Marriage License

Along with some others we were in The Indianapolis Star Newspaper:

Marriage Licenses Reported Jan. 16
Banks, Ricky; Linda Collins.
Barlow, Freddie Jr.; Valerie Pervine.
Barnes, Chad; Jennifer Anderson.
Bennett, Herman; Raquel Gray.
Birdsong, William; Tyniqua Boyd.
Browder, Raymond; Geraldine Patterson.
Eggert, David Jr.; Jennifer Witty.
Espinoza, Bernardo; Tiffany Scott.
Fall, Adama; Susan Wellington.
Garcia-Duran, Hernando; Yuridia Espinosa-Dominguez.
Gonzalez, Miguel; Yuliana Resendez.
Lewis, David; Annette Ridley.
Manzenberger, John; Alicia Carter.
Nail, Landon; Michelle Burton.
Nuetzel, Andrew; Victoria Pitsch.
Oliver, George; Eliza Griggs.
Paramo Areiza, Carlos; Melva Gadea.
Perez-Pena, Edison; Glorimar Perez.
Pollard, John II; Melissa Pollard.
Prioleau, Patrick; Amanda Freeman.
Taylor, Thomas; Kim Curley.
Theard, Tom Sr.; Denise Sandlin.
Tompkins, James; Christa Bosley.
Torongeau, Richard; Jacqueline Cook.
Wegener, Robert Jr.; Brenda Gladney.
Williams, Brandon; Alinda Campbell.

This was fun and good for me to see - fun because it reminds me I'm not dreaming but that I really am going to marry the man of my dreams and the world knows about it; good because it helps me keep perspective that it's not like we're the only ones who are going through this "I'm in love and very giddy all the time and the world is all about me" mentality. It's hard to keep focused on work, friends and family when I feel like all I want to think about and do stuff with is Andy...call me crazy in love! I know it's only for a short time before I have to come back to reality but in exactly a one month from today I'm getting married!!!! Ahhhhhhh!! Yeah!!!!!! Yipee!!!! Woo-hoo!!!!!! Anyway, just wanted to praise God for providing me with Andy and share my gratitude with you all (hi family and friends!) for understanding why my heads in the clouds lately.

Marriage - 40 day countdown

Question: “How long has covenant marriage been in existence?”
Response: “Since God established marriage.”

The challenge we have as Christians is to present to the world a view of marriage that dispels any shadow of doubt that marriage as God designed it is the best arena of human relationships through which you can experience love to its fullest degree. The world views marriage as a legal contract between two or more individuals. Contracts are based on rights and responsibilities and are motivated by self-interests rather than on unconditional love. A legal contract is necessary to begin and likewise end a relationship. But a covenant is more than a contract. It is more than a legal document declaring a state of interdependence.
For the past 30 years, our nation has been wandering in the wilderness of “no-fault divorce” brought about by an acceptance of the view that marriage is simply a contract. During this time of aimless wandering, the church has found herself taking on the beliefs and practices of our culture rather than impacting our culture with the life-changing Word of God regarding marriage.
The concept of marriage as a “contract” cannot be documented in God’s Word. In fact the word “contract” cannot be found in commonly used versions of the Bible. The word “covenant” on the other hand, can be found approximately 300 times in Scripture. The Hebrew root word for covenant is “to cut,” which relates more to the rituals involving the sacrifice of animals that “sealed” the covenant. The value of a “covenant marriage relationship” as opposed to a “contractual marriage agreement” lies in a person’s understanding and acceptance of God’s intent for marriage and the importance of His presence in the marriage.
God intends for marriage to be a lifelong covenant relationship between one man and one woman under His Lordship. When a couple shares their wedding vows, they are vowing to God, each other, their families, and their community to remain steadfast in unconditional love, reconciliation, and sexual purity, while purposefully growing in their covenant marriage relationship.

40 days from right now I will make a covenant with Andrew Gregory Nuetzel as we are surrounded by our family and a ton of friends to share in the first moment and day of our marriage!!! Wow! Andy and I both realize that we are making a covenant with God, each other and ourselves to commit ourselves to this marriage until death do us part. We both have talked about how this is awesome and great and also kind of intimidating and pretty huge. Please pray for us and our relationship. As we are learning in our pre-marriage counseling, pretty soon we're going to be very up close and personal with each other going from our stage of idealization of each other to realization of each other...to me Andy looks pretty good close up and if I could have gotten blogger to let me post a picture this is where one would go of Andy. Hopefully I'll figure out what's going on and post a picture of my handsome soon to be husband soon!

By Faith

"Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for." Hebrews 11:1-2

How often do you live by faith? This is a question I have asked myself recently and I feel that it is not too often. I'd like to share some verses from Hebrews 11 often known as the Hall of Faith that illustrates how 'the ancients' did live by faith:

• By faith Abel offered God a better sacrifice than Cain did.
• By faith Enoch was taken from this life, so that he did not experience death.
• By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family.
• By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going.
• By faith Abraham, even though he was past age - and Sarah herself was barren - was enabled to become a father because he considered him faithful who had made the promise.
• By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice.
• By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau in regard to their future.
• By faith Jacob, when he was dying, blessed each of Joseph's sons, and worshiped as he leaned on the top of his staff.
• By faith Joseph, when his end was near, spoke about the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt and gave instructions about his bones.
• By faith Moses' parents hid him for three months after he was born, because they saw he was no ordinary child, and they were not afraid of the king;s edict.
• By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of the Pharaoh's daughter.
• By faith the people passed through the Red Sea as on dry land; but when the Egyptians tried to do so, they were drowned.
• By faith the walls of Jericho fell, after the people had marched around them for seven days.
• By faith the prostitute Rahab, because she welcomes the spies, was not killed with those who were disobedient.

"And what more shall I say? I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel and the prophets, who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised; who shut the mouths of lions, quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword; whose weakness was turned to strength; and who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies." Hebrews 11:32-34

Reading all of that makes me feel convicted about how often I do NOT live by faith. If a book were written about me and how I live my life I fear it would read more like:

• By worrying Tori.....
• By trying to figure it out Tori...
• By praying relentlessly about it Tori...
• By going to friends and family for advice Tori...
• By following her gut feeling Tori...
• By doing what was in her best interests Tori...

"And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him." Hebrews 11:6

My prayer for myself and whoever reads this is that we would be people that live BY FAITH therefore instead of the above descriptions we MAY have the words By Faith in front of our names when describing how we lived our lives.

Merry Christmas!

God truly has blessed me this year as he showed me all the people in my life that love me and that I now have two families to celebrate with. Andy and I celebrated Christmas a bunch of times with a bunch of different people this year. Friday, December 22nd we spent the night at his parents house and woke up on the 23rd and had Christmas with his family and his mom made biscuits and gravy - YUM! Later that afternoon we celebrated Christmas with his mom's side of the family including all the aunts and uncles and cute new cousins. We then drove to my Grandma and Grandpa Johnson's house where we spent the night and after church spent Sunday celebrating Christmas with my mom's side of the family. That night we drove back to Sterling and surprised everyone with a our new tradition of setting off fireworks around the campfire. It was a beautiful night!


The night ended with Ethan (my brother) betting Andy $300 that he couldn't eat 12 bananas in an hour and a half. Well, Andy is not one to turn down a bet so although it caused him to have some scary bathroom experiences throughout the night he ate all 12 bananas and now we have some extra wedding fund money to work with - way to bring home the bread (bananas) fiance!

We woke up around 10:45am on Christmas Day to open presents after we opened our stockings. This year for Christmas Andy and I gave each other stockings that we made ourselves as our gift that we can use the rest of our lives and then filled them up. My mom came through yet again with making it difficult to figure out the code or hunt for our presents which is always a fun challenge. We spent the whole day in our pajamas playing all the new board games we got and eating my mom's good cooking.

On the 26th my best friend Johnna hosted a bridal shower at her house and it was a great afternoon of being with friends and family and eating very good Italian food they made. Johnna's daughter Madie was the youngest and without question the cutest person there! :) Thank you Johnna for having the shower for me at a crazy time of the year! It will be so great to have a week of time with you and Madie before the wedding for girl stuff! :)

Andy and I headed back to Indy after the shower with AngB and it was a pretty quiet ride back home. We celebrated our last Christmas gathering of the year on Saturday with Andy's dad side of the family. We are so blessed to have so many great family and friends that we got to share the joy of Christmas with this year. We also got a digital camera for Christmas from Andy's parents so hopefully I'll be posting more with pictures this year!

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night! :)