We sat together on a bus at the Coca-Cola Scholars weekend in Atlanta. (We were both brainiacs, believe it or not. Well, you probably believe it about Jeff.) :-) We spent nearly the entire weekend talking and being silly. I told all my friends when I got home that I had met the "boy I would marry."
A couple months later, my church took a mission trip to New Mexico, and Jeff's parents said he could go. (Can you imagine letting your 18-year-old go on a trip states over for a week with someone you didn't even know?) It was definitely a "God thing." We got to know each other even better through a week of serving God, and I can't think of a better way to have started our relationship.
Jeff went to the University of Alabama the following year, and I went to Birmingham-Southern. We saw each other a lot on weekends, and I ended up transferring to UA during the middle of our sophomore year. The following year, we were engaged on Christmas, and we got married the summer after we finished college. A year-and-a-half later, we added Maggie to the mix, and two years after that, sweet Miller joined our family.
God has blessed us with things we could never deserve, and we pray every day that He will use us to glorify Him. He has shown us that we cannot take each other for granted, and that marriage is a blessing each day, whether things are easy or hard.
Man, am I grateful for April 26, 2001.
