There’s nothing better in this life than a perfectly ripe nectarine.

Oh, who am I kidding… I’m exuberant and have lots of feelings and lots of love so the statement above could be filled in with a number of adequate nouns. But I really do love nectarines. Their hairier cousin–the peach–is a close second.

Worshipping in a new setting has the potential to change hearts, and this morning’s service out at Camp Redeemer (Camp Solaris near Firth, Nebraska) was no different. The building is different. The people dress differently. We’re without the normal sights and sounds of what we’re used to. Instruments are different and acoustics are different. There’s no children’s church or nursery—that’s different! But God is not different. And our minds—now stripped of the things we’re used to—work a bit differently to route our heart towards the God who is Eternal, Unchanging, Righteous, and Holy. He is. And He is worthy of praise. It doesn’t matter where we are, we will praise Him because we love Him.

Eternal God, Unchanging, Mysterious and unknown.
Your boundless love unfailing, In grace and mercy shown.
Bright seraphim in endless flight aroung your glorious throne.
They raise their voices day and night in praise to you alone.

Hallelujah! Glory be to our great God!
Hallelujah! Glory be to our great God!

Lord, We are weak and frail, Helpless in the storm.
Surround us with your angels, Hold us in your arms.
Our cold and ruthless enemy, his pleasure is our harm.
Rise up, O Lord, And he will flee before our Sovereign God.

Hallelujah! Glory be to our great God!
Hallelujah! Glory be to our great God!

Let every creature in the sea and every flying bird;
Let every mountain, Every field and valley of the earth;
Let all the moons and all the stars in all the universe
Sing praises to the Living God, Who rules them by His word.

Hallelujah! Glory be to our great God!
Hallelujah! Glory be to our great God!

Me: Jeremy, remind me who won the Pork contest this year?
Jeremy: David Houfek
Me: [to self] And the Houkeks won Cornhole, too? Watch it, Houfek family! 2019 is gonna get real.

So basically the Houfeks won Camp Redeemer. Amy Lockwood mentioned she might work on a pork recipe this next year and I plan to build my own Cornhole game and practices shall be held in sunshine or in rain. Watch out, David and Nicole! And oh my goodness, I would like another helping of the amazing pulled pork served Saturday night. YUM.

For the third year straight we made our way south to Camp Redeemer for a weekend full of fun!

UNO is a favorite of ours and we’ve been playing since Livia knew her colors and numbers. In fact, the yellow card holder needed in those days is still included in our UNO bag, though it’s no longer called for today. Early on Livia showed quite a bit of skill in the game, and I recall having to ditch “mommy-nice” play when she was still little. Since it’s my blog and since I so rarely beat Liv, I’ve included photographic evidence that today I totally KILLED IT. This moment will never happen again, so yes, I will brag about the one time I triumphed.

Jeremy and I walked into the party—together—and within minutes three women that had watched me grow up had asked me if we were dating. I don’t remember exactly what I told them, but I insisted that we weren’t. Earlier in the day our church’s College & Career group was painting part of the basement of Covenant Presbyterian Church, and Jeremy had overheard me talking about the gathering later that day. He kindly offered to go with me, you know, if I wanted him to. To be honest, the entire falling-in-love thing that was happening was so foreign to me that I didn’t know what to think of it all. But I wasn’t lying to my friends at church. We weren’t dating at that party! However I’m pretty sure we were by the end of the night.

I laugh now thinking of the events of Fall and Winter 1996. The main event being Jeremy. While I remember hints and flashes of my first semester at UNL, I very much remember that all my extracurricular activities involved leading youth group. Which meant lots and lots and lots of time alongside Mr. Tredway. Every week involved one plan night and one youth group night. And then there were all these events where Jeremy mysteriously ended up by my side. Fall Fest. Nursery Duty. Afternoons at the park. Little did I know that I had him at “hello” and that he was already smitten.

I think about the night of the party that we went to together-but-not-together. [Sidenote: 2017 Jeremy is singing in his office right now; it’s distracting me from 1996 Jeremy.] I remember going to a friend’s house where they were watching Fargo and we caught the ending. Jeremy then told me he was enamored with me as we were driving down Highway 2, and in the next breath told me he’d be going to Covenant Seminary and encouraged me to follow my interest of going to Covenant College. My brain was stuck on “enamored” and did that mean what I thought it meant? There was a conversation with my dad to lay out reassurances and intentions, the seven-year age gap between us being an issue to address. There was a 19th birthday party where Jeremy pretty much told my family he loved me, though really it was Mom’s Freudian slip that set up that perfect situation. There was hugging in the snow at the Lied Center and then months of making this fella wait to kiss me.

These memories are only the beginning. In the almost 22 years since we began to be a “we” there’s been miles of life lived. In the past few days we’ve been saying with disbelief, “Can you believe we’ve been married 19 years already?” It seems impossible in some moments and very possible in others. From the dreamy head-in-the-clouds feelings to the love we share today, it’s been a crazy road. We’ve survived our fiery first years of marriage, great temptations, and heartaches galore. We’ve witnessed sin and forgiveness on scales we couldn’t have imagined and the scars we bear have become testaments to a very big God whose grace and gentle care knows no bounds. We’ve built up a marriage we thought we wanted only to see it torn down and replaced with a firm foundation in Christ. As two polar opposite personality types who once couldn’t answer the question, “What DO you two have in common?” we now enjoy a life that has exploded outside the bounds of what was once thought comfortable and enjoyable. We have this amazing privilege of being better together, of exploring the world from very different viewpoints only to encourage the other to becoming stronger in areas of strength as well as weakness. Though not quick enough, we are quicker to both ask for forgiveness and to give it. Aside from the natural skinniness of our twenties, I don’t believe there’s anything we’d go back in time to reclaim because the way we feel about each other today is infinitely superior to the budding love we knew back in 1996.

I experience my world through feelings, and as a Feeler, I’ve had these gloriously wonderful moments recently where I look at Jeremy and Livia and praise God thinking, “My life is so beautiful! How is this my life?!” And because I am a Feeler sometimes it’ll only take one more step of discomfort before I remember the hard parts, too. There are always hard parts.

I couldn’t have explained to 1996 Rebecca what 2017 Rebecca would be thinking and feeling and seeing and learning. It’s all been a journey best taken day by day. The grace that was afforded to me—to us—was a daily grace. And for that we are thankful and we are humbled.

Jeremy Tredway, I’m so grateful for our lives together. God is good. Happy 19, my love.

I’m trying to conjure up embarrassment for posting pics of so many green things… but I can’t.
I’m also trying to come up with a really great reason about why I’m photographing lettuce… but I can’t.

What I do know is that I am so happy that it’s warm outside that I long to take pictures of pretty much everything. I also know that I really enjoy eating food straight from my garden or from a friend’s garden (as is the case with this yummy lettuce). Instead of documenting people, today I am documenting the fruits of the Hammonds’ garden—and in doing so, I suppose I really am documenting people. Today we ate fresh lettuce and it tasted good. And tonight, when Livia chose her own snack from the fridge, she made an awesome choice and had more fresh lettuce. So thanks, Katie and Brian! We’re grateful for your labor.