I found my Mr. Right almost 10 years ago at Grove City College.  If you are familiar with Grove City College you probably know that it is kind a cliché to find your future spouse there.  At the freshman orientation one of the previous administrators used to stand in front of the entire freshman body every year and say “look to your left, look to your right, your future mate may be in sight.”  

Seriously, it’s not a myth.  I personally experienced it.

College Days at Grove City

Despite this, at the beginning of my sophomore year I found Mr. Right.  It was laundry day and he was wearing gym shorts, a tank top, and socks stained brown from a previous spelunking adventure.  His first words to me (during a game of flag football) were:  “Do you know how to play?  Run that way and catch the ball.”  Mind you this was before he even bothered introducing himself or finding out my name.  Real knight in shining armor kind of stuff!  Despite all of that I fell in love with him and here we are almost 10 years later, going on 7 years of marriage, and about to have our second child. God has a sense of humor and knows just what we need.

I have been reading a somewhat unknown classic novel entitled The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins.  It was first published in 1860 and is regarded as one of both the first sensation and mystery novels.    I kind of stumbled upon it on the website Goodbooks.com (something fun to check out if you like to read).  I’m only about a quarter of the way through (when you have a toddler to chase around all day and you tend to read more than one book at a time the process gets slowed down a bit), but so far I have really enjoyed it.  It is full of little quotes that stop and make you ponder for a moment.  Like this one:

“The woman who first gives life, light, and form to our shadowy conceptions of beauty, fills a void in our spiritual nature that has remained unknown to us till she appeared.” (pg. 35)

Isn’t that who all women long to be – the woman who makes life more complete for one man? 

I doubt that Dave would ever spout this kind of prose in reference to our first meeting, but I do know that my life is fuller because of him.  I’m a blessed woman to have found the man who makes my life the kind of adventure it should be, and I can't imagine living this adventure out with anyone else.  He is the man who can still make me feel beautiful despite my ever growing pregnant belly, who puts up with my moods swings, and makes me feel loved every day.

In Zihuatanejo, Mexico this past November

He’s my Mr. Right.

I have asked myself this question many times.  Every instructional piece I’ve read on blog writing states that in order to have a successful blog you must know your purpose and your intended audience.

Well…

I write this blog to share with friends and family who do not live here in Mexico about what is currently happening in my life (and show off a few cute pictures of Eli). 

I write it to keep my mind active and share my general thoughts on life, parenting, and faith.

I write it largely because life in Mexico has been a bit lonely and I feel like this is just one more way to use social media to somehow feel connected with the rest of the world.

None of these are the clear, concise mission statement or specific audience the blog-writing experts tell me I should have.  I’m not there yet.  Maybe one day I’ll sit down and actually pen a mission statement and make sure that every entry on my blog fits my stated purpose from then on, but for now you’re stuck with whatever I come up with from day to day.

However, as I was pondering this question I came across the following quote in Eugene Peterson’s autobiography, The Pastor: A Memoir

“All language, all true language, is not so much communication, getting something said accurately and persuasively, adding to the information and knowledge that can be put in a library.  True language has to do with communion, establishing a relationship that makes for life: love, and faith and hope, forgiveness and salvation and justice.  True language requires both tongue and ear.” (pg. 243)

I’m still pondering this.  How do I create true language in a blog?  Is it possible to actually establish “a relationship that makes for life” through short entries read on a screen?  Probably not, if this is all the relationship consists of…so this brings me back to the same question….why blog?

I’ll keep pondering this.

In the meantime, here’s a picture of Eli pondering as well:

I’m generally really good about not losing things.  I’m one of those everything has a place and everything in its place kind of people.  I’m the alphabetize your movies kind of person.  So, when I lose something it really bugs me. 

Somewhere along our road trip I lost the charger for my Kindle - my brand new Kindle I got for my birthday.  My birthday was the day we left for the trip.  Sad, I know.  So, for now, my reading has been limited to the few books we brought with us.  It’s a limited selection.  However, the book I’m currently reading, entitled Spiritual Parenting, by Michelle Anthony, happened to have just what I needed the other day. She writes:

“When my daughter was only eighteen months old, my husband received a phone call offering him a position teaching at a college in Kenya for three months.  My daughter was just a baby, and I wasn’t far from that either. I was a very young mom still trying to figure out this whole thing called parenthood.  During those months in a little village called Kijabe, I grew in ways that are hard to define.

I grew as a woman, as a mother, as a wife, and as a child of God. I was desperate most days, I cried out to God to help me, support me, strengthen me, and befriend me.  I didn’t have any of the luxuries that I had at home…I was profoundly lonely, and I was raising a child without the community of my friends or my family in a foreign place.

During those months that would ultimately shape my life as an adult and a parent, God taught me an enormous amount about simplicity and what was most important in the grand scheme of life.  By the time I left my tour of duty in Kenya, I felt as though I could conquer anything in parenting with God by my side.  Looking back, I see that God was setting up the posture of my heart toward this environment of being out of my comfort zone.”

You can probably see how this spoke to me.  I definitely have my lonely days here in Mexico City.  I have my times when I wonder what I’m doing as a parent.  I’m out of my comfort zone.  I pray that at the end of my time here in Mexico that I, like Michelle Anthony, can say that I have grown, that I have trusted God, and that I am somehow more comfortable outside of my comfort zone.