Bridal bliss...

College is over. It has been over for a good two weeks or so now. Life, as I knew it for the past four years, is shut, sealed. I now turn my attention to the bigger milestones that await. A wedding in three weeks. An apartment--our first home--to nestle into. A new life is just a hop, skip and a jump away, and in true Katie fashion, I'm taking my own sweet time... observing... wondering... procrastinating...

It's strange. Now that school is over, I never have to write another paper or read another book. Sad, actually. I minored in Writing/Lit for the sole reason of keeping up with these two hobbies of mine. I got to read books that I would have never had the time to read in real life. East of Eden being one of my favorites, as well as Bobbie Ann Mason's Shiloh, a collection of short stories. The rest of the required reading I encountered was great for the most part, although I can't say I completed EVERY book... ;) Have you ever read The Damnation of Theron Ware by Howard Frederic (I think that's his name). Very good! Anyways... perhaps I'll keep up with reading fiction. For now, I'm still working on my Father Seraphim Rose biography :D After that--who knows?-- perhaps I'll crack open The Brothers Karamazov.

What else has been on my mind? Death. Oh how morbid! you say? But really, I'm just realizing more and more, every day, that I WILL DIE. Will I die today? Tomorrow? Who knows-- I don't!. But eventually? For sure.
I know I shouldn't be preoccupied with death or anything--that isn't healthy. But I think it is healthy to remember that the worldly achievements--the degrees, the praise, the house, the raise-- are all dust. There is a life to come, and we must choose Life in order to taste it. Heaven is a complete and utter mystery to me. And it's hard to even believe in something so wonderful, when everything else in life, on this earth, seems so unjust and unfair, so distracting and disappointing. But I must trust in that which is not seen. And I must WANT what I've never truly experienced. Something this flashing, buzzing, entertaining, energetic, sensual world doesn't even come close to offering.

Please keep me, Xenia, in your prayers as my marriage to Job approaches. And please keep me in your prayers, that I the unworthy sinner might live a life pleasing to Christ.