While I am writing this I am still on a bus driving back from Florida. We are nearing Shreveport which means we are finally nearing Texas! I am ready to return home. Today marks my 21st wedding anniversary with Brenda. For several years I have been preaching youth camps or been on mission trips during our anniversary. She has been more than tolerant and understanding.
She really gives me the freedom to seek first the Kingdom of God. What does it mean to seek the Kingdom God first according to [Matt 6:33]? For Brenda it means doing without her husband for days and at times for weeks. She has released me to travel the world preaching when God has called. She lets me go when I need to go away with the Lord to pray and write for days at a time. She sacrifices the comforts many others take for granted all for the sake of advancing the Kingdom of God.
When we got married one of the songs we loved and claimed was an old song titled "People Need the Lord." For twenty-one years we have been proclaiming Jesus as a youth minister and spouse, traveling evangelist, pastor, and two times as a church planter. She sent me a text earlier that read, "Can't wait to see what craziness the next year holds for us."
She had no idea when we stood before the preacher at the First Baptist Church of Hurst, TX where she grew up that our lives would have so many twists and turns. She has faithfully supported me in prayer and labor through these twenty-one years. She has often prayed for me in the late night watches of the night when I have struggled to get a fresh word to preach. She has been there when doubts and spiritual attacks have come my way. She has been my greatest encourager. She has stayed true when the tough times have come and there have been numerous tough seasons.
For twenty-one years she has listened to the dreams God has put in my heart and waited faithfully for God to fulfill them. She has not grown hard or bitter at the tough road we have often been called to walk. I am humbled by her gentle perseverance and optimism even in the darkest of times.
I know that quiet strength comes from her glorious pursuit of God. She has been in pursuit of Him since way before she ever met me. She has sought God in scripture reading and prayer. She has sought God in prayer with a force of faith that defies her quiet demeanor. She is a fierce prayer warrior and she has taught me how to pursue God when we first God married.
She has a depth and maturity that only comes from lingering in the Lord's presence. She has been forced to walk a road of faith she would have never chosen for herself. She has patiently waited on God to come through when the mountains loomed a menacing shadow over our family and ministry. It has been her constancy that calms me when I feel overwhelmed.
While I traveled to other nations and other states preaching and laboring for Christ she stayed home and raised our boys. Now that they are in school and we are planting this church, she has reentered the work force to help us make financial ends meet. She does not complain. She never has. She simply follows where the Lord leads and makes the best of things.
Today I celebrate twenty-one years of marriage to an uncommon woman. Wherever we have served people have loved her. She always leaves a deep impression on people. I am blessed and I know it. I realize what a gift I have been given. She aids me on this glorious pursuit.
It is not always easy to live with someone who would just as soon be shut up with God for hours on end praying and seeking seclusion. She understands. She senses when God is calling me to leave her and the boys for a season for extended times of prayer. More times than I can count she has been awakened by me being awakened by God to get up to pray all hours of the night and morning. She often has trouble going back to sleep and has to endure her days sleep deprived.
I never knew our pursuit of God together would lead to such interesting adventures. I never knew we would suffer as much as we have suffered. I still believe God is going to do some big things through us. I keep praying, seeking, preaching, writing, trusting, and following where God leads regardless of whether it leads to our comfort or discomfort. She follows as a devoted follower of Christ first and my wife second.
As I continue my own pursuit of God I am inspired and grateful for a wife who has been on her own glorious pursuit longer than I have been a Christian. In fact, when she was in eighth grade she began praying for the man she would one day marry. She did not know I stood condemned and lost without Christ. God saved me in 1983. She continued to pray for me not knowing her future husband would surrender his life to Jesus to preach July 4, 1985. She had no idea God would bring us together on the campus of Howard Payne University even though we grew up four hours from one another.
I am thankful for my wife, best friend, cheer leader, prayer warrior, and my companion on this glorious pursuit. I am blessed beyond measure. Lord, thank you for my wife and help meet on this journey to know you.
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