selah.

'my sin weighted on me heavy but i am no longer bound. as sure as Christ wears the crown i know that grace will abound. and even when i feel lost i know in You i am found.'

to try to put into words my joy and love for this couple would make me sound like a fool. if shakespeare grappled to capture the grandeur of love into words, who am i to try? it’s just not possible. and i think that’s how the best things in life were meant to be: indescribable. and that’s how i feel about this girl marrying this boy. she’s so lovely. and he only makes her loveliness more lovely. i love her with all my heart. and now i love him, too. and i love them. their story is filled with God’s intimacy and grace. from the moment they met to the moment brent proposed to the moment rachael will become his wife to the infinite moments that will make up their forever, God has written such an incredible story for these two. all because He loves them. what a beautiful story of Love. ______________________________ i see your smile and it’s sweeter, after all that i’ve been through. and when we laugh, i get a glimpse of forever and i praise God that i found you. and anytime someone asks me how it all unfolded,  i’ll tell them such incredible chances make for a marvelous love. just like the sun lights up the moon, this love is a reflection of more than just me and you. our lives were less than ordinary. and while i couldn’t see past tomorrow, God was making history. oh my, what a beautiful story of love. unexpected mercy is the greatest thing to find when you’ve been broken many times. my soul found joy and for the first time in a while i felt like singing. oh my, what a beautiful story of Love. -mandi mapes, story of love ______________________________ congrats, my sister. i am so honored to know you, and to be loved by you. you are beautiful beyond words. and loved fiercely with a never-stopping, never-ending, always and forever Love. always and forever.

to try to put into words my joy and love for this couple would make me sound like a fool.

if shakespeare grappled to capture the grandeur of love into words, who am i to try?

it’s just not possible.

and i think that’s how the best things in life were meant to be: indescribable.

and that’s how i feel about this girl marrying this boy.

she’s so lovely.

and he only makes her loveliness more lovely.

i love her with all my heart. and now i love him, too. and i love them.

their story is filled with God’s intimacy and grace.

from the moment they met to the moment brent proposed to the moment rachael will become his wife to the infinite moments that will make up their forever, God has written such an incredible story for these two.

all because He loves them.

what a beautiful story of Love.

______________________________

i see your smile and it’s sweeter, after all that i’ve been through.

and when we laugh, i get a glimpse of forever and i praise God that i found you.

and anytime someone asks me how it all unfolded, 

i’ll tell them such incredible chances make for a marvelous love.

just like the sun lights up the moon, this love is a reflection of more than just me and you.

our lives were less than ordinary.

and while i couldn’t see past tomorrow, God was making history.

oh my, what a beautiful story of love.

unexpected mercy is the greatest thing to find when you’ve been broken many times.

my soul found joy and for the first time in a while i felt like singing.

oh my, what a beautiful story of Love.

-mandi mapes, story of love

______________________________

congrats, my sister.

i am so honored to know you, and to be loved by you.

you are beautiful beyond words.

and loved fiercely with a never-stopping, never-ending, always and forever Love.

always and forever.


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there is a song i love more than any other song that has ever been written and that will ever be written. 

i know this for fact.

it makes everything better automatically, regardless of what was wrong or what was right in the first place. if things just suck, regardless of how badly they suck, they don’t anymore, if even just for that second i hear these words. if things are great, regardless of how great, they just got that much better, if even just for a second. 

everything i ever needed to know about life are in the words of the bridge (which is really what i’m talking about when i say this is my most favorite song). something i like about myself is that when i commit, i commit hard-i’m all in. and these words have me sold and i will love them always. i feel confident my God will use them again and again to draw me back to Him, if even just for that single moment in time when i hear them. these words are my most favorite prayer to my Father and my most favorite promise He gives me. 

take me and pull me through, because i can’t move without You.                                  

‘I won’t leave you alone,’ You say. ‘you will be okay.’                                                    

only two things on this earth are eternal. the living Word of God and the souls of man.

and this promise from God’s word is imprinted on my soul. forever.

mission|athens: the felt love of Jesus. ↘

i love this so much. my roomie is beautiful. and more so is her God.

missionathens:

In a sermon from Luke 7:36-50 by Matt Adair a few weeks ago, he made this statement:

‘The greatest power to set you free from the addictions, afflictions and assorted troubles of this world is the felt love of Jesus.”

I think we can all say we know the difference between believing we are…

growing older feels like it sucks sometimes so i looove being reminded of this. life really is such a treasured gift. not to mention it’s amazing that the Divine breaths Life into me, moment by moment. 

growing older feels like it sucks sometimes so i looove being reminded of this. life really is such a treasured gift. not to mention it’s amazing that the Divine breaths Life into me, moment by moment. 

what did i do this last weekend, you’re wondering? well, you probably know since i have been blogging expectantly about the events of this last weekend for a while now. but it seems only fair that after that much build up, i give you at least a summary of what went down in what has been affectionately termed #VAis4lovas2k11. 

in short, it was the best weekend EVER. i say ever a lot. speaking in ultimatums feels risky. but heck, i think i mean it. 

so thursday circa 5:30 pm, paige, katie, rach, and i piled into paige’s tank of a car headed and for the grand city of charlotte, nc. there we grabbed brent, and we were off. 7 hours later (from when we left athens) we were in the lovely city of roanoke, in perfect time to celebrate mrs. bonne cecil’s 24th birthday! and what a glorious celebration it was. after 12 hours at the lovely cecil residence, we hit the road again for the one and only lexington to see the davis’! but wait, i’m getting ahead of myself. i’m sure you want to know more about our stop in roanoke. okay, i’ll tell you some trip highlights thus far…

-we played “would you rather” for the first hour of our road trip. ask me how much i love car games. (a loooot). wish you could have played with us? well here’s a sample question: would you rather burp chunks or fart liquid? (i think we might have been a 2-2 split on that one).

-we stopped at a super cool gas station on the way up and snagged some sweet candy treats for bonne’s birthday gift, including disgusting looking coconut bon bon’s (we just had to) that only rach ended up really liking. 

-the second we arrived in roanoke, we sang happy birthday to bon, holding up the brown wine bags that doubled as birthday signs and gift bags. awesome makeshift gifting. 

-first thing’s first: we got an awesome tour of bonne and kyle’s AWESOME home. it is so stinkin’ cute. for realz, bon knows how to decorate.

-kyle told us all about his first year in med school. it was thrilling having a real live grey’s anatomy-esque intern in the making in our presence. (and also great to catch up on the latest happenings on grey’s anatomy. kyle’s a loyal fan…)

-let’s be real: the real winner this weekend was the self-timer on my camera. to say we took advantage of that nifty feature is to say virginia is for lovers… duh. the best part? self-timer continuous shooting. so every shot we took, we got 10 photographic goodies. art at its finest if you ask me. 

-thanks to brent, we learned all about vodka gummie bears (one of bon’s awesome gifts). so of course we had to try it. let’s say we messed up the vodka to gummie ratio. our gummies were soaked. and slimy. but just as awesome as they sound. 

-we decided since bon was turning 24, that we should have 24 awesome moments in the 12 hours we were together. we didn’t quite hit 24 (i think we quit at 5 or 6. being together was enough awesomeness in and of itself). but we did get in a couple of good moments, i.e. rachael doing a cartwheel down a narrowwwww hallway (and freaking out mid-air) and bon speaking in a british accent intermittently during breakfast.

-speaking of accents, rach, cros, and i crawled in bed with bon friday morn and sang happy birthday to her… in every accent we could think of. and we’re pretty creative peeps. we sang happy birthday in spanish, portuguese, nerd, robot, british, french, southern, opera. you name it. e ficki. e ficki… e ficki, e ficki, e ficki! (a little sampling of our portuguese happy birthday).

-and speaking of breakfast, we had some delicious homemade muffs thanks to chef bon. also, they have an awesome stool in this awesome little nook in their kitchen. that’s where i spent most of my time friday morn during breakfast prep. 

-falling asleep thursday night felt like the opening scene of a horror movie. bon lives near a railroad track and there was a scaryyyyy train cart making weird haunted noises as we tried to fall asleep. ask rach or katie. it was scary. oh, night time train horror. 

roanoke was just so so so wonderful! the best part obviously was getting to see bonne and kyle’s sweet, sweet faces and getting to spend hours upon hours catching up on each other’s lives. it was just plain good. i love them both dearly and i loved getting to see glimpses of their new life up in va. we love you, bon and kyle. and are so thankful for your friendship. y’all are a treasure and a bundle of life and joy. thanks for a wonderful start to #VAis4lovas2k11. you da best. 

stay tuned for part 2 of #VAis4lovas2k11 coming soon…

bonne + kyle.  t-minus 31 hours.

bonne + kyle. 

t-minus 31 hours.

mission|athens: law & grace ... about a speeding ticket. ↘

i love knowing that the Gospel is literally all around us. everyday. in everything. in interactions big and small, significant and seemingly insignificant. God wastes not even a second in trying to convince His children and this broken world that He is good and that He is Love. oh, if i had the eyes to always see Him. and His unending grace upon grace.

missionathens:

It’s Rachael Mirabella here, part of the second year Protege team at Christ Community. I want to tell you a real-life story that developed over the past couple months for me. It’s a story about the law and grace, and I hope it’s encouraging to you:

The story begins as I was driving home in…

what did i do this weekend you’re wondering? well, rach and i went to gatlinburg! why not, you know? it was so great. and arguably the most efficient 29 hours of my life. we totally conquered good ole gatlinburg. and by conquered, i mean CONQUERED. okay, let me tell you the backstory.

rach’s birthday was in august and i decided that her b’day gift should be a day trip somewhere. so almost three months later here we are. monday we decided to go somewhere this weekend. thursday night we picked gatty. we booked a hotel and then boom- the rest is history. well not quite. we made an extensive list of things we wanted to do once we got there. ripley’s believe it or not, fannie farkles arcade, the guiness museum, mini-golf, ripley’s haunted house, the earthquake ride, sky lift. we went nuts.

we left athens at 4:30 pm friday and got to gatlinburg around 8. (sadly, gatlinburg is in the same time zone as athens and you don’t gain an extra hour. who knew that the entire state of tennessee wasn’t in the central time zone? not i. and not rach apparently.) and then saturday night, we left gatlinburg a little before 6 and by 9:45, we were back in athens. impressive i know. but what’s really impressive is what happened in the middle.

yep, you probably guessed it. we did everything we planned on doing! and with time to spare. 

some trip highlights…

-we ate an awesome dinner at an awesome steak restaurant friday (i.love.steak) and rach got a free reese’s cup cheesecake for dessert because it was her birthday (well sort of…)! 

-we bought an awesome souvenir fiber optic little flashlight at the haunted house. it was totally unuseful in the actual haunted house (which was terrrrrrrifying by the way) but a great souvenir nonetheless.

-we got to spend time with the Lord in a small creek on saturday morning. it was so peaceful. i’m so glad that got to happen. knowing, acknowledging and talking to Him makes or breaks my whole day. 

-and in similar news, the scenery was just BEAUTIFUL all around us. water + mountains. too good.

-we had pizza for lunch. you know life’s good when you eat pizza.

-and we ate fudge! mmm.

-we both got a hole-in-one playing mini-golf! ask rach who won overall. i’m sure she’d love to tell you:)

-we won 2 fannie farkle mugs with all of our hard earned arcade tickets! gosh, i’m pumped to use those. and we also were able to get 2 fake twenty dollar bills, 2 rainbow sours, and 2 spider rings with our earnings. wooo. also, they kept the arcade open just for us! it was so sweet. and we were pretty much the only people out and about gatlinburg at midnight.

-rach got the highest hole on the skee ball machine. twice. 

-less cool but also exciting, i got the bonus prize on some silly quarter machine game. 60 tickets babyyyy. 

-our hotel had shampoo in sauce packets. and a full length horizontal mirror across a whole wall of the room. and of course, cable tv! always a personal fav.

-we took pictures at almost every place we went. success. some turned out better than others. photography isn’t a skill everyone has.

-neither of us fell off the skylift.

-we packed a cooler of snacks. all we ate out of there was one peach, two bananas, and some goldfish. actually, lots of goldfish.

-we got the most primo parking in all of gatlinburg! 5 bucks, all day at the christian gardens in the middle of town. the parking attendant there was so kind. and very obviously a christian. it was so neat how generous he was and such a sweet picture of how christians really stand out in the way they treat people. 

-we talked in british accents half of the way home. and got to talk about how wonderful our friends are and in such different ways.

-we had 5 cds for the trip. only one was a full length cd because rach’s computer kept messing up in the middle of burning. so we had on average 4 songs on each cd.

the weekend was wonderful. it was so great to get to spend the weekend with rach in such a fun city. i love her so much. and i love adventures so much, too. and i’m not saying this to be anything other than factual, i had a great weekend with the Lord. i felt like He was with us on our trip. i didn’t feel Him every second but He was very present. not just in my thoughts and my heart but in everything around us. and in us, too. which is one of my most favorite things about Him- that He gets to come with me anywhere and everywhere i go. well rather, i get to go with Him wherever He takes me. i loved getting to go on a trip with my best friend for a weekend. my heart is so joyful and at rest with her. but truth is that no matter how much i want her to, she won’t get to go on every trip i will go on, both figuratively and literally.

but the great news is my Best Friend will. He will be with me always. my prayer is that all the days of my life, He’ll be just that- my very Best Friend. and the One that my heart would choose above all others.

life is just better when He’s around.  


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also, i will be listening to this song the whole* way up to virginia when i go see mary for both its appropriateness to the given situation/awesomeness and its sentimental value. mar introduced me to this song our senior year. and it is hands down one of my top 5 favorite songs eveeeeer. 

*okay, maybe not the whole way. i’m driving with other peeps so they might think this song gets old. (lame-o’s, i know).

and in other couple related news… i once upon a time had a best friend named mary griffith. and now i have a best friend named mary davis. and in t-minus 16 days i will get to go visit her and her wonderful husband in their new home in virginia! oh. my. gosh. if i could put down in words how excited i am, you’d be reading this blog post for days and you’d still have no idea. this might be the most glorious reunion of my life. mary and jonathan got married a little over 2 months ago (and in case you’re wondering, are already pros at the whole marriage thing btdubs) and are literally the most joyful bundle of human being i’ve ever been around. mary was my roommate for 2 (or 3? really only 2?) years of college and her friendship is one of the best things that’s ever happened to me. i miss mary more than i like to think about. i may or may not (answer: absolutely most definitely) have cried getting off the phone with her just now because it is just so good to hear her voice. everyone should have a mary in their lives. and if you’re not blessed enough to know the one and only mary (griffith) davis, well gosh, i’m not sure. i hope you’ll get to meet and know her one day. she is the definition of wonderful. 

and in other couple related news…

i once upon a time had a best friend named mary griffith. and now i have a best friend named mary davis. and in t-minus 16 days i will get to go visit her and her wonderful husband in their new home in virginia! oh. my. gosh. if i could put down in words how excited i am, you’d be reading this blog post for days and you’d still have no idea. this might be the most glorious reunion of my life. mary and jonathan got married a little over 2 months ago (and in case you’re wondering, are already pros at the whole marriage thing btdubs) and are literally the most joyful bundle of human being i’ve ever been around. mary was my roommate for 2 (or 3? really only 2?) years of college and her friendship is one of the best things that’s ever happened to me. i miss mary more than i like to think about. i may or may not (answer: absolutely most definitely) have cried getting off the phone with her just now because it is just so good to hear her voice. everyone should have a mary in their lives. and if you’re not blessed enough to know the one and only mary (griffith) davis, well gosh, i’m not sure. i hope you’ll get to meet and know her one day. she is the definition of wonderful.