Till Death Do Us Part

Billy and I met in May of 1973 at our senior class day at Six Flags over Texas. I was dating his best friend and he made me mad and Billy moved right on in and the rest is history! Six months later we were married on my 19th birthday. It scared my parents to death and left our high school friends at the lottery wheel betting on "how long will they last?"

I was your spoiled first-born, blonde-haired, blue-eyed cheerleader who did well in school and was an overachiever. Billy was the third-born, LONG-haired, brown-eyed playboy who tolerated school and just wanted to have fun! We were both 19 and from markedly different environments.

Several years ago I was approached by a youth group director who wanted me to come and share my marriage "story." I gulped and said I was probably not the one who needed to come and talk to young, impressionable minds with my story. She looked at me with great compassion and said, "Oh, did you have to get married?" That was probably the ONLY thing we did right. :)

We are a miracle. We are a living, breathing example that there is such a thing as true love from puppy love. Our marriage is nothing short of miraculous. I have no dramatic tales of fighting, separations or falling-outs! We started out as dumb kids madly in love with each other and grew to be the closest of friends who are madly in love with each other and the family we have - with God's help - created.

We have survived the best of days: a whirlwind courtship and marriage, the birth of three beautiful sons, watching each other become the godly people we were created to be, starting a ministry together and having the good health to enjoy these empty nest days surrounded by wonderful friends and family.

We have survived the worst of days: putting each other through college, a traumatic job loss, several unplanned and unwanted moves and the relocation of one son to heaven.

This man and I have shared so much together. We have grown up and grown old by each other's side and no one knows the joys and sorrows that have tied our souls together like we do. That is the heart of marriage. But more than that it is a commitment to stay when 'the worst of days' seem to go on with no light at the end of the tunnel.

Perhaps that is the biggest perk to growing old - you learn the light will always come. It may take a while - a long while - but it always comes. He always comes.

I sure wouldn't recommend getting married at 19 after knowing someone only 6 months but I'm sure grateful I did it! Wherever you may be in your marriage today I pray that you will hold on to one another. It is so worth it.

Happy Anniversary Billy!

Giving Thanks

It's Thanksgiving week and we are celebrating one year in Rockwall. It is a fitting time to be thoughtful about where we are and where we've come from. Thanksgiving was officially declared a national holiday in order for Americans to look back on our heritage - to remember those early British settlers who chose a hard and rigorous new country in order to have religious freedom. Because of their sacrifices we have the right to call ourselves Americans. Our country is not perfect but it is the best country in the world and many, many thousands of people would give anything to live here. I am so grateful to be an American.

I love our new city. We are close to our children and that is a huge blessing. They drop in on us frequently and meals together, shopping trips, movies, game nights - are no longer rare occurences. What a joy adult children are. We have a new church family and they have been so loving and accepting of us. We do lots of things together and you wouldn't know that we were the new people. We live on a golf course and by a marina. So we have lots of fun things to do.

I have to thank God for Billy's new job. He works for a wonderful company that values their employees in every way. He gets to travel a lot and I get to go. We've met so many lovely people and just this last week as we flew home from Tuscan and I was so sick, one of his fellow employees went to the sky mall store and bought me a neck pillow for the flight home. That's the calibre of people he works for.

We have had much loss and sorrow in the past year also. My mom and dad went home. My brother has had three back surgeries and many complications. My stepdad has a brain tumor. We still mourn the loss of our Justin. And yet, God has been faithful to sustain us, to comfort us, to continue to reveal Himself to us. We are filled with the hope of the day we are reunited. We are living in the kingdom today. We are anticipating with great hope all that God has prepared for us.

This Thanksgiving our children will be with their in-laws and we will be celebrating with our church family/friends who are also 'alone' for the holidays. We have discovered a 'new' life in our 'new' town and it is different. Different for me because I am accustomed to fretting and worrying. My new life - my choosing to live in the kingdom life - is finding joy in the now. Accepting the good in the life I have and refusing to dwell on the difficult. It's not that life isn't hard, it's just that this is not all there is and THAT is what I am the most thankful for.

So I am thankful. Thankful. Thankful. And before I wrap up this post, let me say - I am thankful for you - my friends. You are the greatest. I love you and I pray God blesses you mightily.

The Kingdom of God

OK, I know, I know. I'm really behind in my blogging. Believe it or not, it's not because I'm doing nothing, it's because I'm doing SOMETHING! God has gotten a hold of me like nobody's business and I have truly been meditating on it, contemplating it and down-right reveling in it!!! Let me explain where I think the epiphany began.

It was close to Justin's birthday. Always a sad time for me. I seem to stop any hint of forward progress and regress around his birthday, the anniversary of his departure and holidays. I was lying in bed - more like hunkered down with the covers over my head whining about 'my lot in life' when I heard God speak into my spirit, "Do you really think your plan for his life was better than mine?"

I couldn't move and I knew it was God because my spirit seemed to immediately answer for me - a resounding "YES!" But I - the spiritual Sherrie - knew better. I knew that was the wrong answer. I had to come up with something pious and spiritual. Funny thing about your spirit though - it's woefully HONEST. :) So while my woman was attempting to cover over, my spirit sat smugly forcing me to agree - "Yes, Lord. I think my way would have been better."

Ladies, it was a mind-blowing, life-changing moment. I can't say lightening flashed but a light did come on in my spirit. Without a shadow of a doubt, I knew how wrong I had been. How faulty my thinking was. How shallow my dreams for Justin's life and my family's life had been. The audacity of ME! To think I knew better based on what I was 'feeling.'

And what has happened since then has been nothing short of amazing. I have moved from the valley of the shadows into the Kingdom of God. The only shadow I see is His over me! It is miraculous. It is mind-blowing.

You see, the truth of the matter is - I think it took more power to heal my heart and soul than it did for God to raise Justin from the dead! We are so busy looking for the physical "fix" that we don't recognize the spiritual one.

I guess the true test will be the rapidly approaching holidays and one empty stocking. But grief with hope is life-enabling and grief without hope is death to the soul.

Take that word from God to me and allow it to plant a seed in your heart. Whatever you are stewing over right now. Whatever has been allowed to steal your peace or your joy. "Do you really think your plan is better than His for your life?" It begins with honesty and ends with a choice to move from the darkness to the light. It is a conscious decision that will need re-affirming until it becomes habit.

One days these eyes of faith will have sight. Until that day I am seeking Him for all I'm worth. I'm choosing Him - above all else. Just like a little child - my hand is clutched tightly in the hand that will not let me go. He is my all in all.

In my mind's eye I can already envision the day Justin and I will dance like two-years olds down streets of gold to the laughter of One who rescued us from the fall and redeemed us to His glory. Until He calls me, I will faithfully serve Him on this earth - to the praise of His glory. I can almost hear them in unison right now saying, "Bout time, sister. Live!"

NANCY - I mean - TINA NURSE

My little sister just got accepted into nursing school!!! I am so very proud of her. For starters - she had to go back to college after a L O N G hiatus and she has maintained a 4.0 GPA. She's also had a grandbaby during that time, helped to care for our dad and mother, grieved their losses, went through a major relocation, held down a full time job plus worked diligently for her church and she is 51!!! Did I mention they only accepted 50 students?

Tina is the middle child of our family. She will tell you it was a hard spot to be in. I kinda think it made her who she is today. Anyway.....she will be an awesome nurse. She's old enough to know what she wants and she's been around the block enough to know how to treat people and to empathize with their hurts. She's young enough - in all the ways that matter - to contribute a lot to the medical community. I can't wait to see where God places her. I dread to hear her tell me how "long" I've been out of nursing and how "behind" the times I am. One of the trials I will have to bear over the next two years. :)

So here's to my sister!! Way to go DD! We are so proud of you. We knew you could do it. You are a marvel.

BOYS! Oh Boy!

In the fall of 1981 we added our third child in less than four years to the Kulwicki family! It marked the beginning of the craziness that was to be our life for many, many years. We were seriously outnumbered! I know it was only 3 to 2 but they were so full of energy and we were so sleep-deprived that it felt like there were 10 of them! Seriously, life revolved around formula, diapers, food, snacks, naps, laundry, dishes and baths for years. About the time they learned to sleep we began SPORTS and we just exchanged one set of time-consuming, mind-numbing activity for another. We were busy, busy, busy!

I don't think I ever took a bath without an interruption for at least 10 years. Pretty sure I never got to go to the bathroom without a question being thrown my way, a door being opened or a fight breaking out! Life was never boring. They were loud, stinky, constantly in motion, always picking on each other, loved to fight and were highly competitive. Nothing was sacred in their quest for superiority one over another - be it a job, a car, a girl - noxious eruptions, belches or the size of any anatomical part, their prowess on the football field, soccer field or academia. It didn't matter - they were ruthless. Dinnertime was the stage and they were "on." We laughed our heads off at their stories and refereed when competition turned personal.

Here are just a few of their more notable quips:

On the sizing of the proverbial "cup" during baseball season: "You'll need a Dixie cup. I'll need a route 44."

On missing their mother during the college years: "We'd miss you if you'd ever leave!"

On the required physical for sports: "I'm giving him (the dr.) 5 seconds then I'm coming up swinging."

On our frequent moves: "I picked up Kitty (our cat of 21 years) and she said, "Oh, we're moving again?"'

Those are the printable ones. They are witty. They are full of themselves. They are so bad.

We've since added two darling girls to our family and I'm sure they have been a little overwhelmed when we have family dinner. To their credit, they have held their own in a family that has few social graces. They have even been known to throw a few punches themselves.

I love watching the girls with their men. They don't take much flak off them. They roll their eyes. They give them the eye. But boys will be boys. They don't usually notice the eye. I do. I get it. Now they say things like - "I don't understand. She says it's my TONE!" Billy just nods his head in silent affirmation.

As for me. It's about stinkin' time. About the time my estrogen is gone a fresh supply has come into my house. Life is getting interesting again. My boys are finally getting what they have deserved - some refining. In all fairness to them - they are fighting it tooth and toenail. For far too long their inner man has been allowed to go free. But these girls are reining them in - gently, kindly and with love.

Reminds me of another inner man that left to itself was obnoxious, loud, and smelly. And then we choose Christ and He sends the Holy Spirit to live in us and change us from the inside out. Ever the perfect gentleman, He does so in love. Transforming our thought life, cleansing our heart, taming our tongue - resulting in a new creation. A new man (or woman) who puts others before himself, whose speech is wholesome and whose life is a testimony of what it means to be part of a family - far from perfect but perfectly loved.

ALL THINGS FAMILY

I've shared with you before that our family has the mega-family reunion of all reunions. Started in 1969 by our MamMaw to find a way to keep her 10 children and 40+ grandchildren connected she would be delighted to know that even though we are down to only 4 of the original 10 - the reunions keep on coming! This year our theme was "You Ought to be in Pictures" and was complete with our infamous family picture backdrop consisting of the stars' walk of fame - all ten of the childrens' names in STARS. It was sweet and it was bittersweet. The first year without our Mom and our brother was RE-hospitalized for emergency back surgery. He had surgery the week before to repair a ruptured disc and developed excrutiating headaches. They discovered he had another bone fragment that had punctured the dura of his cord and it was leaking spinal fluid causing the mega headaches.

SO while we were celebrating family - very present with them - our brother was undergoing surgery 200 miles away and our hearts and minds were very much with him also!

We weren't the only ones experiencing the angst of wanting to be in two places at once. Many in our family were undergoing business/financial/relational/physical/personal problems and yet for a few hours on a Sunday in September we swept them aside and just celebrated the joy of belonging to one another. Such is the tension in the family of God. We are exhorted to weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice.

This Sunday we took the time to share some memories. Believe it or not, we usually don't do that. We're so busy - eating, catching up, judging the dessert contest, helping the children 'do' the coloring contest, bidding at the silent auction and admiring the creativity of the year's theme that we don't really stop and remember 'why' and 'what' we are celebrating. Maybe it's because we lost my mom and we're down to less than half the brothers and sisters or maybe it's because the cousins are older - but we stopped this year and talked about things remembered. It was fun for my generation but I noticed the spouses and siblings left behind were crying.

We rejoiced over the sweetness of memories past and we wept for what was forever gone. And yet.....in the Lord nothing is lost. I couldn't help but think for Mother, her reunion on the other side is growing just as ours is shrinking.

The same is true for us on this side of the veil. For every tragedy and heartache we are currently experiencing there is a reward awaiting for those of us who persevere. As we hold tight to God, trust in His faithfulness, speak of His goodness and wait on His promises we don't have to weep over our loss but rather to rejoice in our gain.

So I hope today you will think back on your memories of God's faithfulness and ride out the current difficulties you are experiencing knowing that you know - He took care of you before and He will forevermore! He who promised is faithful!

What A Difference!

It's just been a week but what a difference a little time can make. Last week we had a solid week of gray, overcast, gloomy, rainy, wet days! We knew we needed the rain but after a few days it affected our mood, our commute and our HAIR. Then one day the sun popped out, it began to dry things out, people quickly mowed their lawns and washed their cars and what do you know? The grass is greener, formerly dried up plants are sporting bright colored blooms again and the sun seems much friendlier and welcoming.

Today is my mother's first birthday in heaven! She's been gone from this earth for almost nine months. In my mind's eye I can see her laughing with her mother, dancing down streets of gold, teasing my Justin, in awe of the colors of the flowers and the fragrance of heaven whereas prior to her death she was losing her vision and her hearing, she could not walk and her arms were almost void of any range of motion. What a difference a little time can make!

There is no arguing that life is hard. But we would do well to take a lesson from nature. It takes storms to produce beauty and the storm is not the end. The storm is the means used to produce the beauty.

In our own lives we will have trouble. Jesus repeated that over and over again. But He also qualified it, "In this world you will have tribulation but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." It is an admonishment that in the midst of our trouble/pain/diagnosis/prognosis to look beyond the rain to the rainbow. To believe beyond what we see to the promise. God is clear when He promises us that "all things work together for our good." It is ours to trust.

So whether you are enjoying the sun or enduring the rain it is to our Father's glory that we jump in the puddles, turn our faces to the sky and know - the Son is coming!