Today is Kathy's birthday. I won't tell you how old she is, but she was a child bride and next month we will celebrate 36 wonderful years of marriage. You do the math...She has been a life partner, a team mate with me in church ministry, a great mom, foster mom, adoptive mom, grandmother, Godly example to our children and grandchildren and many people whom she has influenced for good. She has taught many of you in Sunday School classes, small group meetings and workshops and seminars. She helped coordinate many of your children's weddings, directed your church women's groups, directed kid's choirs, youth choir's, ensembles, adult choirs, played the harp for every kind of occasion, sang in ensembles she coordinated and sung on many worship teams. She has sat with you in the hospital, praying and encouraging you as you worried about your loved you there. She has had many meals, meetings and telephone conversations with women who needed a compassionate and godly ear, a loving shoulder to cry on, and someone they could count on to be a prayer partner. She has entertained many of you in our home with her wonderful hospitality gift.
On our first date, she told me she wanted to be a pastor's wife. I told her that was the dumbest thing I ever heard. 36 years later, this pastor's wife and I are about to embark on a new ministry adventure. As we have walked together through the most difficult year of our marriage, she has never complained once about being a pastor's wife, or being career ministers. Even when her prayers for the details of a new job didn't come to pass (she asked the Lord to be near relatives, live in a place that was familiar, and wasn't too hot in the summer), she is looking forward to moving to Tucson, Arizona, a place we've never even visited, isn't near any of our relatives and has triple digit temperatures for much of the summer. She is a trooper, called of God, to be exactly what she has become.
The writer of Proverbs 31 had Kathy in mind when he wrote: She is clothed with strength and dignity; she can laugh at the days to come. She speaks with wisdom, and faithful instruction is on her tongue. She watches over the affairs of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness. Her children arise and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her: "Many women do noble things, but you surpass them all." (Emphasis mine)
Kathy's oldest grandson is in the picture with her, Jackson, our first teenage grandchild. She has on her Tim Tebow Denver Broncos jersey. She is one of the top 10 Bronco fans of all time. (When we found out we were moving to Tucson, one of the first things she did was check the Broncos schedule for this upcoming season and found out they play the Arizona Cardinals in a pre-season game in Phoenix in August. Guess where she'll be.)
Happy birthday, baby doll...you deserve it.
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