My 24th Year Retrospective

Here we are, September 18th and I am turning another year older.  My 24th year on earth was one with highs and low but I think that it is one that I will remember for a long time.  So here is 10 of the things that were a part of my life this past year:

1. ARISE Together in Christ Group

In the Fort Wayne-South Bend Diocese our Bishop started this small faith sharing community group initiative that brings people together in your church and talk about the Faith through scripture, life and challenges.  Travis was the leader for the young adults at St. Aloysius and I joined him.  By the end of the first season we had made this wonderful group of young adults (mostly our friends from IPFW, but not all).

I am so grateful for this small group because after college and leaving the Newman group at IPFW, I missed having that Catholic fellowship.  Sometimes we don't always stay on topic, but it is a wonderful time to grow in friendship and be there for others when needed. Learn more about Arise from an article in Today's Catholic that features yours truly!

2. Engagement / Wedding Planning

Looking on this past year, this was a huge part of it.  While we got engaged in August, the real planning took place this past year.  What a roller coaster of things to do.  Some were great like meeting with Fr. Tom for Marriage prep at St. Jude. But, some of the other things were just crazy (I am not a hugely social person that plans huge parties focused on me and Travis)

While I am glad that the season of engagement is over in my life, I truly took back on that time fondly.  It was a wonderful time where you are preparing yourself for a wonderful and beautiful vocation.

3. Saying goodbye to the Overby's

I think that growing up we had the world's best neighbors!  It is hard for anyone to get close to Marge and Dave.  Marge and I were birthday buddies and growing up we (my sisters and I) would receive a hand drawn birthday card with a Disney character on it.  Marge would 'happen' to make an extra cake and bring it over, or she wanted to try a recipe and Dave couldn't eat it because of his diabetes so she would bring it over.  They were wonderful neighbors that were called away from this earth.

Marge passed away on Christmas Eve and Dave passed away 10 days latter.  That was a bit hard because they were like grandparents to me, but I hold on to the good memories.  I could reflect on these wonderful neighbors for hours, but on a day like today I just say, rest in peace Birthday Buddy!

4. Florida Trip

Mom, Dad, Angela and I took a trip to visit our Aunt and Uncle in Florida on January 1st.  It was crazy to be driving to Dayton in snow and arriving in Tampa in 80 degree weather.  Dad kept on saying: " It is January 1st and I am in shorts!" "It is January Second and I and sitting on the beach!"

Me, Dad, Mom, and Ang

While we were there I believe that it got to about zero Fahrenheit... So it was nice to be warm!  It was a perfect last family trip with us four!  This was a wonderful time to celebrate family!

5.  Two New Nephews

Luke was just making the same face as me!

I was lucky to have Two nephews born this past year! Luke James was born March 29th and Thatcher Dennis was born September 9th.  How can you not be excited about babies in the family!?!

6. Being Brooklynn's Sponsor

Travis' niece (now my niece as well!) asked me to be her sponsor for confirmation.  I was really excited that she asked me and I love being a part of sacraments.  While we were already engaged, I felt even more part of the family after being asked.

Brooklynn, Bishop Rhoades and Me

She really tested me and my memory skills though because she picked a saint that I has never heard of before: St. Marcella patron saint of Nobel women.  But it was wonderful to be a part of this with her!

7. The year of two Popes

It was a crazy beginning of the year with Pope Benedict retiring and Pope Francis becoming Pope.  But is has been exciting to see all of the spirit that seems to have been brought into the church. A renewed sense of Love.

I saw a post ones that Pope John Paul II was all about Hope and what we went through with World War II and the cold war, he showed the church and world love.  Benedict was the scholar that educated us about the faith.  Now, Pope Francis is showing the love the the faith can offer.  It is a trifecta of Popes in my lifetime!

8. Renting House

Travis and I become renters.  He moved into the house in April and I am still working at unpacking boxes...  I will eventually be all moved it... eventually... But it has been a wonderful experience.  We live right across the street from St. Jude so we never have to worry about parking for Mass, we just have to walk!

While we aren't going to be there forever, it is a great first place to make a home!

9.  Changing my last name

Marrying my best friend has been a highlight of this past year.  Changing last name a bit harder and a tedious process.  You don't realize how many places have your information until you see how many places you need to change your address and name (still an ongoing process).  But I love the Day I become a Mrs.  it is crazy to think that it has been 2 months already!

But Becoming Mrs. has been wonderful and sometimes I still look around and ask if it is real, because it just seems so natural now.  I love coming home to Travis (well, I usually beat him home...)  but it has all been a blessing!

10.  Starting a new Life 

While this past year has been filled with its ups and downs it is always wonderful to look back ans see how blessed I truly am.  I have a wonderful husband, family, and friends! I couldn't ask for more!  Thank you all for what you have done to my life and I am forever grateful!  Please continue to keep Travis and I in your prayers as we begin this new journey of life together.

Now onto being 24!!

7 weeks!

How is it possible that in 7 weeks that my last name will be Heckber?  (maybe not on all of my legal things, but I think that you know what I mean).  How has that date gotten so close?

Our home that needs me to organize it :-)

Travis and I had our final meeting with Fr. Tom last Friday and have things falling into place, items are being crossed off my list (slowly it feels, but little by little). People keep asking me how wedding planning is coming along, I say that plans are coming.  But really it is only one day...



That is what I keep telling myself when planning doesn't go according to plan.  Because I know that it is just going to be the beginning, Right now I think more about getting the house organized, and thinking ahead.

Yes, I am excited about the wedding, how can you not when I get to stand up  with my best friend and greatest blessing in front of my family and friends.  How could you not?  It is just staying sane until then, because this one day requires almost too much planning.

So the countdown begins: 47 Days to go!

Looking ahead

I think that all that I have talked about recently is looking towards the future.  But right now I think that is all that I really know for sure: uncertainty.  All I know that I need to trust in God and by doing that, things will fall into place.  Through this entire journey I think that there are times when I could have given up and just gone a different direction, but something keeps on telling me that I need to listen to God's call and I need to trust in Him and have the courage to follow His next plan for me.

Courage

Something that can always be worked on.

I've only been graduated for 11 days and I think I've been asked 10,000,000 times what I plan on doing, or what I would like to do, or if I have a job yet.  I don't mind the questions, but I think that I will love it when I have something concrete to actually tell them.

The truth is that I don't know where I am going to be next week, I don't know where I will be next month.  I don't know what will make me totally happy in the job world, other than knowing that by doing God's will on Earth will make me happy and content.  I know I don't have a job yet and I now know that it is much more then just writing a resume (that is only the first step of many).

There is much that I don't know, but I do know that I am on a journey and I pray that this journey that I am taking is the same path that God has planned for me.  I can only hope to do His will.

The footprints poem comes to mind.  I have the last quot on a little plaque sitting on my desk.

"My Precious, precious child, 
I love you and I would never leave you. 
During your times of trial and suffering, 
when you see only one set of footprints, 
it was then that I carried you."

Life is about the little things

How often do we look at the big picture? How often do we plan for what is next? So often we are looking too much in the future and are missing what is in front of us at this moment.

Yes we can work 5 days a week to make a paycheck and just think about saving money and about the future. But what we can't forget about is the here and now.  What is happening around us at this very moment.  To become able to appreciate our future when the future comes, we have to take time to absorb the present.

Life can throw so many curves at us and we don't really know what tomorrow brings, so we just need to take time every day and soak in what is around us.  Is it the beautiful colors of the fall leaves? The hug from a nephew? a smile from a friend? a laugh that makes your belly hurt? We need to take time to have those moments and not always be running.

We just need to take time, because at the end are we going to wish that we had more money? Or are we going to wish that we had spent more time smelling the roses, or had spent more time with family and friends?

Life is the little things, and the big things will fall into place

What is truly important in life?

There is a poem that I would like to share that seems to really speak of this question.  It doesn't matter when we are born, or when we die. But what happens in the middle

The Dash
by: Linda Ellis

I read of a man who stood to speak
at the funeral of a friend.
He referred to the dates on her tombstone
from the beginning to the end.

He noted that first come the date of her birth
and spoke of the following date with tears,
but he said what mattered most of all
was the dash between those years

For that dash represented all the time
that she spent alive on earth
and now only those who loved her
know what that little line is worth.

For it matters not, how much we own,
    The cars,
     the house,
     the cash,
what matters is how we live and love
and how we spend our dash.

So think about this long and hard;
are there things you'd like to change?
For you never know how much time is left
that can still be rearranged.

If we could just slow down enough
to consider what's true and real
and always try to understand
the way other people feel.

And be less quick to anger
and show appreciation more
and love the people in our lives,
life we've never loved before.

If we treat each other with respect
and more often wear a smile,
Remembering that this special dash
might only last a little while.

So when your eulogy is being read
with your life's actions to rehash
would you be proud of the things they say
about how you spent your dash?

-----------------------

How do we live our lives to our greatest potential? Do we squander our time? Do we waste the gifts that we have been given from God?  Life isn't about the movies that we have seen, or the cars that we have owned.  It doesn't matter how much money that we have in our bank, or how much education that we have.

What truly matters is how we impact the world for the greater, who we have loved, and who has loved us back. Life is about Family, friends, and living for God.

So next time that we have to make a decision, maybe we should be thinking about how we can better our 'dash'. Maybe the first step is to realize that we aren't just living for ourselves, but for someone greater.

Let the light of Christ shine through you in every action that you do. How else do you really want to spend your dash?

Life isn't clear cut

Through High School and College I always enjoyed watching movies.  I always like seeing how the story would unfold, and how the characters would get to the end. Half of the 'chick-flicks' that I watched you could almost predict how the ending would be, but the real reason to watch the movie was to see how they got to that point.  How through the hardship and conflict, it almost always ended the way that, as a watcher, planned it would.

The characters in the movies were awesome.  They would always have the prefect hair, the greatest smile, the perfect little circle of friends (where all of their friends knew and were friends with each other, for example FRIENDS, I mean what is up with that?), the story line, and the greatest background music.  Growing up, I think that I thought that was something to aim for.  The perfect 'movie story-line' life.

Now, before you say anything, I know that the movies aren't real and the actors who play the characters had real lives with real issues.  But there was always something intrinsic, something to aim for: the perfect movie romance, the perfect movie story, the perfect movie life.

But none of that is real, none of that is true.  In the movies that I grew up watching, the writers wrote the character script. The writers got to dream about how they wish life could be different, how life could be perfect.  But they knew that real life couldn't be that way, so they wrote about it instead.

Now you are probably asking yourself why I am even writing about this, why does it even matter? But I do have a point.  Growing up with those movies I thought that life wasn't going to be as hard as what I was expecting.  In real life, there are group projects, due dates that don't get pushed back, people who are above you that are horrible and their funny factor doesn't make up for that.  In real life there are no scripts that you can go by, no background music that emphasizes your mood, no flipping or fast forwarding to the end to see how the story is going to end.  There is no way to totally predict what curve balls life is going to throw at you.

 I have a great quote from a book that I am reading.  In I kissed Dating Goodbye by Joshua Harris he has a quote that the end goes: "... Rose-colored glasses are never made in bifocals. Because nobody wants to read the small print in the dreams." That is how it was for me, I had to get into reality, and realize that those movies, and their 'perfection' was nothing that I should aim for

In life we are not given a script to follow.  The people that come into our life, won't follow the script that we write for then in our head.  We have to realize that no matter how many scenarios we make up in our head, no matter how great they seam, they never happen just like that.

Life isn't the fairytale that we all dream up as little girls, Life is a roller coater that has its uphill climbs, and its stomach wrenching falls.  But what is so great about that is, we get to ride the whole coaster, and we get to see how it ends, no matter unpredictable it might be.

One Life to Live

So many times in our life we come upon forks in the road of our life path.  It is a daily thing that we come upon.

Should I sleep in 5 more min? Do I really need to eat that cookie? or the more serious Can I just glance over and cheat off my partner? Should I flirt back with that person? Are my actions showing dignity?

There are so many choices that we have t choose every day.  Sometimes we don't even realize that we have come upon those choices, until we are past them already.  But we have to decide to move forward.  Nothing good comes from retracing our steps and making that decision over again.  That isn't the way that we are supposed to live life. That is why we are capable to be forgiven, and told to try harder every day that we are alive.

God didn't come to this world so we could always party it up, and live the high life.  We aren't here on this earth for ourselves.  There is more to life than just us.  It doesn't really matter if we are popular, if we are the brains, if we have made poor decisions in the past, or anything.  We are here to be, at one time or another, God's hands, feet, and heart to someone here on earth.

Life is a gift.  We must remember that, it is all what we choose to do with that gift is what really matters.

So Live Life.

playing a different game

Random thought of the day:

When Life deals you a bad hand, start playing a different game. 

Just something so simple, we shouldn't complain about the horrible hand the we were dealt, we should know had to adapt

Life Doesn't Wait

I think that this was one of the biggest things that I have learned through the years.  No matter what has happened in the past, no matter what you wish to happen in the future: life won't wait for you to live.  It doesn't matter if it is waiting for your crush to notice that you exist, it isn't waiting to make an impact on the world.  Life won't hold your hand through it all.

Life keeps moving even when you stop playing the game.  When I was younger we would play this game called Peanuts and it was like solitaire as a group, and we would always say time out to straighten the cards, or get something else.  But in life we don't get a time out, we just stop living, we stop moving our cards in the game, and we just decide to watch as the game keeps on going.

While sometimes it can be good to take a time out and get your breath, we can't get comfortable.  We become complacent and we stop caring.  And what type of life is that?

We can't sit around waiting for someone to notice you, we can't wait to be handed opportunities, we have to go out and find those opportunities.  Opportunities are like the pearl in an oyster, sometimes they aren't easy to find, but when you do, it is something special, something rare, and something to hold on to.