The Last Few Months - Engagement Day

January 13th 

First, Josh drove me out to the dock in Smithfield where we went stargazing on our first date almost a year before. There he read 1 Corinthians 13 ... a passage which he first read to me the night he told me that he loved me for the first time on another dock under the summer stars.  

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. 

And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 

And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned,^[4] but have not love, it profits me nothing.

Love suffers long and is kind; 

love does not envy; 

love does not parade itself, 

is not puffed up; 

does not behave rudely, 

does not seek its own, 

is not provoked, 

thinks no evil; 

does not rejoice in iniquity, 

but rejoices in the truth; 

bears all things, 

believes all things, 

hopes all things, 

endures all things.

Love never fails.

But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; 

whether there are tongues, they will cease; 

whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. 

For we know in part and we prophesy in part. 

But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away.

When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; 

but when I became a man, I put away childish things. 

For now we see in a mirror, darkly, but then face to face. 

Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.

And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Next we stopped by the little coffee shop in Smithfield Cure for a Honey Cinnamon Lattes to warm up :) 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

3) Next stop was a walk in Windsor Castle park. It was pretty windy (if you can't tell by our hair :) 

Once we reached our favorite little cove, Josh read a passage from Isaiah 41 which we read nearly every day during two or three of the hardest weeks of the last year. It has so much to say about what God will do in that time when he come back to make all things new and the small ways we begin to see him doing that in part in these days. 

“But you, Israel, my servant,

    Jacob, whom I have chosen,

    you descendants of Abraham my friend,

I took you from the ends of the earth,

    from its farthest corners I called you.

I said, ‘You are my servant’;

    I have chosen you and have not rejected you.

So do not fear, for I am with you;

    do not be dismayed, for I am your God.

I will strengthen you and help you;

    I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

“All who rage against you

    will surely be ashamed and disgraced;

those who oppose you

    will be as nothing and perish.

Though you search for your enemies,

    you will not find them.

Those who wage war against you

    will be as nothing at all.

For I am the Lord your God

    who takes hold of your right hand

and says to you, Do not fear;

    I will help you.

Do not be afraid, you worm Jacob,

    little Israel, do not fear,

for I myself will help you,” declares the Lord,

    your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel.

“See, I will make you into a threshing sledge,

    new and sharp, with many teeth.

You will thresh the mountains and crush them,

    and reduce the hills to chaff.

You will winnow them, the wind will pick them up,

    and a gale will blow them away.

But you will rejoice in the Lord

    and glory in the Holy One of Israel.

“The poor and needy search for water,

    but there is none;

    their tongues are parched with thirst.

But I the Lord will answer them;

    I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them.

I will make rivers flow on barren heights,

    and springs within the valleys.

I will turn the desert into pools of water,

    and the parched ground into springs.

I will put in the desert

    the cedar and the acacia, the myrtle and the olive.

I will set junipers in the wasteland,

    the fir and the cypress together,

so that people may see and know,

    may consider and understand,

that the hand of the Lord has done this,

    that the Holy One of Israel has created it.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

4) The final stop was Cedarhaven, the place that will be our home in days to come. We walked down to the creek and there in a tree which bears the marks of a great lightning strike was a tiny chest. 

Beneath that tree, Josh read a passage from 1 John 4: 

"Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, 

and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 

Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 

In this the love of God was made manifest among us, 

that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 

In this is love, 

not that we have loved God but that he loved us 

and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 

Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 

No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, 

God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.

By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, 

because he has given us of his Spirit. 

And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 

Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. 

So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. 

God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, 

and God abides in him.

By this is love perfected with us, 

so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, 

because as he is so also are we in this world. 

There is no fear in love, 

but perfect love casts out fear. 

For fear has to do with punishment, 

and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. 

We love because he first loved us."

After reading this, Josh pulled the chest from the tree, got down on one knee and with many sweet words of love, tied together all these passages as the foundation for and future supply of grace for the love that we share as a gift from God. Then he asked me if I would share in that love forever with him, "under the mercy" and "in His light."

I said yes and then started crying :)  He opened the chest, took the most gorgeous ring out of its nest of Virginia cotton and slid it on my finger.

Then he smiled until it looked like his face was going to split open and ran around the yard clicking his heels :) 

As the sun set in a riot of glory, our dear friends the Arters came rolling in the drive bringing the most delicious dinner! We ate and sang and cried and played music till it was time for the littles to be off to bed. 

Then it was off to my house for more smiling and laughing and eating! My mama had made fresh Lemon Curd which was AMAZING. It was the happiest of the happy days :)