Blessings

Marilyn and I were married on August 30, 1986.  During the nearly eight years we lived in High Point, NC and served Springfield Friends Meeting we were often asked when we were going to start having kids.  That question came from our families, our friends and our church family.  Everyone was interested.  My Dad tried to bribe Marilyn, telling her he would take us all to Italy (her dream trip) if she gave him a grandchild.  The fact is that by the late 1980's we were trying.  We just couldn't get pregnant.  By 1992 we were trying hard and feeling a little desperate.  By April 1994, when we moved to Kissimmee, we (and our families) had pretty much given up hope.  I was 35, Marilyn was 34, and we thought after nine years together our window had closed.

But God had other plans.  When we travelled to New York in November of 1994, Marilyn had reason to believe she might be pregnant, but she did not tell me.  Thanksgiving came and went and life seemed to be perfectly normal at our home.  When she finally felt confident enough in the facts to tell me, it was amazing.  Everything changed in that instant.  Plans had to be made.  Parents had to be told.  The church and our youth group family would go nuts.  The next few weeks were an incredible time in our lives, and it was so wonderful to have so many people to share in our joy.  We still wonder why God decided to wait until we moved to Florida to bless us with Will (that's him, now 14, pictured at top).  But we do not question His judgement or His timing.  We are just thankful for His blessing.

The story of how we told my parents is one of my favorites.  For Christmas went to dinner at Ariel's, a great seafood restaurant at Disney's Yacht and Beach Club Resort that is no longer there.  While there we gave each of them a Christmas ornament that indicated that they were going to be grandparents.  Since I am an only child, we thought this would be fairly obvious.   It was not.  In fact, they were very confused by the entire thing.  They would claim later they couldn't read the ornaments, but the truth is they were just not prepared for news like that.  They had given up, as had we.  None of us remembered that NOTHING is impossible with God!  When it finally hit them, they totally freaked out.  And that describes the reaction of almost everyone we told, from Elkin (Marilyn's home town) to High Point to Kissimmee.  We were freaked out, joyful and more thankful than I can express in words.  We knew that we had been blessed to be a blessing.  We knew our ministry would continue.  And we knew that nothing- NOTHING- would ever be the same again!  God is good all the time, and all the time God is good!

Because of Jesus,