Anniversary Update!!!

We celebrated our first anniversary at home. On Saturday we were invited by Bob and LaVon Armstrong to enjoy an organ concert at San Sylmar presented by THE NETHERCUTT COLLECTION and also nicely restored beautiful old cars. They took us to Elephant Bar after that and we enjoyed wonderful fellowship with them. On our anniversary, we went to Mimi Cafe for breakfast, went to Target and read anniversary cards to each other (didn't buy them:) ), came home and rearranged our bedroom in the afternoon, gave each other gifts, enjoyed good dinner at Woodranch Grill. I put together some fun memories and pictures in a scrapbook. We enjoyed looking through and he wrote his wedding vow in one of the pages. He helped to rearrange some of our wedding pictures in preparation to our Green Card (permanent resident) interview the next day. He got me warm and soft robe, cute earrings, winter gloves and cap.I got him orange sheet set, candles, running shoes, tie and truffles. It was a fun time and we are thankful for one year of God's goodness in our lives. Recently I was waiting for a long time in Naomi's car and found 'Sacred Marriage' by Gary Thomas so I began to read. Here are some quotes from chapter one: "What if God didn't design marriage to be "easier"? What if God had an end in mind that went beyond our happiness, our comfort, and our desire to be infatuated and happy as if the world were a perfect place? What if God designed marriage to make us holy more than to make us happy?" I agree with the author completely and my prayer is that we both would strive to be more holy than happy. Also the author brings out a common misconception these days especially among unmarrieds, "There is much in Christian history that has unofficially considered married believers to be "second-class Christians" who compromised their integrity." The author had similar misconceptions in his youth but learned from his own experience: "If you want to be free to serve Jesus, there's no question--stay single. Marriage takes a lot of time. But if you want to become more like Jesus, I can't imagine any better thing to do than to get married. Being married forces you to face some character issues you'd never have to face otherwise." Isn't that encouraging?

I was also encouraged by a recent teaching by one of Grace pastors on Psalm 55 on abuse. He defined it as "a serious betrayal of trust." Did you know that out of 150 Psalms, 100 psalms are written based on this subject. He explained how an abused person is a marked forever. What was very encouraging to me is that even though abuse marks a person's life, it doesn't have to define him. We all have been abused at different times in different ways. We deal with it as David dealt with it by lifting our eyes to the Lord. The world does it through yoga, Prozac, therapy, music (like Saul) etc. We deal with it by the grace of God. Grace means to have the courage to live beyond our experiences. God offers grace-- courage and fearlessness. The world offers techniques to deal with it but God offers courage and fearlessness to live in this world.

The interview for my adjustment of status went very smoothly. I am officially a permanent resident of this country. The card will arrive in the mail within 60 days.

We are getting ready to visit my parents in India. So next few blogs will be from India.