Wednesday, February 11, 2015

The Love Chronicles: A Family Built with Love

Hello, bloggy friends! 
 Valentine's Day is just 2 days away!  Are you ready?
 I have been writing on 2 subjects lately that are related and both are very important to me... family and love....
This is the second of a series of posts I am writing on…called 
“The Love Chronicles”.  
To read Part 1, go HERE
In that post, I wrote about the love letters, shared between my grandparents during their courting days. 
I feel so blessed to have been raised by two loving Christian parents, as well. My father, who was my grandparent's youngest son, lived down the street from my mother. (Yes, they were actually neighbors). Interestingly enough, they really didn't know or meet each other until my mom graduated from high school....that was because my father was 12 years her senior. He was graduating high school when she was just starting to go to school. By the time they met, he had accomplished a lot in his life already...college, going into the navy, and working for his father's furniture business. 
Below is a photo of dad, when he was in the Navy. He is the one wearing the hat on the right.

The Furniture Mart, which was opened by my grandfather(standing on the right), and then run by my father(on the left) for over 50 years.
My parents were married in the little church, (pictured below), located just a few blocks from where they grew up. My mom told me that the picture of the wedding party was actually staged and taken after they were married. You can see people mingling in the background.
Nine months after they married, my oldest brother was born. 21 months after that, my other brother came along, followed by me, then my baby sister. It became a full house very quickly!
Our families on both sides were very close-knit. My parents built their first house on the same road they grew up on, and across the street from my paternal grandparents. Most weekends and holidays were spent at one or the other of my grandparents houses.
Below: Grandpa and Grandma with me(on the right) and my siblings.
Over the years, my mom made sure we would get annual family photos. The first photo(below) was taken in our living room. (I remember the fake brick wall behind us.) The other 2 were taken in our back yard. My dad loved photography and took all these with a timer, I'm sure. For many years he also developed all his film in a darkroom he built in our basement. I love looking at these pictures and seeing all the changes in each of us in just a few years time. (Can you find me in each pic?)
I love the photo(below) of my parents from the 70's. They were so serious looking. I suppose raising 4 children on 2 middle-class incomes wasn't easy. My father ran the family furniture store and my mother had her own beauty shop, which she ran in the back of our house.
I can honestly say, even with all the chaos and activity, our house was filled with lots of love...especially the love of extended family. God surely gave me lots of great examples of His love through my family's  time spent together, hearing and reading the Word of God, and attending church regularly.


"What we have once enjoyed we can never lose. All that we love deeply becomes a part of us."
Helen Keller

To read the other post in my series,
The Love Chronicles
For Part 1 - click HERE
For Part 3 - click HERE
Have a blessed day!




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Sunday, February 8, 2015

The Love Chronicles: Grandfather's Love letters

With February being the month that contains Valentine's Day(and  being that I just recently celebrated my wedding anniversary) I have been thinking a lot about love....in relationships and God's love for each of us. 
As I began looking through some old photos and albums, I realized that my parents and their parents left me so many wonderful examples of what love truly is. In the next 3 posts, I want to share my family heirloom of love…called 
“The Love Chronicles”.

A few years ago, I was given a box, full of letters that my grandfather and grandmother wrote, during their courtship. I decided to keep the memory of their love story by putting their letters, that tell this story, in a book. I hope you enjoy reading a few excerpts from the book below….


Below is a Valentine’s Day postcard, from my grandmother to grandfather. Also enclosed was a letter, written in French.
 Bien, cheri (Well, darling)...I could not interpret most of this letter. Any French majors out there who can tell me anymore?

The letter below, shown on the original letterhead, was written by my grandfather to my grandmother. He traveled quite a lot, especially to his homeland of Michaudville, in Quebec, Canada. He often traveled by train by land and ship through the Great Lakes. 


 For a period before finally marrying my grandmother, grandfather lived in Fort Wayne, Indiana and in Canada. Below are a few samples of the letters shared between them. My grandmother’s letters are typed  in red. 
Even during their time of engagement, my grandparents related to each other as “wife” and ”hubby”. It's obvious in the letters below that my grandfather was a hopeless romantic. His words could make any woman swoon! (A true Frenchman!)

 This is a photo of my grandparents, later in life. They were married for almost 51 years, till my grandfather passed away in 1972.

What a great inheritance of love that my grandparents shared and now I can look back on that love language through their letters. Of course, I realize that love is not the same as romance…but it definitely helps to have the ability to write with a deep conviction and  share what the heart knows and experiences.
To read the rest of my series of
The Love Chronicles
To read part 2 click HERE
And part 3, click HERE


Have a blessed week!!




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Monday, February 2, 2015

Honey for the Heart: Hold My Heart

Welcome to 
...where I share different verses from the Psalms!
 May you find truths about God, yourselves, and living life in the images and word pictures shared here! 
Psalm 13
 Lord, how long must I wait? Will you forget me forever? How long will you turn your face away from me?  How long must I struggle with my thoughts? How long must my heart be sad day after day? How long will my enemies keep winning the battle over me? LORD my God, look at me and answer me. Give me new life, or I will die. Then my enemies will say, "We have beaten him." They will be filled with joy when I die. 

But I trust in your faithful love. My heart is filled with joy because you will save me. I will sing to the Lord. He has been so good to me.
Many times I felt the heartache of the Psalmist....and have said "How long must I wait, Lord?"
I love this song by Tenth Avenue North...when we come to a place in our lives, we lay it all down and say, I trust in your faithful love, Lord!!
"Hold My Heart"




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Thursday, January 29, 2015

Celebrating 28 Years - Remembering




This weekend, we are celebrating our 28th wedding anniversary!



 I've been reminiscing about the day we were wed. A few unique things about my wedding that I remember:
  • Ken was so nervous on our wedding day that, even after being reminded by his best man, he left my wedding band at his house, 45 minutes away from the church. By the time he discovered that he forgot it, there wasn't enough time to go back and get it before the wedding. So I had to borrow a friend's wedding band and wear it in place of mine during the ceremony and wait to put the real one on when we got home. At the time, I was quite upset, but now I can look back and laugh.  
  • Ken's brother, who was one of the groomsman, was kind of a quiet and not a very social person. He told Ken that he would drive himself and meet him at the church, instead of getting a ride with him. He also lived 45 minutes away. About 20 minutes before the service was to begin, he still wasn't there. Gladly, we had all the tuxes at the church. Ken asked a friend, who was one of our ushers, to step in as a groomsman. Thankfully he and Ken's brother were the same size and the tux fit. We never found out what happened, as his brother was fine. We think he just got nervous and decided not to come.
  • My mom happened to own 2 white doves and my theme for the wedding was doves. (She raised birds in her home for many years.) We got a decorative birdcage and set them up on the stage where we were to say our vows. Right in the middle of the service, the doves started cooing like crazy. The minister stopped briefly till they stopped cooing, then continued with the service. They can be heard in our wedding video. 
  • I actually played a solo on handbells of "The Lord's Prayer" in the wedding service. (I was in a handbell choir all 4 years of college. When I graduated, my grandfather, who loved the bells, had the oppoturnity to purchase 4 octaves of used handbells from the college where I attended, So I owned my own handbells for several years and had played solo at other weddings/church services.) When I think about it now, I am amazed I was able to actually play in my own wedding and not totally mess up. 
  • My good friend, who I met while in short-term missions in Ohio, sang in my wedding. Now, her daughter is in an up and coming contemporary Christian band, called "Shine Bright Baby". They both are very gifted singers.
Unfortunately, I was unable to download our video of the wedding. It was an old video(28 years old) and was filmed by a friend, who wasn't a professional videographer. I was able to get some pictures from the video to put together and share different parts of that day...albeit, very fuzzy pictures that are mostly in gray and green. I did share some professional photos near the end, along with some current pictures of me and Ken.
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Hope you enjoyed my post about such a special day for us! 

 May your day be brightened by watching and reminiscing with me here!


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Sunday, January 25, 2015

When God Made You...


Have you ever wondered why (specifically) God made you?

  Throughout my life there have been a number of times that that question has crossed my mind. 
 There were times that I really wondered what God's plan was for my life.

        What was He thinking when he made me? 
                                      What was I born to do?
Ultimately, we all have been commanded to do some things:
 And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”  
Mark 12:30-31
 “The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.”Ecclesiastes 12:13


With that said, I'll have to say, I truly only felt my true calling when I became a wife and mother!

 And when I think of my husband, and how we met, I can only give credit to God for bringing and keeping us together! If I ever had wondered what God was thinking when He made Ken, I know it included meeting me, and me meeting him! 

 Our 28th wedding anniversary is coming next Saturday, January 31st, so of course the story of our life has been on my mind a lot...can't help it, as I'm such a hopeless romantic at heart! 

 If you've ever watched the movie, "The Notebook" you will know right off, it's definitely a chick flick...filled with romance and all that gooshy stuff. It's also a full-out tear jerker...

 But, I love the movie anyway..maybe because it's so realistic about what a real love between a husband and wife should be about...that long-lasting, commitment to stay together, no matter what life brings kind of love. It shows that love doesn't mean that everything goes perfectly in life or that you never fight or disagree. It doesn't mean that there won't be heartaches and disappointments.

But it does remind us that it truly is worth it all! 

I love it that the story moves from the couple,  still together in their old age, even in the hardest of times.(I especially was touched by the story because my mom took care of my dad, who had Alzheimers disease, for several years before he passed away) and then it goes back to the love story of how they met and the ups and downs along the way. That's real life. Below is a trailer of the movie.

I am so blessed to have already had 28 years of memories with Ken and I pray that we have many, many more. I look at this story and hope we are blessed as we continue to share that love that is strong and enjoy our lives together, even in our old age, someday! (of course we both pray that God would bless us by taking us to be with Him at the same time.)

One of my favorite Christian love songs is "When God Made You" by Newsong, featuring Natalie Grant. Listen to the song, put to scenes from "The Notebook" below, followed by the lyrics.

It's always been a mystery to me
How two hearts can come together 
And love can last forever
But now that I have found you, I believe
That a miracle has come 
When God sends the perfect one
Now gone are all my questions about why 
And I've never been so sure of anything in my life
[Chorus:]
I wonder what God was thinking 
When He created you 
I wonder if He knew everything I would need
Because He made all my dreams come true 
When God made you
He must have been thinking about me
I promise that wherever you may go 
Wherever life may lead you 
With all my heart I'll be there too 
From this moment on I want you to know 
I'll let nothing come between us 
And I will love the ones you love 
Now gone are all my questions about why 
And I've never been so sure of anything in my life
He made the sun He made the moon 
To harmonize in perfect tune 
One Can't move without the other 
They just have to be together 
And that is why I know it's true 
You're for me and I'm for you 
'Cause my world just Can't be right 
Without you in my life 
[Chorus:]
He must have heard every prayer I've been praying 
Yes He knew everything I would need 
When God made you 
When dreams come true 
When God made you  
He must have been thinking about me

I usually don't share more than one or two Youtube videos in one post, but I came across this one that someone made and had to share it, also.. I hadn't heard the song before, but love it, too!
(My prayer)


If you ever wonder what God was thinking when He created you....know that as long as you walk with Him as your guide, you are where He wants you!  Trust in His ways, even when times get tough!


I love it that our anniversary comes right before Valentine's Day every year....I get a double dose of sharing our love!! I'll be sharing some more things about our love story in the next few posts. So, stay tuned!




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