Preacher’s Wife Teaching Life

My mom, Kathie wrote this and I wanted to share it with you: When a man steps forward with a word from The Lord, we better pay attention.  That happened to me yesterday. Have you ever had a vision or dream of something that you would like to see happen?  I did, when I married David.  I really felt that God would take us to a place where there were beaches to pastor a church.  I learned early on that my vision was not the one that God had for us. We came to Dallas, Texas for seminary training, we thought we were going back to Pennsylvania in four years. That didn't happen. A little church in Stephenville, Texas needed a pastor.  There went the beach ministry, BUT God's vision for us was greater than ours. Looking back over the last 25 years, we can see His hand in the whole roller coaster ride.  That ride was both scary and exciting. The way we used to define our ministry was something like, who will come along side of us, believe in us, and suppor...

I have to start this post with some background story. Please bear with me as I eventually make my way to the meat of the story. Jarrod and I first met in high school on a double date - but not with each other. He was with a girl he had been dating for a couple years and I was with his best friend (our first and last date). Jarrod graduated, went to the Air Force and continued to date his girlfriend for 3 more years. I finished high school and went to college in our home town. In March of 2007 (Jarrod and his girlfriend had been broken up for a while at this point) Jarrod "friended" me on MySpace, I accepted, and we messaged each other for about 2 months. We were like silly little school children, waiting impatiently for each others' next message. After messaging each other on MySpace for 2 months, we exchanged phone numbers and I text messaged him a couple days later with a simple message...testing the waters. We continued to text message for 2 weeks when he st...

I died when I was 13. I was in an ATV accident that landed me with a fractured skull and bleeding brain that resulted in the miracle of a lifetime. When I woke up, I knew I had been given the gift of a second chance at life. It was the summer of 2000 that we celebrated our freedom from the school year by riding four-wheelers on my friend's dairy. We were excited about being freshman and feeling pretty mature by practicing our driving skills on the ATV in the field. I was slightly less mature in my driving than my friend and lost control of the machine. Before we knew it, I slammed my unprotected head into a pole and my friend broke her femur from the impact of sitting behind me. She waited on the ground and prayed for help (no cell phones) while I rocked back and forth, unconscious on the ground. We were found, my parents were called, the ambulance came and we were off to the hospital. My whole family met us there to find me bleeding and unrecognizable. The doctors lost me tw...