6.4.23 Wedding Day Toast of Gratitude
Clayton and Amanda, here we are on your wedding day celebrating! Let me start with a few words of gratitude: Jennifer, thank you for such a godly young woman. You’ve raised her well as a woman of honor and one of many passions and one love. Yes, I prayed for her and for you for…
A Marriage Prayer
Dear Heavenly Father, We are grateful for the way your Spirit moves in our lives and directs our every step. Thank you for the ways you have created Clayton and Amanda and brought them together. Thank you for the homes they came from, the love they experienced there, the principles they were taught there, their…
June 3rd , 2023 Thoughts for my Son on the eve of His Wedding
Clayton, soon after your dad died, I started a blog to keep saying all the unspoken things, not leaving my thoughts and feelings stranded in my heart. Our lives are stories, letters and words to others and sometimes by sharing them we grow our love. What would I want to say on such a day…
It’s Wedding Week! What to say about marriage?
There are so many examples and similes of marriage, but today I choose to compare marriage to soccer – the beautiful game! 1. When marriage is new it is like a little kids’ soccer game – it takes a while to realize who your teammates are and which direction you need to go. Little kids…
Amanda’s Shower Advice
Dear (Clayton &) Amanda – “What marriage advice would you share?” I always think this is a weird question because it reduces the most important relationship down to a quick response… I don’t like to give such a thin answer to such a weighty subject. Marriage is our most layered and complex of relationships and…
8 Years – Happy Anniversary!
8 years is not so long but it is long enough to need to be reminded that what you signed up for was to serve each other. The best way to happiness in marriage is to keep serving the one you chose 8 years ago! Keep choosing each other. Keep choosing to invest. Choose to…
Clayton Happy Birthday #27
I know that every parent feels this way, but what happened to time?! I remember the day you were born and it was about now that I finally held you. It seems not so long ago that you were my little boy and I was taking care of you every day. Now those days are…
Connor Happy Birthday #33
Today is your birthday! I hope it is good but that it is followed by an amazing year of God’s favor and a few good breaks. The past few years – actually most of the years I have known you – you have been pushed to the margins and not been treated well by any…
A Letter to my Future Daughter-in-Law
Dear Amanda – I am ecstatic to finally know you by name! I have been praying for you since before you were born and I look forward to being “related”! You are not what I imagined – you are MORE! I am grateful to our good God who has answered my prayers beyond my wildest…
The Other Woman part 2
Once upon a time, aka 30 years ago, my husband fell in love with another woman. Actually, that is not quite accurate – it was a female child. When September 3rd had just begun, so began the in-person relationship between Jim and Emily that had begun to develop as an idea many years earlier in…