My b

Hey guys. It's been too long since I've posted here.

My b.

Been thinking about y'all a lot lately as I take a look at the future and where Lexie and I will eventually settle after she finishes school next December. It's intimidating to say the least, and my one hope for wherever we end up is that it'll either be near (same town, maybe?) some of you guys or that I'll be able to find a community of friends as good as y'all have been.

And now for the 5 questions:

1. Biggest thing in my life - Well, as you can probably guess, my engagement is the biggest thing that's happened to me lately. Our relationship has been getting deeper and deeper since then, and it's just made me even more sure of my decision to marry Lexie. We've been talking more honestly with each other, and I've seen huge positive changes in myself and in Lexie as we strengthen our communication. It's been great.

2. Most challenging thing: I've got a job right now that's pretty great (admin asst for an after-school program), but it keeps me from seeing Lexie much until the weekend. Since it's college football season, most Saturdays I just want to sit at home and watch college football either by myself or with a couple other guys. So the challenging part is just learning how to best use my time now that I'm not the only one who cares about how I spend my time. It's been a tough thing ever since Lexie and I have been dating, but it's definitely intensified since we've been engaged.

3. Best meal: The night of our engagement we went to a restaurant downtown called Vetri. It was and will continue to be the best food I've ever tasted. I never knew food could taste as good as the nine courses they put in front of us that night. Any description wouldn't do it justice.

4. Spiritual challenges: The most challenging thing that I've been working through has been trying to confess and repent more often. I've still been going to a counselor to talk about some Christianity-related doubts and frustrations I've been having for a long time, and one of the things we've been talking about is my conception of sin and my guilt before God. Bottom line is that I typically do think of myself as sinful and guilty, but I don't usually think it's that big of a deal since it's pretty much par for the course as a human. So to help me think more about my relationship to God, I'm trying to repent as soon as I catch myself sinning. My hope is that it'll help me think more about my sin vertically instead of just horizontally.

5. Reading: Lexie's uncle is this brilliant guy who's a professor of history and religious studies at Yale, and he wrote a good book on the Civil War that I've been reading. I've also been reading a book about interpretation and epistemology that I heard about while I was at l'Abri. As for Scripture, I've been reading John and going through NT Wright's book on that.

Gotta run now and get ready for a hot date tonight to celebrate my one year anniversary with Lexie. We're eating Vietnamese food and going to see Zombieland. Yeah. I hit the jackpot.