My Tar Heel

Kyle at a party for graduating seniors at UNC.

Unreasonable Joy

Kyle and I have enjoyed being able to serve at Vintage 21 Church by being on the Design Team. As part of that team, we design backgrounds for song slides, the programs handed out on Sundays, inserts for the light boxes, and any other posters, handouts, or signage needed. The sermon series we are doing now is entitled, "Unreasonable Joy: Poured out in Philippians." Kyle and I were excited to design the graphics for this series as the first project that we've worked on together.



Paul is a pretty fascinating character: He was a Jew who persecuted Christians, but he became a Christian after God spoke to him. He became the one being persecuted - he was jailed, beaten, and ultimately beheaded for his faith. You might look at historical evidence that Christ lived, died, and resurrected, but to me, the evidence is in the lives of the early Christians. What would make Paul willing to die for his faith? It just doesn't make sense, it's not rational, but he had joy in the midst of everything that happened to him.



As we've studied Paul's unreasonable joy for the past month, I've thought of Tony and Charity Myers. Tony married Kyle and I, and he met with us for premarital counseling. At one of our last meetings, he shared that Charity was pregnant with their first child. She was due on February 8th, but lost their daughter about a week before her due date. In the midst of their grief, I've been encouraged by their hope and joy. To read more about their story, click here. Tony and Charity - we love you both and we continue to think of you and pray for you!

Our most recent and most hilarious wedding gift

Poor potato. This unfortunate character was illustrated by Don and embroidered by Stacie, two of Kyle's coworkers. I bet your dish towel isn't nearly as interesting as mine.

I love weddings

As I headed to Shelby the weekend before last to attend a wedding, I looked forward to a beautiful wedding that at the very least, would produce a couple with the same name. Yes, Morgan & Morgan Young. I always like weddings - such a happy time, but this wedding was a really neat experience as well. Everything was beautiful! I wanted to share some shots from the wedding.



Morganna (as my mom always calls her) and I lived in the same neighborhood for most of our childhood. In high school, Morgan, being two years ahead of me, had her license. She invited me to go shopping with her one weekend. I was pretty excited - it wasn't often at that point in my life that I got to leave the house without my parents.















If you'd like to see more amazing pictures from their wedding, click here. (Photo of the couple by Smitten Photography.) Congratulations Morgans!

I ♥ the church

We love our church. Vintage 21 has been our home for two and a half years now, and we love it so much that we live just down the street (no lie).



I love the people, I love the message, I love Jesus and I love loving him there. I don't think I've experienced another church where someone who wasn't a Christian would feel so welcome. Don't get me wrong; they don't sugarcoat the gospel - they make Christianity relevant and real. You see changed lives and Christ becomes undeniable. I think I first heard of Vintage from the Jesus Videos. If you don't know what I'm talking about, you'll have to click on that link and watch them. These videos were first shown a few years ago during a sermon series.

Recently, Kyle and I have gotten to know Jumbo, an Australian intern at Vintage. We first got together over dinner one night.



I really enjoyed hearing about his ministry, The Nehemiah Project. He and Lachlan are here to learn the ins and outs of church planting before returning to Sydney to start a congregation that will appeal to our generation. Please pray for them, or even consider supporting them - I can't wait to hear what God does when they return to Australia!

More than a job

I love what I do. After a lot of thought and prayer, I decided about six years ago that I wanted to be an interior designer. I can't deny the desire that God placed in me to be creative, but specifically to create inspiring spaces. Everyone deserves design, and if you've ever seen Extreme Home Makeover, you've seen what a difference design can make in someone's life. But what exactly do I do?



That is my desk at work. I work for Design Lines, LTD, an interior design firm located in Raleigh. Judy Pickett started Design Lines thirty years ago, and it has now grown to eight employees, with six interior designers. I'm the newest addition to the team, and I've really enjoyed working on various projects - everything from high rise condos, vacation homes, and personal residences to commercial facilities like the alumni club at NC State. Sometimes we work with architects and builders on homes throughout the construction process. Other times we work with homeowners to furnish and accessorize their homes. I'm an interior designer, not a decorator. While I do decorate on occasion, there is a big difference between the two that most people don't realize. To understand more about the difference, click here.

I recently blogged about some accessorizing I did for the 2008 Parade of Homes on the Design Lines Blog. Although the home was empty, the idea was to create areas of interest, snapshots if you will, that visitors would remember. Here is a slide show of the images that I captured just before the Parade of Homes opened last fall: