Hurray!!! A post from Sam! Yep it is me and I get to write all about my wonderful and beautiful fiance Leslie LaRae!

God has the bigger picture for sure! I never imagined I would be at this point in my life and that I would be engaged to a woman like Leslie. God is truly amazing... I am humbled. He has done some wonderful things in our lives and has orchestrated so many special things! It is so easy to take that wonderful gift, my relationship with Leslie, and take it for myself and leave God out of it! I can't do that! He is the one who put Leslie in my life and He is the one that is going to continue to be faithful to me and to us! He has and never will fail me!

This last weekend was a a little different then what we had planned. Friday... I was having trouble having a good attitude about it. I was feeling very selfish... I hadn't seen Leslie in two weeks and two weeks before that!! It was almost funny! I was like Lord... "you know how little time we have had to spend together and you threw this in our schedule when we were trying to keep our Saturday open to spend with each other!!"

Another funny thing was just the night before, Thursday. We had spent a long time talking about how God seeks a vibrant, alive and deep emotional love relationship with us. How when we surrender totally to Him where we are nothing and have nothing. NOTHING! That is when God has the freedom to pour out Himself upon us and He gives us the greatest joy, excitement, love, joy and fulfillment we could ever have! We were also talking about how everything happens for a reason... how He is trust worthy. We were both really passionate about what we were talking about! We knew it... we had seen it... and we had felt it in our own lives.

It was like the Lord wanted to test us the very next day to see if we really did believe and live what we talked about it!

That evening while I was trying to get up to Guthrie... I had left work late and wasn't going to get in very early. But then I get stuck on the highway for a while because of an accident! It was getting pretty funny! "Lord! What is next!" I chuckle about it now... but I don't know if it was very funny at the time. :)

The good news is! God is so wonderful, loving and faithful! He has never failed me and he will never ever fail me!

Leslie is so amazing!! This last weekend she showed her love for me in such a way that meant the world! She came with me to the shop and did some things while we worked! She also spent a lot of time watching me work!!! Can you imagine watching me work on my truck all day!!?? That is incredible! She is incredible! She is amazing! She is wonderful! I love her so much!

For me as a man... it just means the world when your woman is right there and she is watching you work. I don't know how to explain it. It is just a satisfying feeling!!! A man needs to feel that support from his woman!

I kept finding myself looking up and around to see if she was still there watching me!! I love it! I love her! I just want you all to realize what she did that Saturday and how she laid down her own desires and spent the Saturday just watching me work. Don't you think she is wonderful and amazing? Don't you think that displays her love for me in an amazing way? I DO!!!

I am telling you! God is amazing! I feel so undeserving so many times with what He has allowed me to experience in my life. I don't deserve Leslie... and I can never take her and her love for granted.

Just like Les said, God worked out every detail last weekend and turned it into a wonderful time. He is going to do it again this weekend and the next and every single day of our lives! We just have to keep our focus on Him and Him alone!

From the bottom of my heart... I love you Leslie LaRae!
Samuel Wesley

God always changes what you think is going to happen to test you and when you pass the test then He blesses you! This weekend was completely that way! Sam got up to our house Friday night to stay the night. That day I found out that Sat. we were going to be spending the day at the shop so Sam could help Guy finish his truck that has been at the shop for two weeks now! I was disappointed, I have to admit. But then I started thinking, well, we're experiencing real life together! It isn't all fun and smiles and relaxation! :)
We had devotions together Sat. morning and then left home at about 11:00. We didn't leave the shop until after 6:00 that evening! Long day! It was fun though I can say that! I didn't help much! If anything I probably got in the way but Sam, of course, is so loving he would never admit that to that! :)

To my MAN down in Texas! I love you and am praying for you! Take heart my friend!

Sam is coming up this weekend! Yea! It seems life forever since I have seen Him! It is really weird how the weeks go really fast but yet even with time flying it seems like I still haven't seen him in forever! If that makes any sense at all! I do have to admit it is hard not to see him but every two weeks! It does make the weekends extra special though when you haven't seen each other in a while!

Life has been going blessed and wonderful! Last night I had my college and career single young ladies Bible study at Cyndi Myers house. We have that every other Tuesday and we are going through a book by Beth Moore called Believing God! It is the most powerful Bible study I have ever been through! I love getting together with all the girls and having a blast praying, singing, laughing and crying with each other! Sharing things from the bottom of our hearts and letting God speak to us and YES He certainly does just that! I say we have the best group ever! :) I ended up staying late after it was over talking to Kristen Blumhardt. I love that girl! She is such a woman after God's own heart and she always encourages and uplifts! She knows how to show she cares and loves you!!

"I will mediate also of all thy works and talk of thy doings. Thy way, O God, is in the sanctuary: who is great a God as our God? Thou art the God that doest wonders: thou hast declared thy strength among the people." Psalm 77:12-14

"Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us." Eph. 3:20

Happy 1 Month Anniversary to us!!!
I love you Sam! I can not believe that I have been engaged to Samuel Wesley Shepherd for a whole month! The most amazing, godly, very handsome, thoughtful.....the #1 man in all the world! Never will there be another one like him! He really surprised me today when he called during lunch hour! I never hear from him during the day! He made me whole rest of the day I do know that! I needed the cheering up right then too while still crunching finances in my brain, as he says, at church!
Already one month! Man, time goes fast! It seems like yesterday! I think some of that may have to do with the fact that I have only seen him three times the whole month! I love my fiance! Thank you for being the man you are! God has blessed me far more than I ever would have imagined in all my wildest dreams and fantasies! :)
"For this God is our God FOREVER and EVER, He will be our guide even unto death!!!" Psalm 48:14
"Lord I realize you as Sam's guide; as our guide. We really need Your direction in our relationship and we need You to be the true leader and go before us both, but especially Sam! There are so many things that we do not understand, so many things we are learning. We need Your Holy Spirit to prompt and to direct. May we have an open heart to hear, to listen, to obey, to be open and honest and truthful with each other. We do not want to rush into anything without it being your perfect timing! You have directed us before over and over in EVERYTHING and you will always do so and I look to You, Father, to be that guide!
I thank you Lord for everything! For all you've done and all you do and all you are going to do in the future! Praise and glory and honor are due You, for You are the Most high God! You are our fortress and our very source of protection and our Keeper! You're the calm in the midst of the storms and You are Peace! Protect Sam and I from any snares of the evil one. Bind Satan from our lives and from any lies Satan may shoot our way. Light a fiery wall of your Holy Spirit around our lives
and around all that we do! May we always yield our will to Your perfect will, die to ourselves and live for You every moment of the day and not live in the flesh. Let Your glory be manifested in our daily walk, in our life, that the world may see and know Your majesty!
Thank you again Father for bring Sam, my best friend, into my life! For what he as done for me and how He has drawn me closer to You! Lord, please keep him safely in the palm of Your hand! Pour your love on Him! Uplift and encourage him to endure through, to stay strong to the end! May he be a man that people look at with respect and with admiration! May he filled with Your wisdom as he makes each decision in life! Give him clear guidance and clear direction and he will have confidence in what he does!!! Lord continue to mold him to be a man after your own heart. I will never understand your blessings and for blessing me with Sam! May I love him with love that comes from You!!"
Lord bless him and keep Him and make Your face to shine upon Him and give Him peace!
I pray this Your precious holy name!"

I love you Samuel Wesley Shepherd, my Superman!!! You're in my prayers and my thoughts! May we never stop being best friends! You're are such a blessing to me in my life! Thank you for all you do! Have a blessed week! You ARE the #1 man and I will never stop loveing you no matter what happens in life!!! :)

One thing I am really learning is the impact that Sam and I's relationship can and is having for the Lord! Satan has been bearing down hard on us both and trying to bring us to the point of break down! I have NEVER in my life felt his oppression on ME PERSONALLY like I have the past week! Life is such a puzzle! I love life; I'm confused with life; I'm excited about life; life is complicated in many, many ways. God works in mysterious ways to bring about His perfect will in and through your life I do know that! I see my life as God's creation! It is like a storm and a beautiful day! One day the sun is shining and the next it's dark, gray, stormy and rainy! Both are beautiful but when you're in the storm you don't see beauty until you look back! When the storm is gone, everything is greener, the flowers are in bloom, the waterfalls are rushing down, the birds are singing and the sun seems brighter! That is just how life is! God uses storms to make us even more beautiful than before!

Thinking about what Satan has done to attack recently and I don't see him as a huge enemy. No, instead he is a tiny, hairy, crawly, very poisonous spider that creeps around making a big shadow to make himself seem bigger! He hides his tiny little self in the smallest obscure places waiting to reach out his poisonous jaws and sink them deep into your life whenever you least expect. Whenever things are going absolutely awesome! The Lord is the only thing that can keep that poison from reaching our blood and He does just that! His Word and a relationship with Him makes ALL the difference in the world! I know that nothing can happen without God's permission! Nothing could touch Job until God allowed it and it was too teach Job and make him stronger! That is all God wants in mine and Sam's life too! I am figuring it out! I am getting it and Satan doesn't like it at all! But I sure do! The more I come to understand and the closer I get to God the less I feel Satan's grasp on me and on trying to tear me down!

"Lord, please be with Sam every second of every day! Bind the enemy from touching any part of his heart and life. I rebuke the devil in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ! He has no power over Sam's life for greater is He that is him than he that is in the world! Give him a desire beyond all imaginable to know you and trust you more! Keep Your hand of direction, love and blessing upon his life and never take it away! Pour out your love upon him! Do not let Satan feed Sam lies and may Sam not except any of them! I love him Father but I know you love him much more than I ever could or ever can! Keep him safe in the palm of your hand!"

Psalm 91
1 He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.
2 I will say of the LORD, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust.
3 Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence.
4 He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield and buckler.
5 Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day;
6 Nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday.
7 A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee.
8 Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked.
9 Because thou hast made the LORD, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation;
10 There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling.
11 For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.
12 They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.
13 Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder: the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet.
14 Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him: I will set him on high, because he hath known my name.
15 He shall call upon me, and I will answer him: I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him, and honour him.
16 With long life will I satisfy him, and shew him my salvation.

Wednesday morning I got up thinking it was going to be another normal day of going to work and Wed. night church! Boy was I ever wrong! I had a lunch appointment with Kristen Blumhardt at 11:00 and I was not supposed to go to the shop this morning and work. Well, Kristen calls suddenly that morning and says she has to cancel because it was Valentine's Day and she wanted to reschedule for next week (I didn't know Mom and called and told her to call me and cancel). Then Guy calls and says he needs me to come by the shop for about 30 min. before I go to church to work that he had something he needed me to do real quick. That was fine, I didn't think a thing of it! Well, when I got to the shop he asked me to do something again that I had done just the day before and I had just sat down at the desk when Sam comes out the back office and said, "Hey Guy, I have a question."
Talk about scared silly! All I could do was stare with a stupid grin on my face probably and ask dumb questions like, "What are you doing here," and "Aren't you supposed to be at work" while my hands were shaking like leaves! I say it was all the shock of seeing his face in the middle of the week, on Valentine's Day none the less! But finally he said, "Well, I get to be your chauffeur today and I thought that we could go to lunch!" Well, I was thinking at this point, "Wow, Dad and Mom must've decided since it is Valetine's Day and we are courting to let him do something special for me! I was thinking he was going to go to work with me in the afternoon and spend the day with me there. WRONG! :) lol :)
We went to Golden Palace and by this time it was about 12:15. I remember asking Sam what I was going to do about being to work late, I am supposed to get there by 12:30. He said, oh we are good there. We don't have to leave here until before 1:30 or so. Well, he didn't say that we were going to have to be at church at 1:30 but that is immediately what I thought. So, I forgot about it and decided to have a fun and good time! We left there about 1:15 and Sam headed down the highway towards church and got off but instead he turned towards downtown and said he wanted to fill up my car with gas (later I found out he was needing quarters for the parking meters)! I thought he was going to take the long way to church, taking Shields and give us some more time to talk or something but he slowed down across form the Myriad Gardens and casually asked if I wanted to take a walk! It was freezing cold outside but I thought it sounded fun anyway so we parked and got out. Little did I know that Christian Sangree was hiding behind objects and over the hill taking picture after picture of us! Sam said something like, "I don't really know where to go I haven't ever been here before," which was true since Christian had come to place the roses from Sam! We topped the hill and I never saw the roses until we got down right by them and I knew right off the bat they were for me! Sam, said oh look someone left some roses!........Well, I remember saying that this was the best Valentine's Day ever, sometime in there but when Sam handed me the roses he said something about a wife and crazy me, was so out of it, so NOT expecting anything, that it did not even click...in fact I had to ask him later on the way home what he had said exactly! He had said, "I have heard it said somewhere, that when you're looking for a wife you do not look for someone you can live with but for someone that you cannot live without." :)....... .......Next thing I knew Sam was on his knee in front of me and possed the question I was NOT expecting:

God provided the ring out of his total provision and I see it as completely His hand! Just another extra blessing to add a little more icing to the cake! I have to say though, Sam has certainly proved his love for me and I already see it every day and he lives 200 or more miles away all week long! :) I am honored and humbled to be his fiance! I do know that I am glad I had no expectations. I am glad it was a surprise even though the shock of it all kind of knocks the wind from you! I certainly like God's plans much better than mine, with thinking this wasn't going to happen for at least another year! "Lord, I will never understand the deep love you have for your children!"

If you want to see more pictures you can go to: http://www.printscharmingphotography.com/Proofs/2007/Leslie_Sam/