For My Husband...

October is "Minister Appreciation Month." We had a special service last night at church to recognize all the different ministries at church and the people who make them tick. We are so blessed to have such a good group of workers at New Life. Thank you all for everything you do!

Christy thought that she and I should recognize James and Darren so I just wanted to share with the world the words I shared with the congregation last night about Darren. I love him so much and I'm so proud of him!

Read on.....

"When Christy said she thought she and I should recognize James and Darren I told her that I hoped this week was better than last or I might not have very nice things to say

Ours is a story of God’s careful grooming and growing.

But in all seriousness, if someone had told me in high school that I would be married to a preacher I would have laughed myself silly.

Darren and I met in 1986. Up until that time I had no church background. I knew the basics, attended VBS during the summer and occasionally went to church with my grandmother. Darren, of course, had been raised in church and his mother, though she wouldn’t admit it today, thought I was a very corrupt influence on her sweet, innocent baby. Because of Darren I started attending church at Mt. Carmel and he baptized me into Christ late one night in 1987.

If not for Darren I’m not sure where I would be today. He led me to Christ. Darren will tell you that he would not have married me had I not become a Christian and I will tell you that I would not have married him if I knew he was going to be a preacher.

After we married in 1988 we sort of “played” church for a while. We looked and sounded good but our hearts weren’t right. We worked with the kids at Mt. Carmel but only managed to show up for Sunday School one year when we forgot to change our clocks. Quite simply, we were not sold out to Christ. Not even close.

Then in 1993 Jarrod was born and we began to get our act together. In 1995 my mom called me and asked me to type up an advertisement their church could send to KCC since they were looking for a preacher. I mentioned it to Darren and after a lot of thought and prayer he said “You know, I think this is what God wants me to do.”

Now this is where I began to see God’s growth in our lives. It was funny to me that something that scared me to death and seemed crazy to me when we married 7 years earlier, suddenly made perfect sense.

So he applied for the job at Blue Licks and got it and thus began our lives in the ministry. He was preaching and working full time laying carpet and I was also working full time. During these years Darren really wanted me to quit my job and come home but I resisted and vehemently defended my job saying that there was no way we could make it without my income. And then 7 years after he started preaching, in 2002 he came to me and said he had decided to quit his job and go to Bible College because he wanted to preach full-time.

Now again, I saw God’s continued growth of my faith. Where I had previously insisted we couldn’t live without my income I now believed that we would be able to make it without our primary source of income. When he told me I don’t think I ever hesitated or questioned his decision. It was like “Okay, whatever you want to do. No big deal. God will take care of us.”

Darren left his job in August of 2002 and started bible college at Sonshine School of Evangelism. On paper, this should never have worked. We were prepared to sell our house and do whatever we had to do to allow him to go to school, but as it turned out we didn’t have to do anything. God was so good. We had the help of friends and family and several sister congregations, including you guys here at New Life, and we were able to make it through two years of schooling without having to sacrifice anything.

I have watched my husband grow in so many areas of his life over the course of this journey. He has grown in knowledge, character, and compassion and I am so proud of him. I am proud of the stand he takes for Christ and the fact that he puts God before everything else in his life. Darren has so many qualities that I envy. He has a wonderful gift for teaching and I never get tired of listening to him. I love the fact that he is always ready to teach or speak at a moment’s notice. He is a man of great vision with big plans for the Lord’s church here at New Life. As some of you who have butted heads with him know, he has big ideas and he won’t take no for an answer. He believes that anything is possible with hard work and commitment and he has the ability to see only the positive things. He is always putting others before himself and stands ready to listen, give advice or just be a sounding board if you need an ear to bend. He has the most wonderful giving spirit and would gladly give a brother the shirt off his back if he needed it. In all these things and many more I wish I could be more like him. I am so proud of the husband he is; that he takes his role as the head of our household seriously and of how he provides and cares for our family. I am proud of the father he is to our children; that he encourages them and believes that they can be and do more than they themselves think possible. Most of all, I am proud of the man that he is; that he is a man of God who continually seeks the Father’s will and lives for Him even through life’s hurts and disappointments; that he seeks God first in everything and is the spiritual head of our family. I love him so much and I thank God for bringing him into my life and I only hope I can be the helpmate to him that God intended me to be. I don’t know what God has in store for us but I pray that He will continue to grow our faith, that He will use us in service to His kingdom, and that He will guide us in everything we do. I love you. I’m so proud of you and thank you for all you do."