The long night of editing

It's definitely way past my bedtime, but unforeseen snafus in the the ol' editing suite will do that to you. At the moment I'm waiting for the final sequence to export to the sound of machine gun fire and the random loud taunt or shout here and there as Kyle and Joey play Rainbow Six on their two Xboxes in here.

I left Steph's house a few hours ago, and by now I's sure she's fast asleep. She called me earlier just after getting off from work, tired and exhausted; she'd had a rough go of it, so we made plans to eat some dinner. I bought her Chinese and sat with her and watched a bit of the movie Dance with Me (you know, the one with Chayanne & Vanessa Williams from back in the day). I spent most of my time making sure she didn't have to get up from the couch for anything, you know, refilling cups or taking dishes to wash as the occasion warranted.

I don't mention that in order to paint myself as some kind of saint (although, according to Scripture...never mind, I'll save that discussion for another day), because living with me is a whole lot different than being engaged to me. Just ask the people in my house when I'm in a grouchy mood. No, I'm nowhere near as altruistic as all that and I know it. The reason I work hard at serving Steph isn't because I'm a selfless person, it's because I'm very selfish and acting outside of those natural tendencies helps to make me into that kind of a person.

I'm reminded at the moment of the emphasis in Scripture on acting on what we believe and not merely talking about it (James 1:22). I like the gritty, hands-on nature of that kind of a life. It's true that we're becoming the people that we're going to be for the rest of our lives, so it follows that our decisions matter, that they have a certain amount of weight to them, even in the little ones we don't think really matter. Trails are made through repetitive use, and habits are ingrained by the same, so it makes a neat kind of sense that God would use our choices to form us into the kinds of people God is looking for.

All this leads to why I try to serve & sometimes spoil Stephanie as best as I can. My understanding is that in order to have the kind of relationship we want years from now, it means learning to become the kind of person for whom serving comes naturally, and aside from prayer and time spent reading Scripture, a good chunk of laying hold of that reality means building the kinds of habits into my life that will enable me to become that kind of person. Lord knows, I won't always feel like being the selfless romantic, but hopefully it will be in those times that I'll be able to rely on those habits I've built into my life in order to be the husband I'm looking to be one day, a la Ephesians 5.

Anyway, those are my random musings for the evening. My stuff's pretty much done, so it's just as well. I am so looking forward to getting some sleep!