Ode to the Twin

You may not know this about me, but I have a twin.

Not a biological one, mind you- but a God-picked, awesome, amazing soul sister that He knew I needed more than any boy or any job that I could ever possibly think I would need.  This dear friend of mine came in a moment where I never expected, and influenced my life greater than I ever thought any person could.

Hannah and I met in college, the very first day of my very first college class, in the very first taste of what my future held: lots of signing.  As the semester progressed, we became fast friends- and soon we became labeled "the ASL twins" because everything from our personalities to our signing styles were almost exactly the same.  The similarities get downright scary sometimes, but the intensity of our friendship and our love for Christ is what has strengthened our relationship far past that of any other friendship or relationship I had shared with a person.  We know everything about each other, and even though we currently live 1000 miles away from each other, our friendship continues to flourish and grow as we mature into the women God has called us to be.  However, God blessed us this past weekend, because Momma Martha (aka Hannah's mom) decided to fly me out to visit Hannah in a much needed visit. 

The last time Hannah visited me was shortly after a huge monumental time in my life: I just broken up with the guy I had been dating for 2 years, but I was also at a turning point in my walk with Christ.  Now, my visit comes after another huge moment in my life: getting engaged to the man that God has handpicked to share the rest of my life with. A man that has been approved by all four of my wonderful parents, and also by twin.  And while in two days, I'll head back to the land of sunshine and sand- for tonight and the next couple days we will delight in the fact that for a very brief time we will laugh, chat, shop, share, and enjoy the limited time we have until she visits this summer for my wedding.

So I will leave you with just a few reasons why I call my dear soul sister my twin:

We both love kites.  We love watching Big Bang Theory.  We love the same diverse styles of music.  We both became fascinated by the color combination of purple, black, and gray at the same time.  We both had a Dalmatian about the same age in life.  Both of our men are pastors, who were once history majors.  We are both sign language interpreters.  We are the same shoe size.  At one point, we both had one niece and two nephews (not anymore because her brother had a baby- but still that's cool enough to qualify as twinness). We bought the same Easter dress this year, in the exact same color.  We both got the movie 101 Dalmatians for Easter 2008.  We use the same soap and face wash.  And we always know just what to say to each other when the other is down.   

Sunday

Sundays are probably my favorite day of the week anymore.  It seems like no matter what, if I have to work at the Disney Store or if I get to relax and just go to church and hang out with my "Florida family" as I have lovingly dubbed my people down here- it just always seems to be a good day.

This past Sunday in particular, was an extremely good day.

I woke up running on about 3 hours of sleep.  Andy and I had made an impromptu trip to Disney the day before after I got off work- meaning we didn't leave Magic Kingdom until about 20 minutes after midnight.  I figured that getting that little of sleep would put me in a doozy of a mood for a Sunday, but I guess that the Disney magic was still pumping through my veins because I woke up quite easily and got ready- and I'm usually not one to comment on my appearance but I thought to myself as I got ready, "Man- I'm looking good for being so sleep deprived! Thanks God!"  I'll admit I was a little worried- I was interpreting music in the 9am service and I even though I am a QA 2 now (woot!), I still get butterflies.  I prayed so much that morning that God would just allow me to let it flow and not think about it as interpreting worship, but actually worshipping Him through interpreting (plus I take a little bit of artistic liberty in preparing music when I interpret- which makes it a little less like interpreting, therefore making me a little less nervous).

I drove to church and arrived a little after 8am so I could practice the music with the 9am worship crew.  It went surprisingly well.  I was feeling good.  Talked with Joyce and Ryan when they came in, chatted with Jeremy and Katie Silverman for a bit- thanked them both for inspiring Andy and I to make a random trip to Disney, and played with Ian (Katie & Jeremy's adorable son) for a little bit before he had to go to child care.  Made it through 9am music smoothly, even the crazy hard "I Am" special music, then headed over to worship practice for the 20/30 service.

Here's where it got better.

As the sermon ended and the 20/30 worship team got up to do the invitational and the offertory, I noticed a lot of people standing in the back.  Now, the lack of sleep did manage to affect my reasoning skills because I was completely clueless as to why so many people were in the back- but I thought nothing of it.  Andy leaned over during the prayer and said "Why are all these people here?" I looked at him and shrugged, noticing he had on a wireless microphone- thinking silently to myself... why in the world is he wearing a wireless mic?"

As we closed in scripture, Jeremy Nottingham (who was subbing for Ron, since he and Christa were on a cruise) said that Andy had one last annoucement.

And that's when this happened.

Now- as you can probably tell, I couldn't have been more shocked when this happened.  I'm not a typical girl, and have never been able to imagine just how my future husband would propose to me- but from the way Andy went about doing the whole thing, he showed me just how much God had blessed me.  I saw my parents on-screen and realized that they loved me so much they would do whatever it took to be a part of such a special day in my life from a thousand miles away.  I saw my boyfriend/fiance smiling at me, because he knew how much my parents mean to me and wanted them to be involved, and I realized that all the people in the dining hall that morning (or a good majority at least) were there because God had blessed me with a church family that truly loved and cared for me.  Sure, most of these things I've had all along, but I was so glad to have someone else enjoy pointing out those things, and delighting in them as well.  And while Andy may have planned it that way or not, that is one of the reasons I cannot wait to spend the rest of my life being his wife.  That even when he may not even realize he's doing it, that he is showing me the love of Christ, and how deep my Heavenly Father loves me.

<3

Laundry day and phone dates of encouragement

A lot of interesting things have happened over the last seven days.  A lot of things I had hoped to blog about, which I still might, even though it will be out of chronological order (and I tend to be OCD, so that could be hard for me), but today's blog focuses on yesterday.  God did a lot of great things yesterday, but one thing I want to focus on in particular, happened while going to do my laundry.

I was taking my laundry over to Andy's house to do while he was at work, because since I don't have a washer and dryer in my apartment, Andy figured that I should have some place comfortable to do my laundry rather than the crappy laundry facility in my apartment, and I only have to pay for gas to get over to his place, rather than like three dollars and some change to wash and dry one load.  So after I had finished my quiet time and was on my way, I got a very unusual text from twin.  Now if you don't know who twin is, she's not my biological twin.  Hannah Vaughn and I met in our first year of college, and spent quite a bit of time together.  We managed to connect incredibly fast, and most people thought we knew each other from high school, but we didn't- and considering our signing styles, our thinking styles, and our sense of humor were pretty much identical- we were dubbed the "ASL Twins," and it just kinda stuck.  Our teachers even confused us... it's really funny.  But yes, twin texted me at an unusually early hour for twin, since she has been working an internship in Washington DC.  She needed a phone date, and I knew at that moment she was not having a good day.  I told her to call whenever she could call- and so around 3pm in the middle of me doing laundry, I got a call from twin.

Twin had not had the best week.  In fact, twin was having a very crappy week- in which she was told she's not good at what she does.  Now the twinness power in me partly wanted to fly to DC and kick those people in the shins, but I knew that wouldn't do any good.  At the point where twin was telling me how she felt inadequate and she wasn't good enough, and how lonely she had been feeling all week- my hands were immediately searching for Scripture.  I got on my computer (because it was close and I'm terrible at remembering where verses are), and started looking up all the Scripture I could find about Godly thoughts and encouragement- something twin has always done for me when I needed her.  We talked about these verses, about God's plan for both our lives, and while I was talking to Hannah, in my heart I was praying like crazy that God would give me the right words to minister to her heart as I was in her position not very long ago.  By the end of the hour and a half phone conversation (which let me just tell ya, I'm not a phone talker), we were laughing and joking and were amazed at the work God was doing in both of our lives, as well as the healing power He gives us through people we might have never met if we weren't paying attention to the call He had placed in our lives.  I didn't realize that I needed the phone call from Hannah just as much as she needed it, but by the time I hung up the phone, I was thanking God that through our phone conversation, He had not only encouraged Hannah, but it had also encouraged me too.


And I guess I tell you all this to tell you a couple things.  That even in situations where you don't feel like you can encourage, God can use you to encourage other people.  Whether it's through you sharing Scripture with a friend, or just listening to them when they are having a rough situation in life they are going through and you just pray with them through that struggle- God can use you to do His work if you'll just allow Him to use you.  And if you're struggling with something, or you're feeling discouraged- remember that God uses times of distress to test us.  Spiritual attacks are of the enemy and Satan will start infiltrating wherever he can and most often it's your thoughts.  Which is why I always try to remember this passage:

"whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things."   -Phillipians 4:8