Your Opinion Please

We have a favor to ask of you. Our apartment is slowly becoming more of a cozy place but we are in need of filling our picture frames with actual pictures as opposed to the photos that come standard in the frame. We would like to fill a couple of them with some of our You, Me & 52 weeks photos, but we can't decide! So, here's where you come in! We want to know what your top 3 photos are :) Let the fun begin! Once we decide we'll post a photo of our photo decor! Can't wait to here what everyone's top picks are.

Change

I'm changing things up! This has been a season of change for not only myself (Erica), but also Adam. With this season of change, I have been feeling God tugging on my heart to share what He's been doing in my life. Therefore, I've changed up our blog title. As we move on from You, Me & 52 weeks, we look forward into our lives together as husband and wife. We look forward into what God has in store for us. You, Me & 52 weeks was originally started for Adam and I to have a creative outlet for our photography, but as you have seen, it turned into an outpouring of what was on our hearts at the time, and why a photo meant what it did to us. So with that, we transition into what God is saying to us, and how he is working in our lives. As I thought about this, and prayed about it, the desire I felt was that this sharing would not serve as a "brag blog", but as a ministry to someone who may need encouragement, strength, understanding. This next season of blogging I am praying and putting into God's ever capable hands, that He may speak through me.

3 weeks ago, I married my best friend. It was the best day of my life, spent surrounded by family and friends. A week after this day, and several days to follow, resulted in being one of the harder times in my life. The move away from family and familiarity was scary. But in the weeks that followed God spoke to me and continues to give me peace.

This past weekend we came home and I had the pleasure of being able to go back to my home church and lead worship again. During this service God moved. We sang one of my favorite songs, "I Give Myself Away". The lyrics are as follows:

I give myself away
I give myself away
So You can use me

 Here I am
Here I stand
Lord, my life is in your hands
Lord, I’m longing to see
Your desires revealed in me

I give myself away
I give myself away
So You can use me

Take my heart
Take my life
As a living sacrifice
All my dreams, all my plans
Lord I place them in your hands

I give myself away
I give myself away
So You can use me

My life is not my own
To you I belong
I give myself, I give myself to You

I give myself away
I give myself away
So You can use me

The first time my friend introduced this song to me I liked it instantly. But as God has taken me out of my "cushy life", if you will, and put me back in a place I never really wanted to come back to, this song has taken on a whole new meaning. I find myself praying this song daily. I pray that everyday I can give myself fully and completely over to God so that HE can use me. I know that my plans cannot compare to God's plans. I've believed this my whole life, but had forgotten that I need to live God's plan every single day. So often our lives become comfortable. We go about each day in our normal routine, thinking that this is what God wants for my life. But what I found for myself was that I stopped really seeking God. I was comfortable. God was using me in my church, I had a job, I had christian friends and I had a boyfriend/fiance. But what I've realized in this season of change; this time of becoming a wife, moving away from home to start a life with my husband in a new city, and learning each day what it means to have myself die so we become we; is that I became comfortable and stopped truly asking God to use me. 

I moved to Mount Pleasant with a bit of a chip on my shoulder towards God. I didn't understand why I had to move. There are so many people who get married and they are able to keep the normal of their everyday lives. They get to stay in their home town, keep their jobs and just start living their married lives. So why did I have to be the one that had to move away to a place where I have no job and I know noone aside from my husband. The answer, so God can use me.

I don't know what God has in store for me here, but in the last week, He has put a peace and excitement on my heart that I know, beyond the shadow of a doubt, He has something big planned for me here. I've stopped question why and started saying "Prepare me to do your will", "Use me Lord, I am your servant". And he's used me, in small ways, but He's used me. He gave me the courage to volunteer at the church we're attending. There He provided people to embrace me, the opportunity to meet with the Music Director and most of all, he provided me with excitement for His plan.

I do still pray that someday we will find our way back to the Grand Rapids area, but while I am here, I have the desire to be used to bring glory to God in whatever way I can. I'm not scared anymore to ask God to use me, because as the song says "My life is NOT my own!" I am here to be an example of Christ. I cannot think of a better place to put my life, then in the loving, capable hands of my heavenly Father.