"Oh the Places You'll Go..." & what God will teach you!

In case you didn't catch it in my previous blogs, I'm in a long-distance relationship right now. This is a first for me, so God has taken the opportunity to teach me a TON recently! For those of you who know what it's like to be in a long-distance relationship, you will be able to empathize with me; for those of you who have never shared the experience - it's not easy, but I believe long-distance relationships build character and create a special bond between two individuals. I also believe that God uses those types of relationships to bring His children closer to Him through the process. It has taken me a while to get used to being 7 hours away from Adam, but I think I'm finally getting the hang of it; at least, I think so...Here are some things I feel like we have learned through the process of developing a strong, God-centered, incredibly unique relationship while living 430 miles apart:

1) You have to have a large amount of monthly minutes and unlimited texts on your cell phone or you end up with a very PRICEY phone bill

2) You may be in the middle of a long-winded, incredibly wordy, but super good story when your phone rings in your ear and you realize your significant other had a dropped call, and you had been talking to nothing but silence for the past 5 minutes

3) Skype video chatting is only fun if you have a webcam with a good microphone. Otherwise, sudden, loud static interrupts your conversation every 3 minutes and 30 sec and you have to hang up and call back. There are also those video calls where the other person freezes up momentarily in a weird position...


4)You don't have the luxury of seeing the person every day. As a matter of fact, depending upon our schedules, we are lucky to see each other once a month

5) The positive side to not seeing the person very often, is that it's virtually impossible to become too dependent upon the other person

6) Communicating through snail mail or FedEx is no longer a thing of the past

7) You think of creative ways to have fun while being miles apart (i.e. online scrabble, the chicken dice game, battleship, muting the microphone and watching online TV shows while video chatting, playing "Guess what animal I am" while making a random animal face...remember the picture of Adam above?)

8) On the nights where you may be too busy to talk at all, a simple text that says, "Goodnight. I miss you!" speaks volumes

9) You realize that driving for a total of 14 hours (or 18 if you get lost....) just to see the person for less than 24 hours is better than not seeing them at all

And, the best thing I've learned thus far through my long-distance relationship with Adam....
10) When we do finally get to see each other, every minute we're together is a chance for us to grow closer together - an idea I feel gets too often taken for granted in non long-distance relationships