What I've Learned about the Gospel through Fantasy Football :)

If you know me at all, you know that I might be a little competitive...ok, very competitive :) But if you grew up in the family I did, you have to be competitive to survive. My family lives, eats, and breathes sports and competition. I also like winning :) I even find board games competitive, and my husband won't even play games with me unless we are on the same team, so the competition doesn't get too intense. Haha! Well, I love football, and I love fantasy football. I like the excitement of the competition each week, watching which players are going to play well and how your team is going to do. So, bear with me as I connect this to what I have been learning about the gospel and grace the past few months...

Grace has always been a hard concept for me to grasp. As a matter of fact, I would say I am just truly learning what it is for the first time in my life, and it is humbling. I want to write more on thoughts about what I am learning in another post, but I was just connecting these dots last night after winning my fantasy football game :) With fantasy football, all I do is pick the players that I want to play on my team. And, although some players are pretty consistent, most of them vary from week to week. So, they may play incredible one weekend and score lots of points for my team, and then the next weekend, when I am depending on them to carry the team, they may not do so good, or not get much playing time, or get hurt, etc. The point is, all I do is pick my players and hope they play good. I don't get out there on the field and play. I don't practice all week, play an intense game, and then wake up sore for the next few days. I don't even watch the games all the time, depending on what we are doing all weekend. So, as much as the competitive side in me would just love to take all the credit for my fantasy football win, as if I had played on the actual football field, and won, I really can't. I don't do anything to win that game.

So, that is what I am learning about grace... as much as the flesh in me would love to take credit for the things I do, I simply can't. It is not about what I do, but about what has already been done for me on the cross, as my husband so often says. I so often try to work to earn God's favor, as well as the favor of others. But I am learning that grace is this incredible, rescuing gift God gives us. It is this overwhelming, all consuming gift. In the words of All Sons and Daughters, "You broke my chains of sin and shame, and you covered me with grace... I am set free." I still have a lot in my heart to grasp about this grace thing, but God is wrecking me. So, although grace is not just a chance you take, like I take on my players each week in fantasy football, it is nothing that I can take credit for. I can only rejoice in the victory :)

Thanksgiving

This year, we have gotten to celebrate the holiday all week long! It was such a blessing for Aaron and I to both be able to take the week the whole week off and spend time with our parents! His parents came in from Oregon, and we all drove to South Carolina to spend the week with my parents as well. I have started to fall in love with this quaint, historic city of Charleston. We have been here a couple of times before, but this is the longest we have been here with nothing to do but relax, enjoy family, and explore the city.  We have been to the beach, explored the adorable little island my parents live on, gone on a carriage ride through downtown Charleston, a boat ride out to Ft. Sumter (where the 1st shots of the civil war were fired), eaten lots of incredible food at local restaurants, shopped, watched football, enjoyed a Thanksgiving feast at Cracker Barrel (yes, we decided not to cook this year), watched a lot of Friday Night Lights, and had plenty of time to relax and enjoy family (even my little brother and his girlfriend, who I hardly ever get to see). It has been such a good time with family this week in this wonderful city! Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! We have much to be thankful for...

The  Beach!

Carriage Ride in Charleston

The Girls 

Ft. Sumter

Downtown Charleston with my Love

Yep, lots of football :)

Folly Beach

The Landing - such good food right on the water!

My little brother and his girlfriend, Katie

My family :) Love them!

Our Love Story.... still continued :)

If you haven't read the first few parts of our story, start here and then read the next part here :) And the story continues... So, we are sitting down at "the riv," and Aaron starts telling stories...and then telling more stories...and a few more. This story-telling saga goes one for at least half an hour. I could tell he was nervous, and I knew what was coming, so I started to feel bad for him because he was so nervous to talk to me about our relationship! Haha! Then, [FINALLY], he said, "Well, I didn't just bring you down to the river to tell you stories all night..." I'm thinking, "I know! Talk to me" :) Haha. I could seriously hardly contain myself at this point. I wanted nothing more that night than for Aaron Nebrija to ask me to date him. So, he continues, "...I wanted to talk to you about our relationship." I still get butterflies just typing this out and reliving those moments. I'm such a girl, I know ;) But, seriously, this was a long time coming. He proceeded to tell me how much he enjoys hanging out with me and how much he liked me. He said lots of incredibly nice things about me and why he felt the way he did about me. He said he wanted to pursue a relationship with me, a serious relationship. He also said, in the midst of the conversation, that he knew where God was calling in him life and he didn't know whether I would be on board with that or not, but the call was so clear that he knew he had to follow the call God had for him either with or without me. He said that he really hoped it would be with me! :) That is when I knew that I could spend the rest of my life with this man. I had always dreamed of a man who would take me on an adventure, a man who knew where he was going in life and was not afraid to risk to get there, and a man who passionately loved Jesus even more than me. So, OF COURSE, I told him that I was feeling the same way and there were so many things I liked about him, too. We talked about where to go from there. We decided to "take it slow," which didn't last very long ;) But, that night, we said we were not going to date yet, because Aaron wanted to talk to my dad first. I didn't really care either way, I was just so happy that I finally knew how he felt about me and that he wanted to pursue a dating relationship! He ended up telling me later that he was so nervous to talk to me because I told him about other guys at school that I was good friends with that took our relationship the wrong way. You know, the ones where you think you are just friends, but the other person is totally into you. I hated when that happened, because it could so easily ruin the friendship. It happened both ways for me over the course of my college years, but I had told Aaron about the times that had happened to me, so he was so afraid that was going to be the case with our relationship, that he was going to confess his love and I would just want to be friends. I asked him how in the world he could not know I was totally falling for him by all of the time we spent together, conversations, we had etc. But, he said he still felt like he had about a 50/50 chance in talking to me. That, honestly, made me feel even more special though, because he liked me enough to be willing to take that risk, not knowing what I would say or if it could potentially damage our friendship. Every girl wants to know she is worth the risk. My heart had never felt as full as it did that night up until that point in my life :) It is an incredible feeling to be pursued, fought for, risked for, and adored.

I was literally on Cloud 9 for I don't even remember how long. I remember seeing him in the cafeteria at school a few days later, talking to some friends. I vividly remember looking across the room and just having this incredible feeling in my heart that he was mine and I was his. I was so confident in the way he felt about me and the feelings he had expressed to me. I was totally falling in love :) We still weren't "dating" yet, so that story is coming next... :)