178.

The calendar on my iGoogle page says there are "178 days" until Meg and I are married. It also converts this into other intervals of time just in case they are more useful. There are 12.7 fortnights until our wedding. 6.99 days on the Sun until our wedding. And my body will produce 30,622,978 blood cells in the space from now until May 30th. That's a lot of the red stuff!

But let's say I get a call from NASA saying that they've perfected a space flight to Jupiter and they need some brave soul to make this historic journey and that I'm just the man for the job. Well Google's there with helpful fun facts for just such an occasion! 429 days will be spent on Jupiter until I would have to return in much Pomp and Circumstance for the wedding. I can just see the headlines. "Groundbreaking Astroman Returns to Earth for Wedding. Astroman Claims Google Provided Necessary Information." Thanks Google!

Here on earth there are one-seventy-eight days that Meg and I will have together (read apart) until That Day. One-seventy-eight times we will have to part ways in the evening. One-seventy-eight times we will have to say Good Morning in a way that means, "How are you? Did you sleep well? I haven't seen you in many hours!"

But the number 0ne-seventy-eight is also a very small number. We have one-seventy-eight days until both of our lives change forever. We have one-seventy-eight days to live as single people and to devote time as single people to understanding more about Life with God. And one-seventy-eight days to nail down a budget. One-seventy-eight is a very small number!

I promise to see this time as given to us by God for a purpose. There are things that I would never learn if Meg and I were to be married tomorrow. And so I am thankful for this time, even if my heart can feel rather impatient sometimes. Today is day one-seventy-eight: may we live in a way glorifying to each other and to God.

And tomorrow is day one-seventy-seven.
R.