God is in CONTROL

Saturday, January 21, 2017

44 Years - Married to My Man

When I first heard Terry speak, I prayed -- "Lord, I want to marry a man like that."  This handsome preacher spoke words of hope and love.

Two years later, we officially met when he came to our Church to be the youth minister.  That March when I was home for Spring Break, my mom invited him for Sunday lunch. Eating dinner with my parents and two brothers, he maintains that he was so nervous that he wiped his mouth with his tie during the meal.

 He likes to tell that when I walked into Church he saw me and there was a halo over my head --
Don't know about the legitimacy of that -- but one thing I do know is that God has been such a part of our daily lives and decisions, and the reason behind the direction we took throughout our lives.
Ministry has been our life.

Helping people understand that Jesus loves them and saves them by His grace has been T's message since the beginning.  From early on His preaching centered on understanding Spiritual Gifts and knowing that God's Spirit is alive, active and accessible.

We have designated this as anniversary week doing our favorite things together all week  -- starting last Friday with seeing "Hidden Figures".   Monday we used our MLK holiday to work on our favorite project -- Kids University-- converting a storage room to a KU Klubhouse.  Never mind that we worked ourselves senseless lifting and moving heavy boxes -- we transformed the room closer to what we were hoping for.
We finished up the week celebrating with our 3 little "Goodletts" on Friday night and Saturday going to OKC Science museum.
 








I thought about all the ministry projects we've shared in together -- this is the guy who built a submarine in 1973 for the Sunday school classes to have a Bible Learning Center.  A couple of years later, Terry was known as "Mr. Shiney Shoes" in Memphis, TN as he led Bus Ministry to 300 inner city children at White State Church of Christ during his graduate school years.

During those Memphis years - we traveled to India three times holding ministry teaching schools -- Terry had already been there twice as a young college man.

He started a weekly radio program in the early 80's called HOME TALK -- following up with a weekly couples class -  that we hosted 100 for dinner on Wednesday nights.
Marriage and Family Institute of Tulsa was birthed in 2007 to help area couples strengthen communication in their marriage.  Kids University grew from a desire of ours to reach at-risk children in West Tulsa.

For the past 17 Years Terry has ministered to the a church plant on the West Side where he felt God was calling us - investing his energy into the stabilizing this group of Believers.  During this time his has taught countless college classes - and specialized in writing ministry courses for OKWU.

We wanted our kids to see the real in life -- not feel like they were living in a glass house -- but be free to be themselves.   They would travel with us wherever we got to travel in ministry -- be it Spain when they were 18 mos and 3 1/2, Mexico at 15 months and 2 and 4 years of age, Austria in 1st and 3rd grade or any place Stateside that ministry took us.  We've done Disneyland while daddy had a COBE conference -- Disney World while Terry spoke at a Church conference and other places.  He kept up a busy speaking schedule throughout our kids early elementary years and we tried to make it a family affair and packed up and went with him.

These 44 years have gone quickly --time does pass quickly when you're having fun -- and involved
in a work you enjoy together.


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