honeymoon

Honeymoon

Merry Christmas

We are Married!

Long time since a post... I know! We've been busy being married. So far we haven't killed each other. HA! Very much the opposite! Our time together has been wonderful. We are spending a lot of time preparing our home for guests that we intend to have soon. Hopefully we are past the half way point of unpacking, hanging pictures, finding a place for all our new terrific gifts. We were blessed so much from our family, friends and students! God provided more than we even imagined. Steven keeps telling me he's going to buy me a house for all the kitchen items because they just don't fit in our little apartment. I am completely okay with that. So we have started to pray and ask the Lord to provide a bigger place when we are ready for the responsibility.





Our honeymoon was unbelievable. Steven kept all of it except the city a secret. I didn't know anything about where we were staying until we were dropped off at the resort. I was so proud of my husband! He truly blessed me with a perfect week. We woke with the sun each morning coming up from the Atlantic. Our days days were spent soaking in the sun, jumping the waves, napping in our cabana on the beach, and our daily adventures.


We hope to have a video up to show you soon.
Thank you everyone that was able to come to our wedding celebration! Thank you for praying for us if you were far away that day! We were blessed and encouraged through your cards, emails and facebook wall posts! We love you!

Thanksgiving

We have much to be thankful for:

G etting married

I ndescribable grace

L ove of Christ

L ove for each other

U nity in the Spirit

M ost of all Salvation

Happy Thanksgiving

Click to see our...

Engagement Pictures!

Steven's Birthday

Apparently this is not the best way of posting pictures. So click here to check out recent pics...

Photo update

What have I been up to???

Visiting Family:

Will and Wes!


My first wedding shower! The beautiful women who threw it for me! Gerri, me, Laura, and Shannon

Flower arranging with Molly at her new house!


My second shower with my dear friends in Nashville!



Friends!

Wedding/Marriage

Is sin killing you or are you killing sin? We each fall short; way short of even completing one day without sinning. However, the goal is to be more like Christ and less like the world. In order to do that we must flight sin every second. I get so tired of fighting. Thankfully God knew we would and gave us His Son that we might declare Him worthy and ourselves unworthy; giving us, through Christ, grace (giving us what we don't deserve) and mercy (not giving us what we do deserve).
Yeah- the Gospel!
What does this have to do with planning a wedding? That's exactly where I have found myself the last few weeks. How do I pursue Christ and seek to glorify Him? What does a wedding have to do with glorifying God? EVERYTHING!
Revelation 4:11
“Worthy are you, our Lord and God,
to receive glory and honor and power,
for you created all things,
and by your will they existed and were created.”
A newly engaged BCM student was quoted in the Daily Tar Heel in an article recently on marriage and weddings. He said, "A lot of people spend a lot of time on the wedding but not on the marriage."
The evidence is proven simply from the dollar amount spent on a wedding these days and the number of TV shows on weddings. Just this afternoon I was at a grocery store and noticed around 8 different wedding magazines. My question is why do people today make such a huge production out of a wedding? Maybe there are some answers out there, but the only one I can think of is self-centered sin. Deep down, we all want to have the biggest, best, and most unforgettable wedding EVENT ever! Better than our neighbors and the person looking over our shoulder! There is no hiding the pride and selfishness. We want to be glorified.
Steven and I want to glorify God. Our prayer is that our friends and family would be able to worship together during this time in our lives. The details of the wedding are soon to be forgotten and really just worldly desires. My heart is easily entangled in all this mess. However, some victories have already been won by the grace of God.

I will continue to fight each day against the sin that so entangles me and ask God to set my mind on the things of Him and against my fleshly desires.

Yeah- so we got our marriage license today! We still have to live under the law of the land... so we filled out paperwork and went to the county courthouse. Don't think we didn't consider paying the extra $20 to get married right then and there. It was a quick thought, don't worry!

Computers

Sometimes you love 'em sometimes you hate 'em. My computer is out of commission. The fan on it wasn't working so I had to mail it to India for them to fix it. Hopefully I'll have it back this week. Steven's computer is still up and running... at least for now.

BCM is a blessing. We were able to hang out with a few students this weekend at a conference. Last weekend I went with my dear friend Amy, a senior, and 2 freshmen to the outer banks to kayak. It was a blast! I'll put pics up later (when I get my puter back).

Flower Bed

One of my projects this summer was the Battle House flower bed. Thanks to a lot of help from the Summit church we now get to enjoy the blooms. Here is the gardenia that bloomed yesterday! Yeah, I realize I am taking picture of flowers and posting them online. What can I say... I am my mothers child. Or whatever that saying is. The flower smells great too!

79 Days!

Wedding plans have been on the back burner for a few weeks now. I think I'm just ready for it to happen instead of talking about it and planning it. Check out our wedding web site. Please RSVP on there so we can look forward to seeing you there.
http://www.theknot.com/ourwedding/EmilyClayton&StevenGillum

The First BCM Worship meeting of the Year

photo taken by Courtney Navey

Documenting the day...

Just One Other Note...

I love my Fiancee!

College Football

Saturdays always bring the much anticipated football games we've been waiting to see. This weekend we were privileged to witness the Georgia Bulldogs pound the Oklahoma State Cowboys into submission. We're currently in the midst of watching the Auburn Tigers try to salvage their Home Opener against "Kansas State," another Big-12 school. While we love SEC football, we can't forget to give a shout-out to our new love whom we see everyday; UNC! They won tonight against James Madison. Although they typically are seen savoring their basketball wins; this is a big feat for them and their new coach...Butch Davis. Go Heels!

Lessons Learned

1. I am not immortal.
2. I can get hurt.
3. I take more than a day to heal.

I'm sure there are more lessons I could write about, but since I am stubborn I have to learn these three over and over. I write them here so that you can keep me accountable.
I would post a recent picture of my newest reason I have learned these lessons once again. However, they might be too graphic. The story, I can tell... BCM leadership retreat to Virginia. There was a huge house with lots of fun things to do. Enter the 4-wheelers... I had never drove one, but didn't figure it was that much difference from a car. I didn't take the terrain into consideration. Cars have roads... paved and flat. 4 wheelers have trails... muddy and anything but flat. One of my students trustingly jumped on the back and I cranked it up. After figuring out how to get it into drive, we headed off into the unknown.

There had to be 200 acres of land. All was good until we took off into the forest. There I found a steep hill, a curve and finally a deep, narrow creek. I gently applied the breaks and quickly realized we were on slick mud. As I eased up on the break I knew this was not going to end good. Every nerve in my body freaked out as I prepared for the worst.

This is the part of the story where I can't seem to remember what happened. All I can tell you is that I remember asking the girl on the back of the 4 wheeler if she was okay. Then, I felt stickers in my head, back and arm. Next, I feel the weight of the machine on my left leg. I proceed to push the thing off of me when I have multiple shots of pain run from my right hip to my knee. Me thinking I am immortal get up and start figuring out how to get this thing out of the muddy creek bed. Only two tires were in, but there was no going forward. We would have to reverse to get it unstuck. Back to the beginning of the story... I don't know how to drive a 4 wheeler. After, attempting to push we admit our weakness and begin to walk back to the house. My leg hurt, but I just thought it was a small bruise. Oh, no. I have experienced horrific bruises before. The most memorable one being when I roller bladed down a half pipe. I made it great the first time, but not so well the second time. I have pictures of it. My newest bruise may not top that one, but it does take up more square feet.

All that taught me that I am not immortal, I can get hurt, and I take more than a day to heal.
I tried to play ultimate frisbee 2 days after the accident... bad decision.

Photo Shoot

My parents came in town to help with plans. Dad was the photographer for his high school year book. Through the years he has continued to enjoy taking pictures. Mostly of random signs and buildings. Oh, and his family. So it was only appropriate for him to take pics of Steven and I. He used the 35mm and mom used the digital. Way to go with the technology. Here are some from mom.

Check this out

One of my favorite blogs, Girl Talk, is written by a mom and her three daughters. Every Friday they have a "Friday Funny". I usually laugh aloud. You should go back through and look at all of them for a good laugh. Love it!
girltalk.blogs.com

Chapel Hill in the summer

As the summer comes to a close Steven and I are excited to have students starting to trickle in. It has been a wonderful summer, but very different from the past 24 for me. No camp for me and for the most part low key. Summary:
Road Trip to Birmingham to Visit My Family





Engagement



Charleston




Beach (Sunrise)




Getting ready for ministry and the wedding has been the majority of our summer.