Oi.

So. I am still failing. Life got so busy there for like a week. It looked like Aaron and I were going to be homeless, then things went through but not the way we'd anticipated, THEN, while helping at a garage sale, we found a house for rent and almost went for it, then we didn't, then we went to sign the lease for the apartment but it was a different apartment and it's ready whenever so I'm moving this week.

Crazy.

The house was beautiful. Beautiful. And it was both financially and geographically feasible. It just wasn't wise. We would've been fine but we would've had no bounce room. What if a car dies? What if one of us lands in the hospital? What if, God forbid, we follow the trend of oh so many young christian couples and i get pregnant in the first month of our marriage?! It was so pretty, and it had a full kitchen which i let myself get excited about. Little spoons and forks as the handles on the white cupboards and drawers, blue walls and tile. Full basement with a washer and a dryer. Stone patio in the front with a little stone wall about thigh high covered in rose bushes and lilacs over the trellis. Ivy climbing up the side of the brick. Ugh. I am a little heartsick. But we went into it saying we would not do it unless they came down like $200 in the rent. They came down $50 and we excused it away and it talked about all the reasons it was still a good bargain and a great idea. I think we both had us living in the house the second we walked in to see it. It was so cute. Seriously. It would've been so wonderful for it to have been our first home. ::sigh::

But after much prayer and deliberation we decided that God had already provided for us a wonderful opportunity to live somewhere we loved, that we were only now questioning because something better came along (aint it always the way?). We decided to stay with the loft apartment we were planning to lease and though I think we both felt very sad, we also felt peaceful about the decision. This was just better. But sad.

In other news I am speaking at Frontline next week and then again a few weeks after that. I don't know what I'll be speaking on. I have two ideas that I'd like to go after and see which God takes and turns into a real thing. The first is the idea of ransom. I hate to call Jesus a ransom, but we do use the phrase that He paid the ransom for us a lot. But I want to talk about what a ransom is and why it's paid, the love behind the payment. And then what happens when the person for whom the ransom has been paid chooses to stay in captivity. What an awful slap in the face it must be to the person paying the ransom. I.E. - when we live ignoring the sacrifice made by God the Father and Jesus His Son. The other thing I'd like to talk about is the idea of creating Ishmael. God promised Abraham a son and Abraham took it upon himself to create that son. He did that by sleeping with a woman not his wife, he created Ishmael, tried to fulfill God's promise, by cheating on Sarah. When we try to fulfill God's promises to us in our way and timing, are we cheating on God? These are just two ideas I am toying with.

I really need to take this 40 day commitment seriously or I need to stop trying.