If you know very much about Katie and I you probably know that we both really enjoy the music of The Avett Brothers. Their lyrical poetry somehow constantly speaks to our hearts and the way that they can put their thoughts, emotions, and challenges into song has never ceased to amaze me. Recently we were driving back from one of our favorite places in the world (Auburn Alabama, War Eagle!) and had just said farewell to many of our best friends, and we were listening to the song Pretty Girl from Chile. A line from the song made us both step back and evaluate ourselves and our lives. The lyric says, "I'd like to think that I'm a thankful man but it may not be true". This line got both of us to thinking about our own thankfulness. As we drove we both got very emotional (really Jordan got super emotional) thinking about our friends and our family and how wonderfully blessed we are to have such loving close relationships with these people. We realized that most of the time we do like to think of ourselves as being thankful but the truth is that often, we take much for granted and entitlement begins to rear its ugly head in our direction. We substitute thankfulness for a self-righteous feeling of somehow deserving the love of friends because of our own good friendship. However, in moments of reflection we are able to take in the full measure of the love that our friends and family show us and its demonstration of the unfailing love and promise of Christ and there is true thanksgiving in our hearts.
We were especially challenged by these thoughts in hindsight of the entire wedding and summer months. Our families, friends, and some random strangers showed us the kind of love that leaves one speechless and we felt that their acts had not been reciprocated properly with our thankfulness. Katie wishes that we could have everyone that we love over for a pizza party to hang out and talk and show them how thankful we are because nothing means thank you more than pizza. However, we realize that this isn't possible. Instead our words are our only tool for showing our thanks, and we say Thank You. To our Mom's and Dad's, brothers and sister, grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, neighbors, 36, the orig 4, swim bros, all of the past present and future YL compounders, all our Auburn friends with tiger blood in their hearts, our friends from Roanoke and Franklin, Scott and Amanda Bowen, Meagan Gibson for all of her help with the wedding, Mary Fran for hitting the sweet tooth at the wedding, Moes (aka The Southwest Grill), our random friend John who let us use his truck to drive away in and Katie's mom for following him to his house to ask him to use it, and for everyone else who in every sort of way made that day unforgettable. A thousand thank you's to all.
One more short story and this post is done. Before we left Auburn we went to church with all of our friends at First Presbyterian Opelika one last time and afterward went to lunch at Moes (Go figure). After eating, we went outside and embraced one another saying our goodbyes in the parking lot. Before getting in the car to leave one of my closest friends gave me a letter to read. We got into the car and began driving off and Katie read me the letter. There was no real need to read the letter nor any necessary words to be spoken. We had somehow found the moment when we realized the beauty of the relationships that we share with our friends and family and how much we will miss them when we are 3000 miles away.
God has been so good to us and when we step back from the moment and truly take in all the beauty of this wonderful life we are only more assured of his grace and blessing in our lives.
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