He moves in mysterious ways

So today, among wedding chaos, me and Kerianne went hunting for apartments/basement suites. We called under 10 and checked out about 5 when we stumbled upon what looks like a real gem. It is in a nice neighborhood close to Clearbrook Ave. and is pretty reasonabley priced. We looked at it and talked about it for a brief moment and then took it. It was really what we were after.

I cannot tell you what a huge relief it is to know where we will be living when we get back. God has really been making things happen for us. We were talking about how much weight we were both feeling b/c of our previous plan for a place to live not working out....on top of all the wedding stuff. We were sitting down for lunch and I just asked God to help us find something. SO the last place that we looked at today, kind of on a whim, became our knew home.

Earlier that day when we were running errands, Kerianne found out she was going to have to pay 90 bucks for an eye exam and was not even guaranteed to have contacts for the wedding (which was obviously bothering her). We went to another place not even a block away and BOOM! Ker has free contacts in her eyes, a free eye exam, and a perscription on the way, in plenty of time for the wedding. All b/c outof the corner of my eye i see this sign and say, "hey...is that a place.....what about that place?" The way God has shown up in our circumstances these last 2 weeks has been amazing. I don't know who is praying for us but we feel super blessed. But enough about us....this is about me...it's my blog dangit!!!
My take on the situation....I don't understand sometimes why God is so faithful in certain periods and seems so distant in others. I don't know why God is doing all of this after a summer of me not making time for him. I feel very unworthy, but blessed all the same. Maybe God is blessing the marriage. Maybe God is hearing the prayers of our friends and family. Maybe God is responding to the dependent and helpless state that i am in. Then again, maybe God is just sitting back and saying, "Hey, watch this!".

Who's up for a roller coaster?

So i feel that lately my life has been a series of emotional roller coasters. Throughout each day, I lose my temper with Kerianne one minute and then am gushing over her in the next. Talk about being moody. Wish i had the excuse of PMS....wait, wait.....no I don't. There are a number of logistic problems with the wedding. Me and Kerianne have been clashing in terms of how we deal with obstacles b/c of this. IT has been very educational....and frustrating. But I think that we are going to have a fairly heightened time of emotions for these last 2 weeks. IT's probably normal, but how would i know. One thing i do know is that the only time we clash at all is with wedding stuff. When this day is out of the way (i AM still looking forward to the wedding) it will be beautiful. I can't wait for the wedding to start, but i also can't wait for it to end.

Here's to new beginnings and happy endings.

God's will?

Sometimes i wonder if God's will is something that circumstances make us aware of. TOnight me and Kerianne went and looked at a place that we were intending to stay after our honeymoon. It wasn't exactly what we were expecting. The thing is this place came up just as we starting praying for a place to live. So....if this is God's will for us, shouldn't we have felt a peace about it? Neither of us felt it was really wrong but neither of us felt it was realy right either. So do we suck it up and assume that it is God's will and write off our feelings as insulting to God? Are we looking a gift horse in the mouth here? Or do we keep searching concluding that this isn't a part of God's divine plan, it was merely coincidence? Or do we forego all the dramatics and just find a place we like better? I am learning about being a husband in these last 2 weeks, before we're married. In the sense that We are doing married couple things like looking for a place to live together. It is tough. Kerianne gets stressed about this stuff sometimes and I have to really be the trailblazer in these areas. I think that leaving this as a plan B while we look at as many places as we have time for before the wedding is a good plan. That way we have something to fall back on if we need it. God's will is too mysterious for me. I'll never figure it out. I'll just make the best choices i can, and hope that he is behind me.

character

I have been fairly dissappointed in the effort i have seen from my friends to come to my wedding (This isn't including you jimmy jams so don't even think that....alright...cool). But it is a day when you will need the support of those people that are closest to you, the people that have been there in the past. Thing is, no on ewill ever no how important it is until they are in the same position. You cannot understand what you have not experienced. Hopefully when the shoe is on the other foot, they'll get it. To hear that it has come down to money for people is really disheartening. ESPECIALLY people who don't have a lot of financial commitments right now. I know that money makes the world go round and that it is a reality of life, but my word, if you still live at home, things aren't that bad, sorry. The wedding has exposed some things in my friends that i probably would rather not have known.

And now the big debate: do i speak my mind and run the risk of damaging a relationship or do i say nothing and run the risk of getting bitter and letting crap fester?

The worst part is that I feel like a needy little kid talking about this stuff or getting mad about someone not coming. It is just that i don't see the effort. I see people mulling over and over the same old shite and not actually spending any energy on problem solving or moving towards a solution. Having said that, I am not in these peoples heads. I don't actually know how much effort they have put into trying to be there. I have but mere assumptions. And i know that...but it doesn't make it bother me any less. So I think my plan is to ask if certain options have been thought of/looked into and go form there. If they haven't, then I will keep as much frustration out of it as I can, and just speak the truth about what i feel.
Well, I'm probably not gonna come to any better conclusions than that...got any advice JZ?

friends

It's official... i miss my friends. I'm hopeing that the upcoming wedding doesn't eliminate any and all time for me to visit with them. And yet is that totally selfish? I'm not even sure. I guess the day is supposed to be a celebration...and that is best experienced with the ones you love. Either way I am wondering how much being married will change my relationshipss with my friends. I have friends that got married and then kidnapped and killed in a field somewhere...or at least that is what I am assuming b/c I never heard from them again. I don't want to be one of those guys. I need my friends. Which is funny b/c i am mainly an introvert...and I definitely re-charge in solitude. But once you have been surrounded by a group of really honorable and respectful men/women it is hard to cut yourself off from that. I don't even want to. Me and Kerianne have and understanding about that, and neither one of us want that for one another...that isolation.
I think that my friends could help pull my head out of the fog right now. I could certainly use that. THe swear word of my life, "clarity". Messed up concept that it is, I still need clarity.
What i would really like to do is sit under a street light on a rainy night and watch the orange light bleed onto the pavement, to sit and embrace the silence that a rainy night offers and get centered again...feel whole, or full, or there. To make a picture, a snapshot of my life to look at so I can feel like I am living "in the moment". Just sitting in the rain until i catch up with time, or time catches up with me. That would be good.

reflection

The summer has gone well i suppose. I was a foreman for a treeplanting crew these last 3 months. In the beginning it was really tough to leave Ker again, but we got as much planning and stuff out of the way as we could before i left.
I wanted to go out to the bush for 3 reasons, mainly. I wanted to hang out with some friends that i hadn't seen in a coupleyears, I wanted to cash in on the isolation and peacefulness of my surroundings (that has always brought me to an activity spike in myspiritual journey), and I wanted to make some money for the wedding/honeymoon. Well, i made some money, but 0 for 2 on the first ones. While my friends were hanging out, i was sitting alone in my truck doing paperwork. And for the same reason I had virtually no quality alone time. Every day off was busy and that made it really hard to set aside time for God. This is something that bothered me alot this summer, and b/c I re-charge when i am by myself (not around alot of other people), I spent the summer driving on fumes spiritually. I am pretty drained at this point. But no rest for the wicked. Got to get a wedding ready here.
Only 3 weeks left. My word. Getting freaked about that. Other thant hat the only life canundrum that i have been thinking about is whether I can actually call myself Christian any more.
I think that if someone asked me I would reply, "No, but I am a follower of Christ." I am so sick of everything that Christians are associated with insociety. I don't think that what that word has come to represent in society is anything close to what I believe or what Jesus taught. And i am sick of being lumped in with every dick that was ever in a church and made someone's life crappier for however long a period of time. SO ya, that and I'm wondering how well I actually know Jesus.
For years I have read the bible more like a self help book. Like God is Dr. Phil just trying to help me live my daily life. While I do think these things are in there and the bible is a great tool and guide for living, I don't think Jesus was saying "Cory, the thing you have to know about the rich ruler is...." or " The aspect of theKingdom of heaven that you will best be able to apply to your life today is...". I am starting to think that i have missed a lot about the gospels and the bible in general for that matter. I have always been asking myself, "what is this telling me about my life" when I have been reading the bible. But i think I am going to start asking myself "what is this telling me about God...or where does this fit in the context of the love story of God and humanity?"
That's what is running around in my head lately. Maybe you can make sense of it.

crunch time

So this is my first blog...feeling vulnerable and a little naked. Just kdding. I was told by a good friend that this was a great way to make sense of things sometimes....so I'm just doing this to proove him wrong. Just kidding Jimmyjams! I'll write more later today. just wanted to get this up and running.