This is somewhat of an "Adventure's with" post, but it is a little less light-hearted so I didn't want to use that title. At any rate, here is what I've been doing for the past few days.

Tuesday, September 4--
It's been a long day. We just finished with a fairly large revival at the church which I attend. 700 or more were in attendance(small for some church's regular attendance, but extremely large for mine). My exgirlfriend was there, and it was good to see her. We even went out one night, which was good because we're best friends and I had been getting increasingly interested in delving further into our relationship(not necessarily a romantic relationship, but building our friendship). Goodness knows we have had our problems, and we haven't made the best decisions along the way, but we are still getting closer everyday and I value her friendship more than anyone else. If you haven't guessed yet, this post will be largely about her. But that all ended the day before and today was my day of rest. Late that evening I got a phone call. It was her. She had news--important news. She was pregnant. You see, a few weeks earlier she and I messed up in our Christian walk. Fornication is a major no-no for both of us, but unfortunately we stumbled. Before going further, this may not seem like such a big deal to those who don't share the same set of moral or religious convictions that I do, but rest assured that it was of utmost importance to me. As a matter of fact, we dropped to our knees to ask God for forgiveness immediately because we knew as soon as it was over that it was wrong and we shouldn't have done what we did. But, regardless of our situation as far as God's favor is concerned, we now had something more to consider.

Wednesday, September 5th--
Now comes the hard part. I have told people before that I am studying with the evangalist at my church to be an evangelist myself. I called him that morning to meet with him about my situation. He was shocked, but understanding and forgiving. He counciled me about talking to my parents, which came next. I met my dad at his office that afternoon and told him. He then went with me to the shop where my mom works to tell her. They were both devestated, but, much to my surprise, they weren't condemning or disgusted or anything but supportive of me. More difficult was telling my sister. She and I are very close and she was crushed. She started crying violently, which started me crying again(not the first time that had happened). My brother handled it well. Better than anyone, I would say. But his mindset is very different from anyone that I know. Things of that nature don't affect him that much. At Wednesday evening's meeting, I made my situation public before the church. Despite my transgressions, I recieved complete support and respect from my brothers and sisters in Christ. It's really rare that you find a congregation that cares so much about each other as the one that I am attending. I wouldn't give it up for the world. God, yes, but not the world.

Thursday, September 7th--
It was hard, but I had to return to business as usual for a day or so. I talked to Hannah (the name of my ex) and we decided that she and her parents should come stay with my parents and myself for a couple days. They would get here on Friday.

Friday, September 8th--
It was a rough meeting for a while, because I expected Hannah's dad to meet me at the door with a shotgun. Well, he didn't. I couldn't believe how forgiving he and her mother were. At this point Hannah and I hadn't made a decision of where we would go from this point. We had been talking daily, examining where our relationship was and where we wanted to take it. We knew that we loved each other, we knew what our problems were, we knew what it would take to overcome them. Late that evening I asked her to marry me. But what was incredible to me is this: at that point(and even now)if she was suddenly not pregnant anymore it wouldn't change my mind. I don't want to marry her because she is carrying my child. I want to marry her because she is, and has been for at least 2 years now, my best friend. If none of this had happened, and there hadn't been some other outside influences, we would probably have already been married. But that's not how it happened, and I'm okay with that too. I love her. I want to spend my life with her. I want to marry her. So we're engaged.

Saturday, September 9th--
Well, we're planning the wedding, but I am scared of how people are going to react to me, to her, to our engagement, and to her pregnancy. She left here about 3 in the afternoon. It's now about 8:30pm and I'm still kinda spinning.

I expect that people will be resistant to the idea, and I am open to criticism because I don't count myself as the most wise person on earth. I know that I'll get moral support, rebuke if necessary, and a whole lot of love and prayer from not only those I know in person, but also from my friends here. So I wanted to share this big important part of my life with you all and ask for your input, advice, and council on where to go from here.

Shan-[sigh]-dar