Amber

Does anyone remember the 311 song called Amber? It was one of my favorites for a really long time. And that has nothing to do with what I'm going to write about, but her name is Amber, so I guess that's something.

After proofing my last post (which was way too long), I realized that any discussion about what's going on in my life doesn't make much sense without my fiancee, Amber. And for more than obvious reasons, she has changed everything. When I started dating her the summer before last, I had an inclination to change my plans pretty early on. Alan, Dan and I were getting ready to move up to New York together last summer, and I would say we were pretty much set to do that when I first took Amber out. Almost immediately, I knew that being with her was very important to me. Now, it took me a while to admit that to myself, and I spent a while going ahead with the plans I had made before she became a part of my life. Soon thereafter, it became clear that she was the most important thing to me.

I found myself in this awkward place where there were three big areas of my life that I could not reconcile. The first was my place at Christ Community Church. The second was my desire to move to New York and pursue a career in the music industry. The third was Amber. Once I realized that I couldn't have them all (at least not at the same time), I began to understand what it means to wait on God. It's easy for us to get used to having what we want when we want it, and I am really good at getting what I want. But this time, my desires were incompatible with each other. Charlie Staples, one of the elders at my church, asked me once in a meeting to think about what was important to me. That was really hard to do. It is times like those when keeping a journal really comes in handy. I went back to an entry I had made on a plane to NYC (I think Alan and I were going there for vacation). I wrote a lot during that flight, but after going back and looking I noticed a theme: "I don't want to do this alone." I read back a little further to one of the early weekends in our relationship when Amber came to see me in Gainesville. I had written it there, too. Thinking about what was really important to me got a little easier when I could do a sort of content analysis of my thoughts over the past 6 months. Amber is important to me. She is unlike any woman I have met before. Once I made that mental shift and I began prioritizing our relationship, everything else fell in to place. It didn't hurt that one of the first questions she asked after I proposed was "When are we moving to New York?"

Waiting is not a bad thing, after all. I don't think I would relive those months of having no idea what to do, but every thought leading in to this major move for us shimmers with the excitement of not doing it alone. My God gives me hope for the future, but my fiancee gives me joy in it.

So, what is important to you? Thank you for reading.