Monday, October 26, 2009
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Silly NCU Marriages
I can't help but kind of snicker to myself when I see some of my former classmates "finding" each other and getting hitched. It's actually very amusing. Before I go any further, let me clarify that I am very fortunate and blessed to have found my lovely wife Ashley early on. We've been married for a year and a half (almost) and we'll be together for the rest of our lives.
Having said that, for me, the humor comes in when I see those people who have dated several other people at the school and, seemingly at the last possible minute, find "the one" and get hitched just in time for (or shortly after) graduation. Let me explain using this fictional scenario.
Bobby hasn't found "the one" yet, and if he doesn't find her soon, he'll graduate Christian college and forever be alone. Conveniently, there's a fridge full of leftovers for him to choose from, and what's more, these are not girls he has dated or even considered dating. PERFECT! He tries them out in rapid succession until he finds one who he can at least settle for. Then they get together for a few months in the first semester of their senior year and he proposes over the winter break, probably on Christmas Eve, Christmas morning, or New Years Eve. They plan the wedding for one of the weekends shortly after graduation, get married and live oh so happily ever after.
Quick, easy, convenient. True love? Well...the jury might still be out on that one. I'm afraid that in light of fewer options and impending separation from the hunting grounds of a Christian college, some of these people I went to school with just "settled" for someone who they could live with for an indefinite period instead of waiting for God's timing.
I could be overreacting; I probably am. Alas, I've been fortuitous enough to find true love early. Maybe I'm just baffled by some of the less likely combinations I've seen over the last few years. Maybe God's got it in control after all. I know He does...I just hope some of these folks didn't subvert His will out of over-anxiousness. After all, the divorce rate is the same in Christianity as it is in the rest of our culture...
Having said that, for me, the humor comes in when I see those people who have dated several other people at the school and, seemingly at the last possible minute, find "the one" and get hitched just in time for (or shortly after) graduation. Let me explain using this fictional scenario.
Bobby hasn't found "the one" yet, and if he doesn't find her soon, he'll graduate Christian college and forever be alone. Conveniently, there's a fridge full of leftovers for him to choose from, and what's more, these are not girls he has dated or even considered dating. PERFECT! He tries them out in rapid succession until he finds one who he can at least settle for. Then they get together for a few months in the first semester of their senior year and he proposes over the winter break, probably on Christmas Eve, Christmas morning, or New Years Eve. They plan the wedding for one of the weekends shortly after graduation, get married and live oh so happily ever after.
Quick, easy, convenient. True love? Well...the jury might still be out on that one. I'm afraid that in light of fewer options and impending separation from the hunting grounds of a Christian college, some of these people I went to school with just "settled" for someone who they could live with for an indefinite period instead of waiting for God's timing.
I could be overreacting; I probably am. Alas, I've been fortuitous enough to find true love early. Maybe I'm just baffled by some of the less likely combinations I've seen over the last few years. Maybe God's got it in control after all. I know He does...I just hope some of these folks didn't subvert His will out of over-anxiousness. After all, the divorce rate is the same in Christianity as it is in the rest of our culture...
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Post-ACFW Conference Jitters
Wow...it's been almost a month since I went to the conference and there's so much to tell! The biggest news is that as a result of the conference, I got 2 literary agents to request my manuscript (one wants the full MS, the other wants the first three chapters and a proposal), and 3 publishers have expressed interest at least on some level. Since then, I've been hacking away at my story and trying to get it cut down from 167,000 words (which is waaay too long) to 120,000 at the most. So far, I've eliminated about 27,000 words (almost 100 pages) from the story. Don't worry, it was all fluff, mostly from the beginning. My first 6 chapters are almost completely different now (chapter 4 is pretty much the same, though) but in a very good way!
The long and short of it is that I have a lot left to do and not much time to do it. I'll try to post some more as time goes on, but right now I have to run to work.
-Ben
The long and short of it is that I have a lot left to do and not much time to do it. I'll try to post some more as time goes on, but right now I have to run to work.
-Ben
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
