Our Family; God's Masterpiece

This is the slide show we made for the wedding. It is put to two songs both by Jeremy Camp. The first song is "I Still Believe." Jeremy wrote this song after his wife died of cancer and it spoke to Ginger as well as Andrea and me as we all went through our trials and clung to the Lord. The second song is "Beyond Measure." This song was on Jeremy's last album and it was written after he remarried. It is a song that expresses how God has blessed him again, but more importantly how we are nothing apart from God. His ability to express the emotions of losing a spouse, or any tragedy for that matter is amazing. I could always feel the pain and his humble spirit in his songs. Andrea and I went to a Jeremy Camp concert in 2005 while living in DC. It was a moving experience as he told the story behind "I Still Believe" and "I Will Walk by Faith" knowing the reality of Andrea's diagnoses. It was equally moving when this past February Ginger and I went to a Jeremy Camp concert sang these songs together.

As we began planning our wedding Ginger and I both wanted to include Troy and Andrea in the ceremony because they made us who we are. Between us we were married 40 wonderful years and we thought Jeremy Camp's words expressed how we felt.

As Ginger said at the wedding and in her last blog, it is okay to feel sadness and happiness when you watch this video. I know this video will be difficult in many ways for you to watch, it was for Ginger and I, but I also know it reflects God's provision and blessings. In doing so this video is sad and uplifting. I have found that dealing with these emotions coexisting has been difficult. It is not just unhappy and happy, it is the extremes of sadness and joy and that does not usually exist at the same time.

That is a unique aspect of our marriage, we live with these two emotions and we are able to express them to each other and help each other as we work through our feelings. We both deeply miss Troy and Andrea, yet we feel God's hand guiding us in a very real way, and that gives us the strength we need.

Our prayer is that God will give us the opportunity to share Troy's and Andrea's stories as well as our life in hopes that it would encourage others. I don't want anyone to think that because of our joy that we somehow are ready to praise God, as if God had left us when we hurt and as someone reappeared in our life. As I said at our wedding, God has never left us, even in the darkest of moments when Ginger heard the knock on her door or when Dr Atkins told Andrea she had incurable metastatic cancer in her liver, lungs and bones. It is not the removal of difficulty that is evidence of God's presence rather the ability to handle what you lack the ability or strength to handle. We have both had the hardest of days, days when we could not see how we would ever make it to the next minute much less the next day. And it is only when you look back you ask, "How did I make it?" that you know it was God providing your strength. He was there in the moment even though you may have felt totally alone. It was not by removing the trial or our pain for there we still many difficult days, but it was by helping us go through the trial that God deserves all praise. Sometimes He helped in silence, sometimes He helped through your acts of kindness. That is what we want others to know God is faithful, and God does bless us even when we are facing life's most difficult challenges or simply a bad day.

My prayer is that you see this video as a testimony to God's love for us and the great price that was paid for us to find one another. I believe with all my heart that we are exactly where God wants us to be. Though there is great sadness there is also great Joy, and that is okay.

Psalm 126:5
Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy