So loved, and so in love.

Hello, Loves!  Words cannot describe how wonderful the past few weeks of engagement have been.

 My heart  melts at how much love I have felt from God, and from my dear fiance.

The first week or so was an overwhelming stir of questions, ideas, planning suggestions and just an overall outpouring of congrats from beloved family and friends.  

While that was indeed a wonderful and precious time, I am so thankful for the season God has Jon and I experiencing now, a season so incredible and beyond anything I could have imagined or hoped for, one of new depth, hope and excitement.

In this time, I can so strongly feel God preparing our hearts, souls & minds for marriage.  This is a concept that is quite surprising and new to me because I've always viewed engagement as a means of preparing in terms of the world mostly (wedding ceremony, reception, food, future housing plan, etc) while already being prepared for life with my fiance, already having given him my heart.  As I feel Jon and I are in fact ready for marriage and could be married today and successfully serve one another and Christ, this time of our engagement is proving to be something way beyond table decor and caterer selection.

Although God is allowing us to savor each others company almost every weekend, He is being so much more gracious than that.  As we cherish the support of all family and friends, the outpouring of Christ's love in our engagement is currently blowing our minds and our hearts.  It's as if He is showering us with His blessings in this time of preparing to become one, as though He is already at work in each of us, faithfully sewing us together as His one in this period, so that on our wedding day we are there, complete as one, His new creation.

While I cannot wait to be married to Jon, this time of engagement is one that I will always cherish and reflect upon.  I feel as if God, knowing our hearts and our strong desire to be married, is walking hand-in-hand with us, calming our hearts, leading us, and just beginning to reveal to us the great plans He has in store for us to know Him and to know one another.

so excited, so blessed & so loved,

Claire

ps-  We're getting married at Maymont Park, where we had our first date. :)

First Date. September 29, 2012

Engaged & Wedding Planning. March 15, 2013.