I'm back for a brief bit. I finally had a PTO day for the first time since I last blogged. It feels good, and, at the rate my life is going, one day off just isn't enough. I just simply have too much on my plate.
[To clarify, I'm not going to complain about being "too busy," because I know well enough that even in times when I wasn't quite "so busy," I've had things to get done that I still simply didn't get done. It's more a point of finding the right balance of busy-ness, to keep me engaged but also without driving me crazy from stress. With the holidays approaching (finally!) there is the opportunity to slow down for a little bit.
The real reason I broke my blog-fast this week was because over the last few weeks at church the sermons have been hitting me: the importance of fasting and praying, the importance of being sensitive to the Holy Spirit, and the importance of (and directions for) being a more effective witness. Even though I've been continuing to read through my daily Bible readings at about the same rate as I have been since about March (i.e. going through streaks of reading and then streaks of not reading), I do actually feel like I've been slipping in my faith more over this past year than the previous couple. I need to and want to get back to prioritizing prayer time and Bible time, but, with my current other obligations I don't know how to do it.
I have a potential blog post I will share sometime in the future. It's currently about 70% written, but right now doesn't feel like the right time to share it in detail. The bottom line is, until about a week or two ago, I also put composing aside completely, and it's been hard, to the point that one day recently I couldn't take it anymore and just outright decided to compose up a storm. It felt really good. But it came at the expense of time I could have devoted to classwork. But in all of it was my own wrestling with this part of my life, along with what I believe was God convicting me of my true heart-motivation and heart-attitude regarding composing. I have been seeing my music ("my" music) as comparable to the greats of the Classical and Romantic eras and wanting to be famous like them. Bottom line, any music-making I do needs to be for His glory, and not for mine. He convicted me of it once before, but evidently I have since slipped yet again.
There have also been other frustrations that have been occurring, which I won't get into, but one really good thing that has come out of it is that I recently proposed to my then-girlfriend, now-fiancée, to which she ("of course"😉) said yes. I am very happy and excited, and of course now wedding planning is beginning in earnest. We're not marrying for another year-and-a-half, which will give us plenty of runway to manage wedding-planning and marriage-planning, all while she and I are both crazy-busy with our current obligations. Right now our core group of people already know, but as of this posting we are still working on a larger-scale announcement (relatively speaking) to others that may want to know.
What was really sweet though was I decided to ask the father of my love for his opinion regarding whether he wanted to be asked first for his blessing. (My love insisted that I should ask him; her mom said that I didn't need to.) His answer indicated that he likely wouldn't have been offended if I hadn't asked, but at the same time he felt honored and really glad that I did. What followed was a really cool heart-to-heart whereas, after he gave his blessing on the marriage, he shared his exhortations for me that revealed his care for his daughter. (He and my love do not have a great relationship, so hearing this was huge.) In spite of what I've heard about him in the past (and a couple minor incidents I witnessed that gave credibility to what I've heard but otherwise not seen), I've been praying off-and-on about how to get to know him more. I'm still praying and trying to figure that out. But it was a really touching moment, one that I appreciate very much.
One last cool thing I'll share - although one thing that was missing from my proposal was the element of surprise (my love, her mother, and her father all knew beforehand, although none of the others who were present knew), I did save a surprise for them (my love and her mother anyway) afterward: earlier this year I had written a piano piece titled "The Proposal" that also contained some secret messages. Basically it spelled out my love's current name and her mother's name in one section, her future married name (she will change her last name to mine) and her father's name in another section, and in yet another section the phrase "[my love's name], will you marry me?" It was really cool to see them discover 1.) how and where to find the location of the secret messages, and then 2.) to figure out how to decode them and 3.) discovering what the messages actually said. It was really cool to share that as a surprise with them.
So, joys and challenges. Time marches on, as does the road of life. At least God's in charge.