yes, i had 16 bridesmaids

i slept in the bed with kizzy the last night before i got married.... just like i did the last night of high school, the night my mother died, and a million others. it was only right and completely necessary. leah handed me her toast the morning of the wedding... she wrote it out instead of speaking at the rehearsal dinner, so i was able to read her sweet words as i brushed my teeth that morning, so i was able to hold her words near and reread them as i needed them. mg blew my hair dry. she's a pro at drying hair, and even though it was my wedding day, my WEDDING DAY, we just chatted and she blew my hair dry and i was perfectly relaxed with pretty hair. nat went with me to get my make-up done, and later changed my hair from veil to no veil before the reception... since junior year, i have scurried to nat's room in a towel wrap so she could do my make-up. even on my wedding day, i don't know that i could have let anyone touch my face if nat wasn't there. she made me feel beautiful, and she teared up the whole time.weesie gave me marriage tips as we sat in the dressing room... tips that i so very much cherished and so very much needed... little pieces of wisdom i still hold onto dearly. darb was the first to tell me i was glowing when i put on my wedding dress... the look on her face made me believe it, and i will always always always remember that moment and feeling. i looked atriri and could see b's smile, and how i loved and needed to see his smile all day... because she was there smiling, i did. meresy followed me upstairs to the sanctuary for my bridal pictures and carried my train and my lipgloss. she kept me from panic and kept me from ever having to be alone on my wedding day. my mom wasn't standing there watching my bridal portraits and reapplying my lip gloss, but my meresy was. elizabeth reminded me all day of where brian and i have been. liz was there from the very beginning and has been my saving grace when i was freaking out over our relationship. and elizabeth has the smiling eyes. her eyes grin and dance with joy and they danced all throughout my wedding day. chelsea was the other face besides brian's i could see when i turned toward him during the ceremony. her big smile and sweet tears made me smile bigger and cry harder. bets was my big sister on my wedding day without our mom there, and she was such a champ in the ways i needed her to be. kritter asked me all day, "how are ya? how ya feeling rach? i mean, i can so tell you're great." if i needed to get nervous for a minute, or sad about my mom, she was giving me an opportunity. what she was really saying was, "i think you're happy and calm, you look happy and calm. but if you're not, that's okay and i'm here."anna is the queen of service, and will absolutely always do what she says she will do. i asked her to do a million tiny things all day, i.e. take my flipflops and lip gloss upstairs, and she did every single one of them. anna is also the queen of event feedback. by the time we got to the reception, she had gotten feedback from multiple people on how pretty they thought the ceremony was and was so quick to report to me. i don't care what anyone says, compliments like that make a bride feel even happier than she already does. mary lou reminded me that i'm not the only bride without my mom on my wedding day. one day she will be a gorgeous bride, and her mom won't physically be there... but she also reminded me that my mom was there.she really was. everyone told me that, but perhaps no one believed my mom was there like mary lou did, and mary lou made me believe it. and mary lou reminded me to be sassy- mary lou is the best kind of sassy. leen brought me back down to earth. that's just who she is. she's real, and she kept me real. and she had a blast at my reception... she danced the night away and everyone on the dance floor had a little more fun because she was there. ames grabbed me a million times throughout the day and night and said, "this is all for you! this is YOUR wedding day! it's yours rach!" she reminded me to soak up every moment, to remember that the day was ours- mine and brian's. the one we will relate every detail of to our daughter.

i know there were 16, but it took all 16 to get me down the aisle. they are where i'm from, where i am, where i'm going. they are the reason i am who i am, the reason i am the girl brian fell in love with.

Of Grace.

Camp Desoto is a part of my very soul. I have huge respect and appreciation for Camp; I have huge respect and appreciation for Phil and Marsha, the directors. They are deeply faithful people, deeply real people, deeply humble people. My first summer on staff, I kind of thought they were crazy people because of what they were asking of us. I thought maybe they had some misconception of me. Like maybe they didn't see my sin or weren't aware of college kids these days- our selfishness, immaturity, laziness, and occasional lack of moral soundness due to newfound freedom (I might just be talking about myself, but perhaps a few of you can relate).

But they weren't crazy, and they didn't have any misconceptions. They were fully aware of every person's inability to do what we were called to do. They lead staff every year in full assurance that the Holy Spirit will be mighty in our weakness, perfect in our imperfection, full in our emptiness. Phil and Marsha expected so much out of me because they saw Jesus in me. And because they saw Jesus in me, I rose to the occasion. This was the epiphany I had after my first summer... I am my best self at Camp because Phil and Marsha see the best in me: Jesus.

Dead to self, alive in Christ.... We've all heard it, they live it. They live it not only as individuals, but also in the way they relate to and lead others.

This past summer, I had another epiphany. My first two years on staff, I was a cabin counselor. It was the most draining thing I've ever done in the best sort of way. Like I said, I thought Phil and Marsha were crazy because of all they asked of us. But one thing about it was easy- I knew always what I was supposed to be doing. My job was to show up. In my cabin, in my activities, I just had to show up physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually. Showing up meant being fully present and loving well. Showing up, especially when I was void of all energy, could be so difficult that it made me cry, but as long as I was fully showing up so that Christ could love my campers through me, I was doing all I needed to do. The past 2 summers I've had different positions in Camp. These positions have been far busier, but far less draining. This past summer, for example, I assisted the program director. I had a blast doing tons of odd jobs and having the opportunity to make other people's lives easier. I felt like a little fairy who ran around behind the scenes and did what was asked of me and any little extra things I saw a need for.

But in this freedom to serve wherever I was needed, I often felt like I dropped the ball. I had this insecurity that I was disappointing the directors and assistant directors who I respected so much. I longed for the feeling I had as a cabin counselor- totally drained, but totally confident I was doing my job.

For example, I forgot to turn on the strobe light for the Intermediate Lip Sync Extravaganza. The Sunday after I bombed with the strobe light, I brought the wrong roll of butcher paper to the picnic on the play field. I realize this is not a big deal- unlike the strobe light- but it did mean that someone else had to go back and get the right roll. I expressed my frustration to Emily, one of the assistant directors, "I feel like I just keep dropping the ball over and over. I feel like everyone is thinking that when they ask me to do something, they have to follow behind me and pick up the pieces that I forgot or did wrong." "Rachel," Emily responded, "this is a community of grace! Be free of that fear. We live in a community of grace."

This was the moment of epiphany. Camp talks a lot about community. Marsha is great at articulating the community those at Camp are called into each summer. A big part of that community is giving and receiving and living into grace. And that is a huge reason why the fellowship and growth within the Camp community is so wonderful.

This is what too many of our communities are missing. We're far too often not of grace, but of waiting for one another to fail. We are critical and quick to patronize.

I am longing to see Jesus in those around me, to love as Phil and Marsha do. And I am longing to be of grace. I want to see more of my own sin and struggle and the love Jesus rains down on me despite it, so that I will be slower to see the sin and struggle in others' lives, so that I will be slower to frustration, judgement, gossip, whatever the temptation would be if I were not giving grace. I want to love my people where they are. There is so much freedom in being part of a community of people who expect the best from you but are there with open arms when the worst comes out.

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound.

Rachel

As Sweet As Tupelo Honey.

The truth is, I've secretly always wanted to title my blog this, but felt like I was maybe a little too obsessed with the little slice of heaven that I grew up in. The more places I go and people I meet, the more gratitude I have for Tupelo and the way I grew up. If you know me, you know this about me. I'm sure it's fairly annoying. But I loved it and I love it and I'll always love it. Tupelo wasn't too small and wasn't too big. Everyone went to the public high school (I'll add here that every student in Tupelo Public School District from 6th-12th grade got his or her very own Macbook this year) and it was the greatest high school in the world.

And the community. The people who live in Tupelo, Mississippi love one another fiercely. They crowd your house in the midst of tragedy, when you might not even want to see a crowd, and they pick you up and carry you through your grief... feeding you dinner the whole way. They are nosy, they talk about each other, they don't always get along, but they love each other hard and they show up when it counts and they hold you... literally and figuratively.

Tupelo, with its 5A football and small town charm, has a piece of my heart. I don't know if I'll ever live there again, or even if I want to, but it was the greatest. Now that I've moved far, far away to Tigerland, I feel like I am justified in titling my blog after the place and people who have defined so much of me.

And God is blessing me so much that my days are as sweet as Tupelo Honey.

Rachel

She's Back.

As we danced at my wedding, with tears in his eyes, Daddy said it like this,

"Have the best life. Live hard. Love hard. Play hard. Let it all out. Hold nothing back."

Mom always said it like this,

"Romp and stomp babe."

These are the words of wisdom we are living by in our early days of marriage. Brian and I are not only newlyweds, but also early-twenty-somethings trying to figure out what we want to be when we grow up. Some of my friends know what path or what path-ish they want to take, and are in grad school or have obtained a job that sets them off on that path. Some of my friends are in my predicament and have moved to fun cities with friends and snagged the first available job to buy some time until they figure out what their dreams are. It's such a frustrating, but exciting stage to be in. We have graduated college and the world is at our fingertips. We are anxious to figure out what our dreams are so we can pursue them, no holds barred.

This is the stage I am in, but I am in it with my new husband. We sit on our couch at night with cookie dough and our latest Netflix acquisition and talk about all the possibilities of what we could do and where we could go. I wonder aloud if my law school itch will ever leave me while B analyzes what 3 years of law school and me not working would mean but also telling me he would love to move if I got a great scholarship somewhere fun. I tell B he should coach high school football and eventually be an offensive coordinator at an SEC school and he tells me it is nearly impossible to coach at the collegiate level without playing college ball first while secretly Googling "football graduate assistantship" on his laptop. The eternal pessimist meets the eternal optimist, and it is a beautiful thing... "Rachel, barely anyone has coached football at the college level who didn't play football in college." "B, are you putting God in a box? I think so." This stage in our lives is richer because we are married and our marriage is richer because we are going through this stage together.

Aside from trying to figure out what our dreams are, we are working, cooking, learning to share EVERYTHING, having friends over, going on late night walks, going to bed early, staying up late, just living our lives. Together. And loving it. There is so much goodness in living with someone you've made a covenant with... living into the promises I have made to him and being humbled by him living into the promises he has made to me. It's not always easy, but it's always good.

This was the most bloggable summer of my life, but all those things that were so blog-worthy stole every moment of my time so that I have blogged little to none since May. But I'm back, and I will update you on the Summer behind us in bits and pieces as I go. Who needs chronology?

For now, just know...

I had the wedding of my dreams.

I married my very best friend.

We are having the best life... we are living hard, loving hard, playing hard. We are letting it all out and holding nothing back.

Rachel