OMG!  It’s been 43 wonderful years and counting!  Sorry for the oversight as my sister has lost her mind.  No really!  She has… just ask Sophie.

Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad!

Celebrating with you today and always,

Ginger Inez (Your last one baby!)

Today we rejoice with our parents as they celebrate 42 um, that’s 43 years of marriage (sorry…..).  We praise God for His grace and for keeping their covenant strong for over 40 years.  What a testimony!

Poppy & Nana

Poppy & Nana

The covenant of marriage has been under attack for so many years.  Standing strong in the midst of normal circumstances can be challenging.  Marriage takes three.  If God be for us, who can be against us?

Fourty-two years ago—Mom was only 18, Dad was 27.  At the age of 19, Mom lost her mother.  Although they had already started their own family, Mom and Dad helped largely with Mom’s younger siblings after their mother’s passing.  They raised five children, endured rough financial periods, invasive surgery and heart-gripping circumstances with their children “especially” during those teens years.  Many couples have endured all of this and much more.  But this is their story.

Survival may have been an underlying theme for many years.  But eventually, God would draw them closer.  This period of time is marked in my mind by the birth of my first daughter, Cammie.  I recall Mom visiting church after church throughout our area in search of the House that God would call her to.  This came several years after we left our church of many years.  After many Sundays of searching, Mom happened upon Villa Del Rey Church of God.  The Holy Spirit drew her.  Dad grew up in the Church of God and was soon to follow Mom.  I will never forget those first visits I had with them.  I didn’t understand the way the people worshipped.  I didn’t understand many things.  But I could not deny the awesome Presence of Almighty God in that House.  God did a marvelous work in our entire family in those days including a deeper revelation of the third Person of the Trinity.  What an amazing season of growth in our relationships with Christ as well as with each other.

Since that time, Mom and Dad have been faithful followers of Christ.  There is no fence, no compromise, no luke-warm walking.  Problems did not disappear.  Differences did not dissolve.  But Christ united.  In spite of life’s circumstances and daily stresses, Christ IS the Solid Rock on which they stand.  It is because of Him that their bond of matrimony remains.

Today I praise Him for such a wonderful celebration.  I thank Him for choosing these two people to parent me in this life.  He absolutely chose the best!  Not because they were perfect parents, not because we were afforded the finest things of this life but because they chose to follow Christ and make His Word priority.

We are blessed and our children are blessed as “Nana and Poppy” play a major role in raising our little ones.

Happy Anniversary, Mom and Dad!  I love you more than peanut butter and jelly!

Your little girl.