hi, i'm emma

once upon a time i lived on both sides of the mississippi.

one of the first things that my fiancé said to me when we were first talking was that he was applying for full time teaching jobs anywhere on the east side of the Mississippi river… better yet, this is actually what he said “I’m looking for teaching jobs on the eastern part of the US, with the Mississippi river being the approximate dividing line.”

i chuckled to myself as two days from the moment i read that i was moving to the west side of the mississippi river… by about oooh 4 miles.

fast forward through the story that you may or may not know, and could or could not read alittle bit more of here, to the present: the entirety of my week so far has been driving from Kentucky to Minnesota and Minnesota to Kentucky.

possibly no surprise to those who know i lived in Minnesota and Benjamin lived in Kentucky, but he just finished driving from Kentucky to Minnesota afew weeks ago, to move me back from Minnesota to Kentucky… how and why that happened is a whole other story. what i can tell you is that it was directly from the Lord, Him being the only one that both knew the fine print of the zoning for the house i lived in and that i wanted to get out of my lease.

so let us recap, i met a friend of my brother’s who my mom had been trying to get me to meet for months 3 days before i moved to MSP, a city that i moved to seeking a new adventure and had planned to moved to for 2 years. i quickly fell in love via 3g usage, the world wide web, video cameras and plane tickets, and soon questioned the purpose of my move. really just about a week after i finally got over the why and had decided on making the best of what i knew to be so good, 5 months into my year-lease, i get a notice that i have 30 days to leave my apartment.

i had a decision to make: go back to where i came from, realizing that my deep love for another human being is fully impacting big decisions, which scared me because i knew that meant it was real because i don’t let this kind of stuff happen, i took pride in my independence and professional loner capabilities; or deny what was right in front of me as a beautiful experience that has been ever so full of blessings and challenges full of triggers for growth and find a new place to live in minneapolis, a city that i already loved and was just getting to know.

as much growth that took place solely based on our long distance relationship (that we are completely thankful for,) i knew there was growth that needed to happen that could only come from being together regularly. the obvious decision was made, despite the struggle, partially coming from a belief that the obvious decisions aren’t necessarily always best.

long story short, Benjamin came to get me in minneapolis and he proposed right when he got there.

meanwhile this whole time Benjamin has been teaching on the east side of the mississippi, having a great semester! but he’s adjunct. he’s spending his free moments applying for jobs all over the country. here i am, floating between beds in parents and almost-parents houses in different states, planning a wedding and adjusting to warm weather when my fiancé tells me he has an interview to teach painting at a school in Minneapolis. a school that he applied to a month before i found out i wasn’t staying.

i spent all of yesterday driving us back to kentucky so Benjamin could teach this morning because he had a job interview in Minneapolis. (if he gets the job we will be back in minneapolis before my lease would have been up.)

its kind of risky to write this here and now, who knows if he’ll get the job but maybe thats my point. its humbling knowing this isn’t ours, while this story is a good one, if its not where we are meant to be, the story will be even greater as it grows… even if it doesn’t include a full time teaching job on either side of the mississippi this year.

we’ve seen our Papa’s hand so evident in our lives, providing over and over again, in ways that we specifically asked for or needed, and in ways we didn’t even know we needed. seeing this encourages us to trust the Lord, the thing we are supposed to do regardless of Him being so very evident… there’s a new sense of knowing our Papa. of course its a daily struggle and renewal, but the times that we are able to die to ourselves to obey is so freeing.

story matters because it points to our Maker. there is no denying the Creator of the universe as the author of our story. the one that puts two people together that have similarities that make them want to be together all the time but differences that are much needed for specific growth in each. the one that knows the fine print of city zoning. the one that knows how ready or not ready we are for the taking care of each other’s hearts. the one that knows every detail of our desires, knows the number of hair on our heads and provides. the one that gives us gifts. not gifts just to enjoy but to grow from. He is the author of life, i’m not just talking the love stories and adventure stories… the love story where He placed His son on the earth to die for all of us so that we have life more abunduntly.

“And i found myself wanting even better stories. And that’s the thing you’ll realize when you organize your life into the structure of story. You’ll get a taste for one story and then want another, and then another, and the stories will build until you’re living a kind of epic of risk and reward, and the whole thing will be molding you into the actual character whose roles you’ve been playing. And once you live a good story, you get a taste for a kind of meaning in life, and you can’t go back to being normal; you can’t go back to meaningless scenes stitched together by the forgettable thread of wasted time. The more practice stories I lived, the more i wanted an epic to climb inside of and see through til its end.”

-Donald Miller : a million miles in a thousand years

rereading some of my favorite sections of this book, which if i had to pick a favorite book this would be. relating in even more ways than i did last time.

(Source: donmilleris.com)

once upon a time i fell in love using my thumbs.

i moved. i moved 700 miles away. 700 miles from where i didn’t really live anyways. but is where my mother’s kitchen lies, a place that will always be home on some level. 700 miles from my previous little KY house that is somehow also 700 miles from here. after a year and a half of floating, waiting, being stuck, waiting, moving forward, moving backward, waiting. i did it.

the first week and a half of my new life in minneapolis i was without internet. not something that particularly bothers me much at all, (except when it comes to sharing photographs and sending clients orders to my lab.) especially since i have an iphone. but i don’t get service in my apartment, data or cell. so not only had i just moved to a city where i don’t really know anyone but the only contact i could have with people i did know and love had to happen by running up the stairs and outside to use the phone or send any type of messages.

i moved because i wanted a new adventure. because i wanted to live simply. because i embrace the unexpected that pushes me further to trust my Holy Papa. if i am ever asked about being an adventurer, i talk about how i love the unexpectedness that comes with it…

i met a man 3 days before i moved 700 miles away. a man that is from just miles from where i lived for 3 years last time i lived anywhere. a man that makes more sense of me than i do. a man that loves deeply. a man that i wasn’t ready for until the day i met him. a man who my mother, out of her character, not even knowing him, had wanted me to meet for months previously. a man that strives to follow and glorify Christ. a man who both challenges and encourages me in ways i need to be. a man who paints paintings that i actually like. a man who took great risk in pursuing me. a man who prays for me. a man who i am drawn to like nothing i knew. a man who is exceptionally witty and jolly. a man who unintentionally instigates actions within me that i usually make fun of couples for. a man who has the best color changing eyes i’ve seen. a man who makes me feel less crazy. a man who makes me feel like a lady. a man worth a 700 hundred mile distance relationship.

it doesn’t take much critical thinking to realize that i didn’t figure out these rarities about this man during long dates at coffee shops where we looked longingly into each other eyes and conversed, the 3 days before moving 700 miles is usually a little busy. especially if you have art show opening, a wedding to shoot and a car to get fixed. you see, we wrote. emails. long emails. my phone was all i had for this task. i couldn’t use my mavis beacon taught typing skills correctly using all my fingers to type these emails. when using an iphone to write a message generally only your thumbs are used. my thumbs were the only fingers involved in writing these emails that i had to go outside to send (which apparently was impressive to this man who was sweeping me off my feet once he found out) this wouldn’t be such a big deal if writing emails wasn’t like pulling teeth for me, but they usually are. not these. i was compelled. my thumbs wouldn’t stop. they were the most natural exchanges of words between almost strangers i could have ever imagined. 

so review time, i wanted a new adventure, and what i love about adventures is unexpected happenings… 

that unexpected happening of this man waltzing into my life like it was the most simple thing that could have occurred, i often have to stop and wonder at it. i am blessed. i got my new adventure. it was certainly wasn’t anything close to what i thought it was going to be. …which is what i love, right… right?! being here has not been easy, i never asked for easy, but it has been far from easy. there is much beauty that comes out of struggle. the growth that is happening inside this tiny lady is beyond me. 

so many people tell me i’m strong. i do not feel strong. some days, some moments, i have the strength to feel grateful. 

(Source: emmafwilliams)