Heather from Swallowing a Moose is hosting  "Giving Thanks on Thanksgiving", and has asked me to participate.   

So I am going to tell you a little bit about how God has worked in my life, and some of His many blessings towards me and my family.

Over my teenage years, I had no friends my age, and was extremely lonely. I tried to make friends but most girls weren't interested in being my friend, because I wasn't enough like them. 

The friends I thought I had weren't really friends, as most of them pretended to be friends with me when they were around me,  but when they were with other people their attitude towards me would change.

I ended up feeling betrayed by friend after friend, and I began praying to God, many times crying, "Please, please would you give me a friend who will not stop caring about me?  Will you please give me a friend who will make me laugh?  A friend who will be faithful and never give up on me?  Oh please, God, give me this friend."

I prayed this same prayer for two years.  I sometimes felt that God was not answering my prayers, but I kept telling myself that one day He would answer.  Maybe He had different plans in store for me. 

Little did I know, God was listening, and He did directly answer my prayer when I was 15.    I was at a grocery store with my mom, shopping.  While there, I met my husband's brother (grocery bagger), and after talking to him, he gave me his phone number.   I started calling him every so often just to talk.  One day James answered the phone instead.   He was really nice, and I enjoyed talking to him...so we started talking to me every day.     For eight months we chatted away on the phone, until one day we finally decided to meet in person.    We met at the bowling alley... we spent the entire day together, having fun and getting to know each other.    He was always so nice to me, and at the time I thought of him as a great friend.

James came to my house and we would just spend hours talking and laughing.   I never knew it, but James was in love with me.  I just thought we were best friends. 

One day, a year after having been his friend, I realized that I was in love with James.  I didn't want to tell him though, because I was afraid that I would ruin our friendship.   I was afraid he would hate me if I told him how I felt.  So I kept it to myself for a while...but eventually  I decided I couldn't stand it ...I had to let him know.  I wrote him a letter, telling him how I felt. I told him on the phone that I had written him a letter, and that I would bring it to church with me.   He told me he was looking forward to it....but I wasn't sure if I was!

When I got to church, before the service began, I showed him the letter.    He then surprised me by showing me a letter he had written me one year before, in which he had said the same thing.    From that moment, we knew we were getting married. There was no need for a proposal at all- we just knew.

I could see God's hand in so many things during our relationship.   While James and I were still just friends, I had asked him if he was a Christian.  He told me that he was not.    I remember feeling crushed, because I think this was about the time I wanted to be in a closer relationship with him, and I knew that could never happen if this was the case.  I decided not to bring it up again.

About a month or two later, James had told me that he had been reading his Bible alone, and was convicted in his heart...and he had asked Jesus to save him that day.     The next week, he was baptized.  I remember so clearly the day. After he was baptized the pastor had asked him if there was anything he would like to say.  With tears in his eyes, James said, "God, by his infinite mercy and sovereign grace, saved me."

James and I had to wait two years before we could get married (when I turned 18).   He began working for my father, and we saw each other all of the time, but I never wanted to leave his side.  We wrote letters to each other every day.   I still have many of those letters.

Finally, it was almost time to get married.   I wasn't concerned with having a big wedding- I just wanted to marry him!    But I wasn't anticipating how God would provide for us.   I was able to find a beautiful wedding dress at a thrift store for 30 dollars.    I loved it and knew it was the dress I would wear.    My mother in law took it out a size for me, because it was just a little bit too small.  

Ladies at church had heard the news that James and I were to be married, and they started putting their heads together to put the perfect wedding together for us.  We never asked for it...it was only out of the goodness of their hearts that they did this. 

One lady bought flower arrangements, white lattice, and many other decorations for the wedding. 
My mom paid to have a pianist play for the wedding and paid for our hotel stay for the honeymoon.
Another woman paid for a singer.
Someone else made a groom's cake and a bride's cake.
Another woman paid to have my dress dry cleaned.  
One man brought a video camera and taped the whole thing.
Someone else had designed the wedding invitation cards.
A few people took pictures and after the wedding, brought me photo albums already put together with photos. 
Someone made my veil, someone made the bird seed packets (instead of using rice), my mother in law made the bouquet of flowers (which was beautiful), and on and on the list could go.   The wedding was absolutely beautiful.

I realized that I was surrounded by friends.  

All that James or I paid to have the wedding put together was $30.00.    And it was the prettiest wedding I could have ever hoped for.  God had truly blessed us, as we could have never afforded this wedding ourselves.

James and I had wondered for a long time where we were going to live, and how we were going to be able to afford a place.  James was making very little money at the time.  I figured that we would have to live in a little apartment until we could figure something out.  I prayed that God would provide us with a good place to live. 
 
It turned out that only shortly before we got married, James' parents moved out of this house, and left it fully furnished.   We were able to buy the house from them and move in right after getting married.   It was such a gift!   

I was blessed with 3 children in the next 8 years.  After the third baby,  I had a "missed miscarriage", (which means that the baby passes away and your body doesn't recognize it right away).  I found out one week before it happened that it was coming.   I remember praying that God would please spare the baby's life, and asked him if He would please let the doctors would be wrong.    The answer ended up being my worst nightmare, and the baby indeed did miscarry.    I thought, "Why would God allow this?  He knows how much I wanted this child.", "Why didn't He answer my prayers?" but I  had to remind myself that sometimes God answers prayers with a "no".   I knew that somehow God would turn this situation into a blessing, and that He could see the whole picture, even though I couldn't.     Because of this, I named my little baby, "Blessing".   I also had a second miscarriage 3 months later, which I named "Faith". I shared every detail of my feelings about these miscarriages on this blog. 

I prayed that He would use my baby's short life for a purpose.   After sharing my story online for the last year, I have seen how God indeed turned this loss into a blessing. 

I had taken pictures of my baby and shared them, and ended up getting email after email from women who had had miscarriages and needed closure. Seeing my baby's pictures gave many of them the closure they needed, to know that what they lost was indeed a little human being.  Or reading my story made them feel validated about their own feelings after their losses.

Another thing that brought joy to my heart was that some women emailed me, telling me that they had decided against abortion after seeing the pictures and hearing my story.  To know that my baby's short life had such purpose...that means more than I can ever say.

James was the friend who was with me through all of this, and he was able to help me grieve and heal from the loss.  He planted 5 beautiful weeping willow trees in memory of my babies.  Without his support, I don't know what I would have done.

Every step of the way, my husband has been there.  And I know that he was the answer to my prayers years ago when I asked God for a friend.  

I know for sure that God answers prayers.   This is what I am thankful for this Thanksgiving. 

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By request, here are some of our wedding pictures. Sorry about the poor quality- I had to scan them in.





This one is my absolute favorite...