Wow after years talking about this, this is officially the first post – I mean after the intro one 😉 And as I blog for the very first time, it’s like oh my… where do I begin? This is actually harder than it looks. Probably best to start recent maybe?
His Bride
I am 50 which seems crazy but I turned 50 last year. I have an amazing husband who still calls me his bride and is the most generous person I’ve ever met. I am the mother of four kids or as I like to say “a mom of four children who are legally adults…” because they are always your kids no matter the age.
I’ve lived in Tennessee all my life – east, west and middle – and middle TN is my home. Professional career for 30 years, beautiful home, house in Florida and a snazzy car… sounds like the all-American dream right? But looks are deceiving much like social media which I’m not on and have been off for almost three years. Yes it IS possible to live without social media and on a side note, it’s pretty glorious not being on socials.
But back to the “all-American life”. I am married to the most amazing godly man. My first marriage wasn’t a healthy one. My now husband and I both said we learned more about marriage in our respective divorces than we did during our first marriages so we are working on ours all the time. Like legit. We work at it.
Always Wanted Four!
I am mother to four incredible children. I always wanted four children. But see, I only gave birth to one but mom to all four. Reality is the one I gave birth to, keeps a long distance between her and our family. My other three children aren’t my stepchildren which is a word I despise, they are MY children. I raised them. My husband had full custody of his three when we met which is highly rare for a dad. It’s one of the ways I knew he was a good man. Those early years were a struggle for me and them. All of us really. Going from two to six was WAY bigger than any of us expected.
Our Home
Our home is my dream home; I love this home! My husband designed it and when we were building it & moving in, the bottom was coming out financially – just all the things happening at the same time. What could we do on a budget and do well. We didn’t have a yard for almost a year because we couldn’t afford the landscaping package which was required for our neighborhood (see below with bottom pic the first year we moved in – no grass). During this time, we were building our house, we were down to our last $2,000 to our name. Mercy, it was a ROUGH time but see we had grass the next year! I don’t take grass for granted!
So things are not always what they seem. I often think about how I survived those early years. Honestly I don’t know and some days I wasn’t even hanging on, the rope had been cut and I was plummeting to the bottom of the cavern. But I’m still here. I do know if it weren’t for Jesus, I wouldn’t have made it. I returned to Jesus and the Church about two years before I met Jeremy. I grew up in the Church but I was lost. Lost for years. I had walked away so long ago. So many mistakes. Whoppers of mistakes and life altering mistakes. But exactly how did I find my way back?
Conversations & Invitations
I had connected with a woman who worked for a company that supported mine. We worked closely together and became friends. Wow that’s been like 18ish years ago now. She started going back to church and she was sharing that return with me. It got me curious. Then my daughter who was in kindergarten brought home a little postcard about a “Hoedown” fall festival at their church, so we went with her bestie and their family. This little postcard invitation that a precious five-year-old girl gave to her bestie, my daughter, was the start of my return to Jesus. It changed my life.
Reflecting all these years later, I can clearly see God’s hand. I didn’t see or know it then, but He was looking for me. Waiting for me to see Him. Just to open my eyes and see the invitations and I finally did. He had not left me. I left him but when you leave something, you can find your way back. It just takes a while. It’s scary and hard work but with Jesus, He gives you beauty for ashes and joy instead of mourning (Isaiah 61).