22 Years and Counting....

Twenty-two years ago today, here's what I was doing:

My, don't they look young? We were pretty young, actually...we were both 21 at the time. We were college students with very little money but a lot of love. This was the summer of 1987, just before I started my senior year and Brad started his junior year. Both of us had always been very thrifty (some would call it "cheap"!) and we had saved enough money from our summer jobs to buy ourselves a washer and dryer and rent a tiny little HUD apartment. Between scholarships, work-study, and part-time jobs, we were able to finish our bachelor's degrees at OBU and even go on to get master's degrees at the University of Arkansas. We finished our master's programs in August of 1991, and Hannah was born in October of that same year. Bethany came along about 3 1/2 years later. God has truly been faithful to us throughout our marriage.

Would we have ever dreamed that the last 18 months of our marriage would have been marked by so much pain and heartache? Never. When we promised to be faithful "in sickness and in health", we never would have imagined that our beautiful teenage daughter would be the one to be struck by such a terrible sickness. We would never, ever have chosen this road, but I believe God has strengthened our marriage through it.

This Sunday, we will be sharing God's glory through Hannah's story at First Baptist Church of Crossett. We lived in Crossett from 1996 to 1999, moving there when Hannah was five, and leaving when she was eight. We have some wonderful, precious friends there, and we are looking forward to seeing them this weekend, as well as meeting some new friends we have come to know through Hannah's storm. Please pray that we will be able to effectively communicate what God would have us to share while we are there. And again, thank you for your faithful prayers for our family!