in my marriage relationship, God is working to perfect the most important relationship I've ever had -- the one I have with Him. So here's to allowing marriage to make me more holy AND more happy. :)

"normal people" weekend

This weekend was unique for Jamie and I: Because he had to go to inservice in Charleston for three days this week, Jamie actually worked dayshift all week and had the entire weekend off -- a "normal people" schedule! Despite the fact that I still had to study this weekend, we took advantage of his time off and had some fun.

Friday:
We went to Black Bear to see Chris Cendana (one of my friends from high school and an excellent musician) play. It is rare that Jamie gets to hang out with our group of friends since activities usually occur on evenings and weekends so it was nice to get some people together to eat good food, drink some margaritas and listen to some great music. Afterward, we went out on the town for a bit before settling in for the night.

Saturday:
We had a pretty chill day (which was nice after a night out -- man, we are getting old). We did "married people stuff" i.e. taxes and my FAFSA and Jamie watched some TV while I studied. We did venture out for Schroder's second trip to Petco (the first was on the first day we got him and I think he was a little traumatized). This time went much better. We got him a few toys and got a few new fish since our cannabalistic goldfish ate all the other ones we had. After our trip to Petco, we felt inspired to watch "It's Me or the Dog" to get some training trips for Schroder, especially since he has been pulling on his leash a lot lately. We thought a harness was the cure until Schroder figured out that he hated it and chewed through almost the whole thing while we were taking a nap. He may hate training, but at least he's smart.

Sunday:
Jamie and I slept in a bit, made waffles for breakfast, then enjoyed actually getting to go to church together. The rest of the day was spent running errands, relaxing (Jamie) and studying (me) before heading to dinner with our community group. Despite the misery of studying on a weekend that my husband actually had off, I did get caught up before starting the dreaded test week.

Overall, we spent a significant part of the weekend dreaming about what it would be like if I didn't have to study, Jamie worked a regular schedule and we had real, relaxing weekends all the time. Hopefully someday it will happen, but who knows. It definitely didn't help my desire to quit school, but did increase my desire for spring break in 2 weeks and my appreciation for the time that Jamie and I actually do get to spend together.

redefining failure

Lately, I have been struggling a lot with inadequacy, especially in the area of being a wife. It seems that when I look around at other Christian wives I see women who stay at home, cook dinner every night, plan meals for the week or month, budget, stay on top of cleaning, have babies and raise them. All of that stuff is amazing (if you are one of these wives you rock my life), but it simply isn't my life right now. I am the wife whose house may look like a tornado hit it, especially on test week. I am the wife who is more likely to pick up dinner somewhere while running between school, meetings, etc than to cook a big meal. I am the wife who will probably eat cereal for dinner if her husband's at work. I am the wife whose husband is more likely to do laundry than I am. The longest my planning of meals usually goes is this: what are we eating for the next one? I am the wife who doesn't know when she'll have kids and questions if she'll ever be ready since sometimes she can't handle taking care of a puppy.

Believe me, I know that I'm not supposed to be comparing myself to other people (easier said than done for me!) but as I look around at other Christians it is difficult to find wives in a similar situation as mine, or at least those women are not the ones in my life or my community. All this to say that lately I have been calling into question what my life is supposed to look like in light of my role and responsibility as a Christian wife and the call that I feel that God has for me and feeling like a failure on most counts.

Fortunately, yesterday I was able to attend a lunch seminar with Charles Lee, who is a pastor and co-founder of an organization called Just One. His talk was about creativity, but as a part of it he also addressed redefining failure using this video as illustration:




He made the point that outcomes are God's business and that our part of the equation is simply faithfulness. His spin on failure was this: "If you stay faithful to the passions God has formed in you, you cannot fail."

Does this mean I don't want to be better at domestic things and taking care of my home? No, but it does mean that I am free to leave the results up to God while I worry about staying faithful to His calling.

Happy New Year! (a day late)

Well since I was down for the count yesterday with some kind of stomach virus, this is coming to you on day 2 of 2009. I am so looking forward to what God is going to do this year. 2008 is going to be hard to top though! Just a few of the highlights:

• Running my first marathon
• 
• Getting engaged
• 
• Trip to Niagara Falls with Jamie for my spring break
• 
• Buying our first house
• 
• Finishing my 1st year of medical school even though grades were touch and go at the end
• 
• Trip to Uganda
• 
• Wedding!!!
• 
• Honeymoon in Jamaica which was amazing....wish we could go back especially in light of this winter weather
• 
• Surprising Jamie with the "man cave" upon return from the honeymoon (thanks to all our friends for all your hard work!!)
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• Getting our cute puppy, Schroder
• 

Spending the holidays with both of our families and the New Year with some good friends was a great way to send off 2008. I am excited to see what God will do in 2009. He has already proved Himself an awesome provider and is continuing to teach us how to trust in Him fully. Towards the end of this year, I have been struggling spiritually but as I have reflected on the past year God has brought to mind so many blessings and miracles, large and small, that have really helped me realign my focus to Him. Praying that you all would realize the blessings of 2008 and look forward to God's work in 2009!

TGIF?

Fridays tend to be lonely for me as a Trooper’s wife. On the day that most people are having date nights, going out to dinner, going to the movies, etc. I am usually home alone studying. Adjusting to a schedule that coincides with Jamie’s has been a challenge, especially with the recent addition of Schroder to our lives. I am still working on whether to be productive during the day when Jamie isn’t working or to attempt to make myself nocturnal like my husband. I admit, I’m not sure what the balance should look like yet. It is a weird paradox because I often feel like I am still single as far as hang out time with friends, Friday and Saturday nights at home by myself, etc and yet I still don’t seem to be able to carve out much alone time for myself. I think it is because when Jamie is at work I have procrastinated studying and other things all day long so I feel like it is crunch time to get things done in the evenings.

I often daydream about what it would be like if Jamie and I both had “normal” schedules. I imagine how wonderful it would be for both of us to come home in the evenings and just spend time together instead of studying, working, going to a million meetings, or crashing from sheer exhaustion. But this is where God has us right now so instead of dreaming about what things could be like, we have to roll up our sleeves and work to make things mesh with our current schedules….easier said than done, but something that is worth working for. That’s the thing about marriage – it’s not a happy ending, but instead the beginning of a lot of hard work toward happiness and most of all, toward glorifying God together.

On that note….back to my Friday night of studying ;)

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!

yep....i'm still alive

just wanted you all to know that i am indeed still in existence, although you wouldn't know it from this blog. been a pretty busy life since i last posted and i think i really haven't written because i have been trying to process all that i want to say about my trip to Uganda, but a brief update on life before i more extensive blog (with pictures and everything -- i promise!):

1. i am now officially mrs. rickard -- got married on August 2 and officially changed my name yesterday .... more to come on that front

2. just got back from our honeymoon in jamaica which was amazing -- loved every minute and couldn't have asked for a more perfect time

3. i start 2nd year of med school monday (what?! where did the summer go??) so prayers are appreciated for that

well those are the big things that have happened and i promise more details about those above and Africa very very soon :)