Faithful in the Fray

As I sit here, on my bed, in my room that is now proudly decorated in 400 twinkling lights, I’m thinking back to the many things that have happened this month.

Jeremy and I have been extremely busy during month four of our marriage. We started with working overtime at work and heading down to our youth fall retreat. We then had a lovely dinner date with a couple from our church. The next weekend we found ourselves in Tellico Plains, Tennessee. And then just last weekend I had the joy to go down to Savannah and hang out with a couple of the girls I went to Kenya with, four years ago.

I’ve just briefly touched on the weekends, and while those were fantastic and I’ll get more in depth here soon, I wanted to talk about what happens during the day. A typical day for Jeremy and I looks like this:

6am- alarm goes off, Sara goes to get a shower

615am- Jeremy walks blindly into the bathroom

620-650am- sara gets ready while Jeremy makes a cup of coffee and sits down in the bathroom while she does her hair and makeup

650am- they hug (see, I’m working on it people) and leave for the day.

7am- Jeremy has made it to work and calls to say I love you one last time

750am- Sara makes it to work

8-12pm work work work, then Jeremy calls on his lunch break. they talk for a few minutes. (and say I love you like 8 times)

12pm-4pm work work work

4pm-5pm sit in traffic and sing Taylor Swift at the top of her lungs (Sara, not Jeremy)

(if it’s a Wednesday we head straight to church)

5pm-830pm- change into yoga pants immediately, unwind, make dinner, tackle any projects sara has randomly come up with during the day, take pictures, watch some tv.. etc.

830-9pm- in bed and start all over.

Yes, we go to bed that early.

While most people think our lives are so glamorous and full of fun activities, it’s really not. We’re really boring and just love to hang out at our house.

Also, because I want to be as real as possible on this blog, I wanted to go through some of the highs and lows of month four. It’s not all roses here in the Colquhoun household.

High:

The youth fall retreat was nothing short of a blessing. Jeremy drummed and I sang and it was so beautiful for the two of us to be able to use the gifts we’ve been blessed with to serve and praise our Heavenly Father. The youth group has our heart and we are being used more and more with this amazing group of young people.

Low:

I have been collecting gold picture frames since we got married and have been waiting to get floating shelves to put them up on. Well, we finally bought shelves a few weeks ago and when we went to put them up, we almost killed each other. I am very particular when it comes to how things look around the house. I like to walk around and make sure everything is level and where it needs to be. These shelves though, they were bad for the marriage. We couldn’t get them level, and then the screws weren’t working, and the dry wall hooks weren’t staying in place. I was getting more aggravated by the minute until finally we put the shelves down and that’s where they’ve stayed ever since. It wasn’t worth it, and quite frankly, I’m not sure those shelves will ever be put up.

High:

Tellico Plains, Tennessee. On our wedding day I gave Jeremy an envelope and inside that envelope was a picture of a log cabin. That log cabin was going to be ours the weekend of October 31 – November 2. We had always dreamed about the day we could go on a trip, just the two of us, without chaperones. I knew that a log cabin was a place we had dreamed about and wanted to make sure that happened. So, we packed up and headed out of town. It didn’t go exactly how we planned but it was beautiful and cold and the trees were amazing. I would love to go back there one day!

Low:

When Jeremy drives my prayer life increases. He’s not necessarily a bad driver, I just always feel like something is going to happen. It might be because he likes to get $500 speeding tickets during our wedding week and now four months later we’re still paying it off. Or it might just be because I hate releasing control. When driving to our apartment there are two routes you can take. One requires one turn and then you park, the other requires three turns and then you park. I, Sara, prefer the direct one turn route. Jeremy, my lovely husband, prefers the long route, making more turns getting us there slower. Now, does this actually matter? No, not at all. But, does it matter to a direct, one turn kind of girl? Yes. We’re working on it.

High:

We are now parents! (no, I’m not pregnant…yet) We are now sponsoring two lovebugs in Mozambique. It’s so nice to be able to work with my dear friend, Anna, and her husband, Ryan, sponsoring children in their own school! How amazing is that? I’m praying that one day we are able to go and hug these little ones. Jesus is so good to allow us to be an extension of Him as we are here in America. We are praying for you, Almerante and Yuna. You two are dear to our hearts.

This month we have Thanksgiving and decorating our first Christmas tree. We also have presents to buy and bills to pay. Who knows what kind of craziness we can get ourselves into!

Over the past year I’ve gone through an insane amount of change. As someone who grew up not liking change, this could’ve easily sent me to a downward spiral, but instead it did the opposite. Every day something new has happened, and made my eyes open even wider as to why I am, where I am today. People have been confirming the exact things I’ve been praying about, I have listened to a song and it’s as if Jesus Himself is speaking to me, I have tried something new and I didn’t fail. Newness and change is inevitable  and for once, I’m welcoming it.

I’m one of those people who enjoys starting things and never actually finishing them. For instance: let’s talk about how many times I started to blog, to only write one post. Or the number of times I got on the scale, looked down with my jaw open, and told myself I’m never eating a cookie again. Then there was  the time I thought I had my whole life planned out, where I was going to go to school, where I wanted to teach, and somehow I ended up in a tent in the middle of Tangi-Tatu, Kenya, saying goodnight to 10 other people hoping the hyenas didn’t eat our food. Every day. More change. I prayed for it. I relentlessly asked God to show me something new every day. Speak to me, show me Your eyes, Your heart. Let me listen to You and let my words be only Your words. So powerful and bold sometimes I couldn’t believe it. Little by little, it started to happen.

Side note: I fail, every day, multiple times.

Three or four times a week on my drive down to work I blast my worship music and pray out loud. I always start off by thanking God for who He is, because let’s be honest for a minute, we wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for Him. Then I get to the nitty gritty. I cry out to Him, asking for more, and more. Lord, let me never be satisfied with what I have. Lord, let me never become complacent in my walk with You. Lord, let me love you more than everything in my life. Those words will knock you down. I’ve prayed so much and so fiercely I have parked, gotten out of my car, and continued to whisper as I walked to my office. People have stared at me in the elevator, because they think I’ve gone mad. Truth is: I’ve gone mad. for Jesus. (thanks Michael)

Those moments in the car, worship blasting, praising Papa for everything He has done, those moments have changed me. He has made me feel more alive in these past few weeks than I have in the past couple of years. He has shown me the beauty in every person, even when I don’t want to see any. He has given me words, and scriptures that I have been able to share with those around me. I’ve been entrusted with more and it’s been scary. The minute I asked The Lord for more, I knew I wasn’t going to be the same. He was going to pull me out of my comfort zone like never before. He was going to place things in my life that were too much to handle. Newsflash: HE DOES THAT! God ALWAYS gives us more than we can handle. We need Him. We need His help. He’s not going to give us things that we can easily do by ourselves.  Why would He even exist if that was the case?

In order to be more like Christ we have to be less of self. It’s a concept I’m still figuring out. While I want to sit next to my husband as he plays Xbox, I feel the Lord tugging at my heart asking me to come spend some time with Him. While I want to listen to one direction on the way to work at 6am, I blast ‘it is well’, because it’s better. While I want to do all these ‘worldly’ things in life, I feel my heart being tugged at for more and more of Jesus. I want nothing more in these moments than to abandon everything, and sit in His presence for hours. He makes me come alive. He changes me. He makes me forget that I even exist to do anything else but worship Him.

I hope that as I continue to change to look more and more like Jesus, people would begin to recognize Him in me. They wouldn’t see Sara, but they would see a reflection of Christ. As I get frustrated, and tired, and fret over stupid things, may I always point people back to Jesus. May my passion for Him never die.  May I never pray empty prayers, but know that I am praying to the Holy of Holy’s. His change is scary, but worth it. His love is real yet tangible. His grace is unfathomable.

Take this world, but give me Jesus.

“God, thank you for my beautiful wife.”

Every night when Jeremy and I sit down for dinner and pray, I wait for that one specific line.

And it never fails, every night, those words are spoken.

It doesn’t matter how nice I look that day or maybe the fact that I’ve gained a whopping 12lbs since we got married. (Excuse me while I put down the cookie and pick up the weights.) He doesn’t care. He sees me as beautiful.  I love that man of mine.

And then we have weekday mornings.. every morning before we leave for work Jeremy wants to give me a hug. I get so annoyed. He normally picks a bad time to lean in for a hug, and sometimes he holds on for too long. Other times I know he will make me late and I’ll have to sit in more traffic if I stop and give him one. Then one day, I was so convicted. I felt the Lord say ‘Sara, why won’t you let him hug you? Why won’t you let the man you love, the man you married, love you? In this moment, nothing else matters.’ I apologized to Jeremy and made it my mission to hug him tight every morning. Who cares if I sit in the car an extra 10 minutes? I shouldn’t. Not when it means I put my husband first.

It’s been three months since Jeremy and I have gotten married. We’ve settled into a nice routine and have almost pulled back enough from the things we were involved in that we can breathe. I cook dinner and he cleans up. I start the laundry and we put the clothes away. He plays Xbox and I pin my little heart out on Pinterest. I ask questions and he thoughtfully responds. We spend too much money at the mall and joke about who knows how long it will just be the two of us. We laugh at the insane things that happen to us on a daily basis. We cry while watching beautiful movies about Sudanese refugees who make their way to Kenya and then to America. We cry because we’ve met people just like them, and we’ve walked in those refugee camps. We lay on the ground in our apartment listening to worship music while talking about how faithful our Father is, and how His love is so much more than we could ever imagine. We dream, big God-sized dreams and can’t wait until He tells us it’s our turn.

We hope. We’ve got lots of things going on in our relationship right now that is allowing us to delight and rest in the Lord. We know that He has every part of our relationship. We know that He has already said yes, and He has already said no. We know that His plan is so much greater than our own. We know that His love never fails and His grace is enough. We know that it isn’t easy, and that it isn’t supposed to be easy. We know that it is worth it. We know that the more of Him we have inside of us, the  less there is of us. We know that He is good.

We’re learning. We’re growing. We’re trusting.

Would you be praying with us? Praying for the hearts of those we come in contact with every day to see Jesus? To know the depth of His love? Would you pray that we would continue to serve the Lord and put our faith and trust in Him even when we struggle? Would you pray that we would learn to extend an unfathomable amount of grace to each other, and every person our eyes connect with?