We're Almost There!

Hello, everyone! Amanda here.
I figured I would update because I rarely feel motivated to write anything worth reading.
DJ and I are working away (two jobs for each of us) and saving our money the best we can. I never knew how easy it is to actually save money. With a little thought and effort, we have managed to save a lot of money (all that will eventually go out to bills and new apartment things next month!).
Needless to say, 2008 has been a hard year for the both of us...well most of us have had a challenging year. Our circle has taken some hard hits, but God remains faithful and continues to bring calm in the midst of every storm we've endured.
Father's Day was especially important to us this year. We celebrated with Mr. Lipscomb all day and just enjoyed all making it this far...I guess you can say our expectations are very different from previous years. We are so thankful for life and family.
What else? Apartment life begins in a matter of weeks for me (DJ will have to wait on the amazing independence from parents)! I can't wait to move in and start setting up our new life.
That's all for now.
Love you guys!

I dont think I even remember posting anything in the past few weeks although I think I posted something?

Great, already not making sense...pull it together DJ.

I am sitting at Starbucks right now listening to board tapes to try and learn guitar parts and just kind of in awe of my Creator. We live in such a broken world. But yet He makes this ugly place so amazingly beautiful even in the worst moments. He draws near even in the moments we are trying to pull away.

Everything that has happened to Amanda and I this year has created a faith in me that I never thought existed. I would not necessarily call it a normal type of faith as far as how the church looks at faith but wow, what a powerful work God is doing in my heart and the people close to me.

There are some hard days ahead for sure. But some amazing days are near as well. We are getting married in 78 days! I can hardly believe it! Life just seems so busy and rushed right now that on very rare occasions do we take a minute to just breathe and look at all of the awesome things we have to look forward to. God is working, moving, and teaching us to Love even more. I am so excited for the coming days.

Long.....2008?

So far 2008 has been quite a year. We are 89 days away from the wedding and have spent almost an entire month in Vanderbilt hospital. That is entirely too many days in the hospital for reasons no one should ever have to experience. One thing that has confused me a little bit is that so many times in life the only thing that shakes us up are the moments no one ever really wants to go through...such as pancreatic cancer or the death of a little girl. Why is this? Why are these the only moments that we feel so desperate that we are forced to rely on something bigger than ourselves?

I guess the tough moments are the moments where we are truly who we are.

Now we have to kind of keep going and finishing planning the wedding....which we could care absolutely nothing about. Amanda and I felt so bad for dale because his graduation happen to fall on the same day as Maria's memorial service....just an unnecessary juggling of emotions. So kind of a strange day of celebration...new life and a new part of life I guess you could say. I will say this, God moved so powerfully at the memorial service...we could barely stand up.

God truly reveals himself in the moments where we need real, true, and beautiful love. Something His character demands Him to give to us. What a feeling to know we are protected .

89 days from now we get to be husband and wife. We get to live together. We get to live life together. I think we are ready for a new part of life....and although it has been a tough 2008 thus far, we are so thankful for the knowledge and life experience we have gained. I am not really sure if this blog makes any sense....just trying to get some of this out of my head. Please be praying for our other little brothers and their family as they are working through this moment. God is very real though and has been so true to His character.

On a semi fun note....although I did get in a wreck three weeks ago, Amanda and I are buying a VW Golf this week or next. Watch out Franklin! We will be rolling around in a pimp daddy car..?

Revelations-Read if You Dare!

I would say a good majority of our past year or so has been spent trying to figure out what spirituality is really all about. One of the cool things about when Amanda and I met is the fat that we were both kind of on this new journey of "Where is God in the world now?" I can personally say that there were quite a few nights when I was on Winter Jam that I would sit in the front of the bust till 3Am just trying to figure out if I believed that God even existed.

The hard thing about going through a point like this in your life is that the Christian world today tends to scream/present a message that says something must be wrong with you if you are not happy and trusting in God all of the time.

I was listening to a Rob Bell message today, ironically titled "I Dont Know" (well sort of ironic since the title was what caught my attention), and was reminded that it is perfectly, if not Biblically okay for us to be confused, distressed, worried, and doubting the very things we believe. There is no reason a person can not be so close to the heart of God and yet at the same time be in a place where they are fighting to believe in that very thing they are so close to.

Think about this in terms of relationships...another area where the church presents this daisies and roses message some of the time. You can be totally in love with a person and yet have to fight every step of the way to keep a relationship together. Now I dont say that to scare anyone about Amanda and I, but it is something we both noticed about relationships, especially when it comes to being engaged. We are now firm believers in a long engagement because it gives you the chance to get to know the person you are engaged to before you are married...because it is nothing like dating.

God is so much bigger than our crap! He is so much bigger than our doubts, questions, angst, etc. Another interesting point Rob Bell made was to doubt our doubts because we doubt a lot. We doubt if God is there, doubt if we can make it through a certain situation, doubt if a relationship is going to work, doubt if we have enough money to live, etc. Doubt your doubts. Prove them wrong. Call them out.

Okay now that I am off of my soap box....Amanda and I are doing so well. We have a place to live, a bed, a mattress, some plates...i mean seriously we could survive off of those things. It is kind of crazy and awesome to think about. Our biggest "distress" right now is the fact that my car got totaled two weeks ago and we have to buy a new car. There are so many different options and opinions on what we should do that we just need some clarity. So please pray that God will provide us with the right car and the money to get that car. Wedding is in 96 days and we could not be happier. This engagement has been a very tough season for the both of us. A lot of crazy things happened, but we learned so much about each other that we would never ever want to take that time back. Look forward to seeing you all soon! Invitations are going out the first week of June!

-Team Awesome

We're sick and in love. We're lovesick.

Today marks a special moment for the future Mr. and Mrs. Lipscomb... we printed our invitations!! It was a very difficult task. Basically we did a test page, hit print two hundred, put more invitations in when the paper ran out, and watched Juno. Tough I know. As the title hints, we are both feeling slightly under the weather this evening while we are waiting for the two hundredth invitation to finish up. Amanda has mono and I have allergies. No fun at all to be honest. She is ready to sleep and I am ready to plug my nose with tissues. My brain is pretty fuzzy now and I can't really think of anything else to say. We are ready to get married and live together! Four months to go!

Light at the End of the Tunnel

So, we're getting married in 133 days! It is such an exciting feeling to count down the days until I am a wife!

Wednesday we got our tattoos and they are pretty amazing. We went in thinking they would be fairly small and on one side of our bodies. Billy Joe told us that he would not be able to do the verse because the font was too small. We had decided that the verse was the most important part of the tattoo so we went big! I went first because we had a wedding planning meeting with CJ at 2:00. Man, it was painful! I freaked a little bit and almost fainted! After a few breaks, I decided that I was going to buck up and just finish. I'm sure it sounded like I was going into labor because I was screaming! :) Mr. Billy Joe was extremely patient with me and even took the time to pray with us as he was finishing my tattoo. He prayed for prosperity and a wonderful marriage. I don't think we could have asked for more. DJ, on the other hand, took it like a man and didn't take any breaks. They are a little shocking at first glance, but both beautiful representations of how we see our upcoming marriage.

CJ had everything basically planned out so we are seriously almost finished! Woo hoo! At this point, I could care less what kind of flower I will hold or what type of china we need for dinner. I just want to marry my man!

Also, I accepted a new position at Suntrust and it has been a really cool experience. I'm technically still training for the next week, a total of 3 exhausting weeks of policy, regulations and tests. We have health insurance. !!!!!!!!!! I couldn't ask for more. We have unbelievable benefits that I truly believe God has provided for us.

Honestly, every day it gets a little more difficult for DJ to go home. I just want to live together already. It gets so old sometimes. I want to wake up next to my husband and know that he will come back home that night. I am learning to be patient and enjoy everything that engagement offers. We are learning so much about each other. It is a cool thing to know that God has brought us together and he created us to love one another.

I will never get over that.

Exciting Week!

Why you might ask is this such an exciting week? First of all, we are getting tattoos on Wednesday. Second of all we get to have a big planning meeting with our awesome wedding coordinator CJ. So, this is going to be an awesome week!

We had a pretty heavy week last week to be honest. A lot of crazy things happened at once. Just a reminder that life does not always go as planned..in fact very rarely does life follow your plans. Despite the rough week and strange Saturday, the rest of the weekend was very good. Sunday brought some new life and fresh air back into our lives.

I do have to say, church was over the top even slightly hilarious this week. Jamie was talking about Satan and the presence of evil in the world...but they used very cheesy key board sounds and lights to distinguish between good (blue with angels) and bad (red with dragons and some eerie minor piano thing). Anyway, despite the cheese the service was great and had Amanda and I deep in conversation the whole time (writing back and forth in my journal).

We were both thankful to just talk alllll day long, hang out, and relax. This week is going to be killer! We will have tattoo pics up Wednesday night im sure :)