All because two people fell in love.....

American Gothic???

Today Ron and I have been married for 19 years. I keep thinking that seems so long and yet it feels like such a short time. When we went on our after dinner walk through the forest last night I told him, we’d be an old married couple next year on our 20th. I remember our wedding day as if it were yesterday and I thank God for my husband Ron, he is my best friend and the love of my life. Our anniversary is a good time for remembering not just the memories of a great marriage but also the way God has moved in our lives.

Ron and I met at church when we were both in our late 20’s, we became fast friends and because it was a friendship we avoided the pitfalls of dating. Ron and I also went to the same junior high school and the same high school graduating a year apart. I thank the Lord that he did not have us meet during those years. I was not the person then that I am now and neither was he. Sometimes I envision God orchestrating a kind of dance in those halls at Santa Ana High, to ensure that we did not meet and I sometimes wonder how many close calls we actually had.

After we gave our family planning over to the Lord we used to say, "10 kids, 10 years, and 10 acres"-that was our "plan" but God had other plans and they were good. I pray that my children embrace the plan God has for them, not trying to fight against what God is doing in them. I pray that when the time is right God brings into their lives the person they are meant to marry and that they don't try to hurry His plan or delay depending on His will for them. As a mom I want what is best for my kids but my human eyes don’t see it the way He does, so I pray that God directs their steps and that I have the wisdom to advise, embrace, and when the time is right, get out of the way.
Most of all I pray that when they marry it will be as great a marriage for them as this last 19 years has been for me. Not that everything has been perfect, but it has been good.



We loved having Bonnie and Jonathan here!
















Grandma and Mary at the Muskegon River by the Croton Dam