"Your cell phone network will be my cell phone network . . ."

What does one do with a website called kimberlylumm.blogspot when her name is now Kimberly Peterson?  Change the name and email an entire inbox of contacts, few of whom ever read it to begin with?  This option is a little awkward and has the potential to elevate expectations of my actual audience (who may have given up checking this blog long ago due to the infrequency of my posts) to think they may be able to expect some kind of regularity in the future.  And this I cannot promise.  

So for now, I will leave this blog kimberlylumm.blogspot as a shout out to German ancestry and days gone by, and just write for the sake of writing. We'll see what comes of it.  Here's a photo in case you're getting bored already.  (We're going to have to rebuild your tolerance for my long-winded stream-of-consciousness style . . .)  This is me relaxing the day before the wedding.  By "relaxing" I obviously mean "multi-tasking."  And speaking of the wedding . . . here are a few highlights:

Weddings, it turns out, don't just "happen." This kind only comes about by prayer and fasting  . . . and lots and lots of help.  Our friends and family did an amazing job helping us plan, execute and tie up all those loose ends.  My bridesmaids (from left to right) were Memphis roommate Jessica Winterburn, cousin Robin Boocock, childhood friend Meg Ashbaugh and Santa Barbara buddy, Abigail Williams.  All these women and so many more, gave in such unique and loving ways to make our day really special. 

One of the most wonderful parts of wedding planning was writing our vows.  Sitting before the Lord, and sometimes together, considering and meditating on the new life the Lord was calling us into and speaking out the desire in our hearts for a life of unity, growth, servanthood, passion and companionship.  

I'll never forget the night Terry looked into my eyes while working on his vows and said so intensely, "Kimberly, it is with a full heart that I share with you all my worldly possessions.  My Beloved, with my good rain jacket, and my Browning 12-gauge over under shotgun, I hereby endow thee." 

Well what could I say but, "Terry, my love, I gladly endow thee also with my worldly possessions including, but not limited to, my Macintosh i-book, which I got for free through an online marketing scheme that Peter Winterburn told us about, and with Lazarus, my car which was sold to me by a dear friend for only 1/3 its blue book value and was recently resurrected from the dead."

What then followed was a flurry of giving and receiving of promises such as only lovers can make: "Your P.O. Box will be my P.O. box, "

"Your cell phone network will be my cell phone network, 

"Your student loans will be my student loans,"

"With my i-tunes library, I thee worship," and so on.  

Some people have said that wedding planning and engagement was the most wonderful time of life for them.  That's fabulous, but I'll be honest, I don't love environments of high stress, constant decision making, tight budgeting, and close deadlines while under the immense pressure of social etiquette, and constant relationship management.  So for me, wedding planning was an often overwhelming undertaking.  Not to mention moving twice in two months, starting a new job, and anticipating actually having a sex life . . . But in the end, the wedding was everything that we had hoped, everything the Lord had promised and that we had no idea how to make happen of ourselves.

His presence was there. He was glorified and we are one. That's all we really wanted in the first place. And that makes everything worth it. By the way, the being married part is AWESOME! I highly recommend it!

My Top 5 tips for all those newly engaged lasses in Memphis, Tennessee?

1) Stay close to Jesus.

2) If you can stay out of wedding planning altogther, do it.  What if your parents/family/church planned it and you just showed up? Remember, the point is not to plan a perfect wedding but to lay the foundation for a solid marriage. 

3) Keep it simple, and don't get woo'd by the wedding industry's must-have's or must-do's. 

4) Enjoy the people who come around you to help, and let them help you.

5) Stay close to Jesus.