How I got from there to here...
I was born into a rather dysfunctional military family. Father deployed often (this was during the VietNam era), a mother with some serious mental illnesses. My refuge was the military housing communities we lived in. There, there were always hoards of kids just like me, dad gone, mom dealing with being a single parent.
In one housing community, I met the love of my life. His sister and I were best friends, and I thought he was the cutest thing I'd ever seen...we started dating and dated all the way through my junior and senior year of high school. I knew he was planning to join the Navy, so I figured he'd leave and that would be that. The night before he left for basic training, we went out to supposedly say our good-byes. We were on the beach and he came and knelt in front of me. He asked me if I would wait for him when he came back from basic, and would I consider being his wife. I said yes, not knowing what the next couple of years would hold. We married 9 weeks later.
Our early marriage was difficult. I was young, only 17, he was 19. We knew nothing about being adults, about being married. His temper was out of control and so was his drinking. We lived in this little, rundown apartment on base where he was stationed and I soon found out I was expecting our first baby. Our next door neighbors were this family that seemed to have it all together. She and I became friends as my pregnancy progressed. Her husband worked in the same shop as my husband on board the ship. There was something SO different about her. They had 2 little boys and she always seemed so calm, so patient with the boys. I soon found out why. His name was Jesus Christ. She started witnessing to me, both by word and deed. Shortly after our first baby was born, I became a Christian. I prayed and prayed for my husband and soon got a letter from him saying that he'd accepted Christ and had been baptized during one of their port stops. WOW!!!
Since then, we've moved around a lot, we've grown a lot and had a whole lot more kids! We have been blessed by 12 children and now 9 grandchildren (so far). We'll celebrate our 32nd wedding anniversary in just a couple of weeks.
So...that's how I got from there to here.
I was born into a rather dysfunctional military family. Father deployed often (this was during the VietNam era), a mother with some serious mental illnesses. My refuge was the military housing communities we lived in. There, there were always hoards of kids just like me, dad gone, mom dealing with being a single parent.
In one housing community, I met the love of my life. His sister and I were best friends, and I thought he was the cutest thing I'd ever seen...we started dating and dated all the way through my junior and senior year of high school. I knew he was planning to join the Navy, so I figured he'd leave and that would be that. The night before he left for basic training, we went out to supposedly say our good-byes. We were on the beach and he came and knelt in front of me. He asked me if I would wait for him when he came back from basic, and would I consider being his wife. I said yes, not knowing what the next couple of years would hold. We married 9 weeks later.
Our early marriage was difficult. I was young, only 17, he was 19. We knew nothing about being adults, about being married. His temper was out of control and so was his drinking. We lived in this little, rundown apartment on base where he was stationed and I soon found out I was expecting our first baby. Our next door neighbors were this family that seemed to have it all together. She and I became friends as my pregnancy progressed. Her husband worked in the same shop as my husband on board the ship. There was something SO different about her. They had 2 little boys and she always seemed so calm, so patient with the boys. I soon found out why. His name was Jesus Christ. She started witnessing to me, both by word and deed. Shortly after our first baby was born, I became a Christian. I prayed and prayed for my husband and soon got a letter from him saying that he'd accepted Christ and had been baptized during one of their port stops. WOW!!!
Since then, we've moved around a lot, we've grown a lot and had a whole lot more kids! We have been blessed by 12 children and now 9 grandchildren (so far). We'll celebrate our 32nd wedding anniversary in just a couple of weeks.
So...that's how I got from there to here.
