New Beginnings - Part 1 (updated at end of blog)

Well, this is going to be a bit long as I have a couple of years of God's work to catch up on.  Hopefully I will be more consistent after this as the next year promises to be even more amazing as we watch God work out whatever His plan is for our lives.

You will note the change from singular to plural in that last sentence - instead of "my life" it is now "our lives".  The biggest event that happened in the last couple of years was a wedding :)  Meet my sweet husband, Ron Jenkins:
Best thing that ever happened to me - and a catalyst for more change than I could have ever imagined!  Me - 47 yrs old; Him - 46.  First marriage for either of us.  Wedding date = June 2nd 2012.  As a side note - I love the symmetry of that date - 6x2=12, 12+2+6=20 and so forth :)  It just makes sense - as does our relationship.

We met several years ago through our church but didn't really "know" each other for a long time.  It was more "oh, look at that handsome man playing the guitar in the worship band - probably has a girlfriend :(" for me and "the sister of the worship pastor? out of my league!" for him . . .  which makes me snicker :)  Anywho, via time in Dinner Theater together and thanks to the encouragement of my brother, we started chatting and became friends.  After a while, wanting an excuse to spend more time with him (hopes were rising on my part) I asked him to give me guitar lessons.  I couldn't pay so Sunday lunch was the bribe.  Inevitably I was the worst student EVER but he kept coming over for lunch.  It didn't take long for the lessons to quietly fall by the wayside and Ron just became a regular Sunday lunch participant.  :)  

The months went by . . .  at one point my brother asked if he could talk to Ron about me - suggest that he consider me on more than a friendship level.  I said "sure" and he did - and he told me that he did - and . . . . nothing happened :(  So, as the months went by, my hope dwindled faded and I began to believe we would only be friends and worked very hard on convincing my heart that friendship would be enough.  And I was almost convinced . . . 

Ron had gotten to know my family through our Sunday lunches but we had never met any of his family - until his sister asked to meet me :)  He had spoken highly of his sister and I was looking forward to making her acquaintance so we set up a coffee date :)  We had the best time!  Susan is a VERY direct individual (which I respect and appreciate), which I expected from what Ron had told me so I was surprised more by the content than the presentation when the first thing she did was ask me about my relationship with her brother ;-)   The hope that was almost dead sprang back into life by the simple fact that she asked - I mean, why would she ask if he hadn't said SOMEthing, right?  That was January 30th 2012.  While Susan didn't want to put words in her brother's mouth, she did tell me not to give up hope and that there were feelings there! *yay* :o)

Valentine's Day approached and, unbeknownst to me, Susan had a chat with Ron & "encouraged" him to make his feelings known.  I've since learned that he's incredibly shy about sharing his feelings - they run deep, like mine, and are thus not easily shared.  Feb 14th 2012, for the first time EVER in my life, I got flowers from a suitor - and if you haven't guessed who that was, you haven't been paying attention - *grin*

The card was a simple poem indicating his feelings for me and it did not take long for me to call him up to thank him for making my whole day and let him know I felt the same.  That dying hope, cautiously rekindled a couple of weeks earlier, now burst into full blaze and there was no going back!

The rest is HISstory - God worked AMAZING things - in March Ron said he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me and since I couldn't imagine not spending the rest of my life with him, we were married in June.  Considering my paycheck to paycheck budget and Ron's unemployment and the short time-span, the wedding we had was utterly spectacular.  SO MANY hands and hearts helped to shower blessing upon blessing down on us!  The wedding cake that was prepared as a gift, the wedding dress that was GIVEN to me and then completely re-made just for me by a sweet seamstress friend and her daughter, the flowers my Aunt Karen (recently gone to be with the Lord), lovingly prepared for us, the worship center and reception area decorations lovingly designed by my sister-in-law, the pictures and video donated by loving friends and family and SO MUCH MORE.  There was rarely a day when God did not surprise Ron & I with some new blessing.

When our big day arrived, so did about 300 guests!  Family and friends from near and far away honored us with their presence and we were overwhelmed by that outpouring of love!  The a/c in the church had some challenges so we nearly lost Ron to a faint in the middle of the ceremony :-p  but in the end, it all went of with a hitch ;-)  Which is how weddings are supposed to go.  

I'll leave you with some pics and pick this up tomorrow with part 2 which will focus on ministry/church stuffs :)

UPDATE - JUL 30 2015

***Coming back to this after more than 2 years!!  Found all the pics missing so deleted the "can't find this pic to display" icons just to clean up a bit.  Look for me to get more active on this site in the near future.  Contemplating some Bible Study / Teaching stuffs . . .