In July of 2007, two months before my and Brian’s wedding, I made a trip up to Sacramento to take care of some wedding planning-related essentials.  One of those essentials was me carrying my wedding dress onto a plane and leaving it at my parents’ house so that it would be there when it was actually time to get married - I must have looked ridiculous cuddling that huge wedding dress in the Southwest Airlines terminal and on that aisle seat of the plane!

My sister, my best friend from high school, my mom, and I had all been talking about the Friends episode where Rachel, Monica, and Phoebe are all wearing wedding dresses in their living room and eating popcorn.  That night when I arrived in Sacramento, myself (who was getting married one month later), my sister Rachel (who had gotten married two months prior), my best friend from high school Trisha (who had gotten married four years prior), and my mom Teri (who had gotten married 25 years prior), all busted out wedding dresses.  We laced and zipped and buttoned each other up, popped some popcorn, and pranced around my parents’ house as we played in our princess dresses.  Somehow, we managed to sucker my brother’s college-aged friend Adam into taking pictures for us so that we could document our ridiculous night of fun.

I had told Brian that we were planning on doing that, but since we weren’t married yet, I never posted the pictures because I didn’t want him to see me in my dress.  And then I forgot that I had the pictures.  Until now.

Even if you know which episode of Friends I’m talking about, you should still totally watch this four minute montage of clips from that episode, because it makes looking at the pictures even better.  In case you need some Friends education, Monica is picking up the wedding dress in New York for her brother’s fiance, who lives in London.  Phoebe, who is pregnant as a surrogate for her brother and his wife, goes with her to pick up the dress and gets pulled into the ordeal that way.  And Rachel almost got married in the first episode of the series and still has her dress.  I’ll leave it at that and let you get the rest of the details from the clip.

I’ve posted some of our photo classics below the video, but you can click here to see all of them.

Clockwise from top left: Trisha, me, my mom, Rachel

Just like the show.

I hope that in 25 years, I can fit into my wedding dress as perfectly as my mom does!

Does is really get any better than this?

I can’t tell if this is for real or not.  I hope not.  You be the judge.

It’s official.  I’ve returned to nerd mode.

After I finished my online quiz for Medical Terminology this afternoon, I manuevered over to the Blackboard site for my Anatomy class.  After clicking through some insignificant links, I came to the Interactive Anatomy link, and decided to give it a try.  What I found was a goldmine of nerdendom (that’s so a word I’m getting a copyright for). 

In particular, since I didn’t do so hot on the identification of microscopic pieces of tissue (aka, histology: the study of tissues) section of my Anatomy lab quiz last week, I decided to click on the Models and Histology link to see what I could do to get myself back on track and ready for next week.  Can you believe that my heart raced a little as I clicked my way through to find the slides of the tissues we had examined in lab over the past couple weeks?  In my head, I was like, that’s Hyaline Cartilage, and that’s Spongy Bone, and that’s Aereolar Tissue, and that’s Adipose Tissue, and that’s Compact Bone, and those are totally Osteocytyes sitting in Lacunae, and those are so Canaliculi.

You can say that I’ve gone back over to the dark side.  But at least I can identify what’s over there.

About two weeks ago, I was on the beach with my friend Alyssa, and I told her that God had given me an intense impression that would not go away: these next four months are going to be the best four months of my and Brian’s entire lives up to this point.  A few days later, I told Brian the same thing.

Now hold that thought.

In the past several months, Brian and I have really been wrestling with the question of what does true community look like?  To be like the Acts 2 church - where people took care of each other and provided for the needs of others such that no one went hungry, lonely, or homeless - almost seems like an unattainable reality in our Westernized individualistic culture.  We seem to have this idea that we don’t truly need anyone besides ourselves, oftentimes to the point where we don’t feel like we even need God.

So this summer, in an effort to facilitate a step toward true community, we made our Seven24 small groups smaller.  Our four-person summer small groups - affectionately coined “tiny groups” or “smaller groups” by some of our community members - were meant to cut the crap (that’s my expression and interpretation) and get to the heart of community, to the point where, if you didn’t show up to your small group, then it really let the other group members down.  We wanted to create greater accountability and honesty within the groups.  We wanted to create more leaders, because with smaller groups meant a need for more groups, which meant a need for more “facilitators” (we didn’t want it to be a “let the leader ask the questions and the other members come up with the right answers” type of format this summer, so we could grow more from each other).  We wanted people to really open up so that they could be vulnerable with one another, and really make an impact on each other’s lives.  In a few of the groups, all of those amazing things really did happen, and it is evident that the group members have made a significant impact on one another’s lives (praise God!).  But in other groups, the same thing happened that always seems to happen with small groups, in that at least one or two people skipped it every week, leaving the other 2 or 3 people out to dry, and really never reaching any sort of significance as a small community.

That really bums me out. 

I keep finding myself coming back to the same question: why is true community so difficult to create within the church?

Then I had a conversation with my friend Jenn, who is a “committed volunteer” at Invisible Children down in East County San Diego.  She shared with me how at IC, they are a family.  And it’s not because they all have the same interests and buy the same kind of clothes and work at the same place of employment.  They are a family because they have to be.  They are a family because if they fail to be a family, kids in Uganda will never have a chance to know freedom, never have a chance to know what it’s like to get an education, never have a chance to dream about what they can choose to be when they grow up.  They are a family because if they don’t act like a family, then their mission will be futile and their impact virtually non-existent.

People at IC don’t even all necessarily believe in the same God, but that doesn’t stop them from depending on one another to passionately work together as a family in order to achieve their mission of justice and compassion.  Why can’t we do that in the church, when we believe in the same God who created the heavens and the earth and who sent His Son to redeem us and to show us what it means to be the church?  What is holding us back?

And then it hit me.

We can’t force community.  We can’t put people together in a room or a small group and say, “Be a community.”  Community is a verb that emerges as a result of people being together and depending on one another.  Community is a verb when someone who is going through a hard time has people around who can pick that person up and walk with them until they can stand on their own two feet again.  Community is a verb when we see a need, and we work together to meet it.  Community is a verb when we work together to house someone who is homeless, feed someone who is hungry, love someone who has been rejected, and help someone who is helpless.  And while community is something (I am learning) that must be practiced, it is also something that can be fostered through things like sharing meals together and sharing space.

So, what do we do with all of this?

Remember when I said that God had given me an intense impression that these next four months are going to be the best four months of my and Brian’s entire lives up to this point?  It’s starting NOW.

After all of this wrestling and struggling with what it means to act and live in community, God has started to give us some answers.  His first command?  Move.  We just found out this week that, on October 1st, Brian and I will be moving to Crouch Street in Oceanside.  We will be living on a multi-family lot, which means that there is a big house in the front, and two smaller one-bedroom apartments in the back, with a shared backyard, laundry, and parking area.  We will be living in one of the one-bedroom apartments.  Our friends, Don and Dawn Richie, will be living in the main house.  The Richies have been walking with us as we have been trying to figure out what it means to live in true community.  Brian lived with them for a year and a half before he and I got married, and now they are the small group facilitators for our Seven24 married couples small group. 

As if that weren’t enough to get us started on living in true community, guess who happens to share a fence with us next door?  Jessica Souder and Sandy Flores.  Jessica is one of the most amazing college-aged women I have ever met, with a big heart for serving and helping and loving, and the patience and enthusiasm to co-teach Kindergarten/1st grade Sunday School with me on Sunday mornings.  Sandy is equally amazing, with a desire to live in true community in a way that is radically different than what the church has been trying to provide for its members.  She is the director of youth ministry for the junior high and high school girls at our church, and has been working toward her Master of Divinity at Fuller, taking the train and carpooling with Brian and Edwin to Pasadena and Irvine for the past few years (I think she may have just finished her program, actually).  For God to provide these two women as our new neighbors is nothing short of Him saying, You’ve been praying for true community.  Well, here it is.  Go for it and see what happens!  Watch what I can do through people who pray, live, and love in community!

In our Seven24 married couples group, we have prayed for each other the following prayer: Lord, make them the men and women that you desire them to be, no matter what the cost.  A scary prayer to pray, for sure.  But look at what He is doing.  He is answering our desperate cry to show us what it means to live in true community.  I believe that He has set us on a path that will allow us to discover what it means to live out community as a verb, in more ways than just being neighbors and housemates.  I believe that through this experience, He will be molding us into the men and women that He wants us to be, who live and love in community.  I also believe He is teaching us not to cling to the things of this world, as our storage and living space will be about two-thirds of what we currently occupy, so we will need to get rid of some stuff.

It’s a funny thing when God lays something on my heart.  Sometimes I don’t know what to do with it.  But this time, it is perfectly clear.  And I really think that these next four months will be the best of my and Brian’s lives up this point in more ways than just the community aspect.  I believe there is more.  I believe that we are on the verge of a breakthrough in our walk with God and in the impact we can have within our geographic community. 

It’s an exciting thing to walk by faith.  We can’t wait to see where we will end up.

In six days, Brian and I will be celebrating our one-year anniversary of marriage.  Ironically, in the past week or so, I have been working through a simple yet philosophical question: What is marriage?  And even beyond that, What is a godly marriage?

Sometimes it is so much easier to define something when you are not in it.

I have learned that marriage is a reflection of our relationship with God, something that He gives us so that we can more deeply understand His desire for intimacy, communication, and love with us, His beloved.  But we do not always keep our eyes fixed on that, and it is easy to get distracted by the day-to-day tasks of life.

As I was at Forest Home this past weekend for College Briefing, I found myself asking God this question: God, what do I need to do in order to make this marriage more like the marriage that you want it to be?  After leading me through the fundamental teachings on marriage found in the New Testament books of 1 Corinthians (7:4, 5, 10), Ephesians (5:22, 25, 28, 29, 31, 33), and Colossians (3:18, 19), and after showing me that I needed to confess the ways in which I had gone astray in following those teachings, God answered my question and gave me the most beautiful picture of marriage. 

Marriage is like salvation.  Just because you vow to be together forever doesn’t mean that you can be lazy and not put work into it after that.  You must work out your marriage just like you must work out your salvation.  Marriage is a decision that you must make on a daily basis.  You must choose to cherish and nurture, rather than ignore and starve of attention.  You must lay down your selfish desires in order to pursue the desires of the one flesh.  You must abstain from some things for a time so that you can be committed together in prayer.  You must view one another the way that Jesus views you, as precious images of God that have been set apart for glory.  You must encourage one another.  You must be tender with one another, and not harsh.  You must submit to one another, rather than insisting that your way is the right way.  But above all, you must love one another as I have loved you, with an unending and sacrificial love that always forgives and always protects and always hopes. 

This is what you must do.

The word of the Lord.

This past Thursday was my 25th birthday.

I have secretly longed for and dreaded the day that I would turn 25.  Longed for it because, as I work with parents and their kids in both of my jobs, 25 just sounds way better than 24 (Twenty-four sounds like I’m still fresh out of college.  Twenty-five sounds like a real adult, or at least it does to me).  Dreaded it because now I can’t pretend like I’m fresh out of college anymore.  And that’s a little scary.

I have been struggling recently with the concept of “growing up.”  Maybe it sounds funny, but it has really hit me in the past few months.  Part of it I can contribute to my new position working at the therapy clinic.  When I coach at the gym, I still feel a little sheltered from the “real world”, probably because it’s something I’ve been a part of my whole life, and it’s generally an enjoyable and relaxed environment.  When I work at the clinic, it’s the real deal - kids who deserve special attention and parents who expect it.  There are real life consequences for not being on your game in the therapy world.  And I am not about to lose my spot in the game.

The morning before my birthday, I had a conversation at the clinic with one of my brilliant and adorable five-year-old boys, who I work with five days a week and know very well, that went something like this:

Boy: Christie, isn’t it your birthday tomorrow?

Me: Yep, it sure is.

Boy: How old are you turning?

Me: How old do you think I’m turning?

Boy: Ummm, 25?

Me: Yep, that’s exactly right!  You are so smart, Mister. 

Boy: Yep.

Me: But I’m not a mister, because I’m a girl, so what does that make me?

Boy: A Miss?

Me: Nooooo, not quiiiite, remember, I’m married, so I’m not a miss, I’m a…?

Boy: An old lady!

Needless to say, I corrected him and told him I was a Misses, and that it wasn’t nice to call people old ladies because they don’t like it very much.

As I have advanced in age, I have also gone back in time.  At the age of 25, I am now a freshman in community college.  I start school a week from Monday.  Last time I was a freshman in college, I went by the last name of ”Tedmon”, had semi-recently broken up with a boyfriend, said good-bye to family and friends, moved 400 miles away from home, moved in with a dorm roommate and two suitemates whom I had never met before, started training with a National Championship Gymnastics team, was not working a job, was determined to become a pediatrician and go to UCLA med school, was generally overwhelmed by the entire transition, and got my first ever “C” (not for lack of effort…how I did every homework assignment, went to office hours three times a week, studied every day, and still managed to only earn a “C+” in Math 3A: Calculus for Life Science Majors, is beyond me.  Stupid Pre-Med classes and their freakishly high curves.).  

This time around in the world of academia, I go by the last name of “Kiley”, am married and now living with my new “family” who has known me ever since I was a first-time freshman at UCLA, am working two part-time jobs that lend themselves to long hours that do not always end when I clock out but that are directly related to the classes that I will be taking, am surrounded by good friends that are always here for me, am excited about becoming a Pediatric Occupational Therapist, and hope to avoid the “C+” scenario that took place the first time around.

Human Anatomy.  Human Development.  Medical Terminology.

Two jobs.

A husband.

A new last name.

Call me an old lady.  I don’t feel like a kid anymore.

Today I had an “awww” moment.  You know when something happens that’s really sweet, and it makes you say, “awww”?  Yeah, that.

I have an adorable four-year-old girl that I teach in one of my motor groups at the clinic on Thursdays.  After I walked her and her class back out to the lobby to meet their parents, this little girl started rifling through her mommy’s purse.  “Mommy, what’s this?”  It’s the makeup that Mommy uses so that she doesn’t look so funny, her mother replies.  As the little girl continued to empty out the contents of her mom’s purse, she got to her wallet and excitedly unzipped the compartment where she knew the dollar bills were stored.  She reached into the compartment, pulled out a one dollar bill, and quickly handed it to me.  “This is to thank you for your time,” she stated gingerly (”Awww”).  I looked at her mom, whose smile showed in the midst of her frustration with her daughter’s snoopiness, and I answered, “This is for my time?  Wow, thanks love.”  The receptionist then looked up and asked, “Did you just get a tip?  From a four-year-old?  How funny.”  After chatting with the mother for a few more minutes, I motioned to give the dollar bill back to her, but she refused, insisting instead that I “go to town” with it.

The whole ordeal was very sweet.

After a high five and a big hug from my little friend, mom and daughter exited the lobby in a whirlwind.

“That was really cute,” stated the receptionist.

It’s nice to know that, if nothing else, at least one of my kids is thankful for our time together.  I know I am.

Day 2 - Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Waking up in Yosemite without the responsibility of cooking breakfast over a tiny flame and miniature dishes similar to the tin ones you would see in a prison movie was quite a treat. The only drag was that our room didn’t have a bathroom, so we had to walk out to the cottage porch to use the public one if we needed to go. The Wawona is still way cozier than camping though.

After a leisurely morning, we packed up the car and headed to Yosemite Valley. We stopped at Bridalveil Falls and played around on some big rocks.

Next, we headed to Lower Yosemite Falls. We played around on some big rocks there, too.

Now I must pause for a moment and explain something for you. Throughout the months that we had been planning our trip, Brian PROMISED that we would not have to do any difficult hikes. Any time he and I have gone hiking together, it has resulted my near-certain demise…up and down Half Dome (in nearly half the time that it takes the average person), the “Four Mile Trail” (seriously almost killed me, my heart rate was up to 220), the Panorama Trail (which we did right after the Four Mile Trail, and were told it was 8 miles of downhill hiking; turns out it is mostly uphill hiking, go figure), and hiking into and out of the Grand Canyon with several days’ worth of food and supplies on our backs. The opposite of easy.

I like hiking, of course, but this is a celebration of our one-year anniversary of marriage. It is supposed to be a time to get away, relax, and re-energize. My one plea for this trip was that I didn’t want to come back from vacation needing another vacation to recover from my previous vacation. You know what I mean?

Okay, the stage is set.

So what does my loving husband suggest as soon as we have had our fun at Lower Yosemite Falls? We should hike the Mist Trail up to Vernal Falls. Come on, it would be so fun. And it’s a warm day, so the mist will feel good. Come on, just one hike, you know you want to. You’ve done that one before, it’s a super easy hike. You’ll be glad you did. It’ll be totally worth it.

I agreed, on the condition that, the next day, we could do whatever I picked to do.

Deal.

We took the shuttle over to the trail head. At the very beginning of our adventure, we spotted a baby bear. We could not spot mama bear, so we couldn’t really be sure that she wasn’t using her baby as a decoy to get us looking at the cute mass of brown fur so that she could lunge on us from behind like a velociraptor out of Jurassic Park. Thankfully, that was not the case, and the scariest thing we encountered was the Bear Encounters sign itself.

Unscathed, we continued upward. I will let you be the judge about whether it was “super easy” or not. I won’t say a thing. Not a single thing. And I definitely won’t mention that during our ascent, we passed a lady wearing a neck brace being carried down the mountain on a stretcher by five park rangers.

Once we got to the top, however, I was reminded of why Yosemite, out of all the places that I have visited in the world so far, is still my favorite place to be.

After a somewhat grueling descent and a halfway magical meal at the Curry Village buffet, we decided to call it a day and hopped back on the shuttle that took us to our car. We arrived back at Moore Cottage well before dusk, and managed to muster a game of Yahtzee before I embarked on a night of 13 hours of sleep, which began at 7:30pm.

A much-needed vacation, indeed.

Brian and I are excited about being married. So excited, in fact, that we ended up taking our one-year anniversary vacation this past week - the week of the 4th of July. Well, maybe that’s not entirely true. I mean, we are excited about being married. That much is true. The timing of our trip, however, was not really our choice. Our one-year anniversary is September 8th, but since my sister’s baby is due September 10th (yep, she’s having a baby boy!), and since my gymnasts’ season dominates the months of August through November, and since my gym was closed for the week of 4th of July, we decided to make the most of me not getting paid all last week, and took our anniversary vacation a little early.

Three nights in Yosemite. Two nights in Arroyo Grande (located in the San Luis Obispo/Pismo Beach area, about 150 miles north of LA up the 101). We loved every minute of it. Since it would be too overwhelming to try and write a whole post about the entire week, I’m going to try to post one blog for each day, with one to a few pictures and videos to characterize some of the highlights of that day. Here we go…

Day 1 - Monday, June 30, 2008

After seven hours of driving, we arrived at the Wawona Hotel in Yosemite National Park (located in Northern California, for those of you who have never experienced the glory of Yosemite). The other two times we have been to Yosemite together, we have done the hard-core camping/hiking combination, so to arrive at a quaint-looking hotel in anticipation of a few days of relaxation was amazing in and of itself.

Once we checked in, we were informed that we would be staying in Moore Cottage, a small, square building of about fifteen rooms or so, located behind the main building.

As soon as we walked in, I noticed something odd. Located on top of the antique-looking desk near the entrance to our room in the cottage, there stood two keepsake champagne glasses, a chilled bottle of champagne, and a cute basket of succulent strawberries.

“Wait a minute, I didn’t think that came with our room!” I exclaimed.

“It didn’t,” my husband stated, casually. “I upgraded to the Romance Package after you walked away from the computer when we were booking our trip.”

All I could muster was a sentimental, awwwwww. I was so impressed. He looked at me with his googliest eyes and told me how much he loved me.

As dusk disintegrated into darkness, we joined a group of fellow Wawonians to take part in the star gazing tour for the night.  While shivering and snuggling while lying on moisture-protective tarps, our guide shared with us the urban legends of the formation of the constellations that lit up the clear black mountain sky.  As the night came to a close, we practiced using each constellation as a reference point for finding another, and I was simply blown away by the beauty of the Creator.

A fantastically sentimental and beautiful start to our long week of adventure, romance, and relaxation.

Friday, July 4, 2008

As I sit here in a Pismo Beach coffee shop, on the second-to-last day of our vacation, I find myself surrounded by several quaint-looking mugs that host a myriad of inspiring, energizing quotes that are meant to expand the boundaries of possibility within my own mind.

While many of these passages have the potential to make their readers think deeply about life, there is one saying that has especially embedded itself in my imagination:

What would I do? What would I attempt? If I knew I could not fail?

The first thing that comes to my limited mind is the idea that I would attempt all of the arts that I have always told myself that I cannot do. Expressions of beauty beyond what words can capture. I think that I would gravitate towards watercolors, oils, canvases, throwing wheels, and dark rooms.

Next I find myself drifting off in imagination toward the art of music. Piano. Guitar. Drums. But especially piano. Oh to be able to express emotion and wonder and power through a medium that transcends language, culture, age, and gender.

But is this really a question of what I would attempt if I knew I could not fail? Or is this more a question of what would I attempt if I had the opportunity to do anything in the world? Maybe it is a little bit of both.

There is something deep within me that longs to burst through my chest when I am surrounded by artistic beauty, as if to remind me that, even though I don’t feed it too often, yes, it does still exist. Oil canvases, ballet performances, and coffee shop solos. Old world photographs, uniquely thrown and glazed clay, and the melodic striking of black and white keys. Expressions of life and beauty that are created to be appreciated.

That is what I would do, if I knew I could not fail.

What about you?