My Heroes

My grandparents are my role models.  Papa Jack and Grandma Mitzi have been married for almost 67 years!  Papa always gives the advice, "Never go to bed angry."  He says that he and Grandma have only ever pulled one all-nighter sorting out a dispute - he doesn't remember what it was about.  That is advice that Matt and I have taken to heart and live by.  It's good advice, because it's also biblical!  Paul said in his letter to the Ephesians,

Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, 

and do not give the devil a foothold ~ Eph. 4:26

My grandparents are my picture of a successful Godly marriage.  Just look at how precious they are!

Dancing at my wedding!

My grandparents met when they were both students at LSU.  Grandma was stunningly beautiful and dated around!  Papa was one of those boys she dated, and he determined to marry her.  The story goes that he asked her every night for a month to marry him before she said yes.  Grandma says after all that she knew he really meant it!  Matt and I have a somewhat similar story, but more on that later.  

My grandparents are also my picture of hard work and service.  Papa grew up in hard times during the Depression.  He was one of seven siblings under a strong single mother.  They all had to chip in and work hard to support the family!  Papa fought in WWII with the Army Air Corps.  When he and Grandma had their four children, he worked for something like 30 years as a salesman at Sears (back in the good old days!).  He and Grandma served in the community multiple ways.  Papa used to love to drive the bus to pick up the very elderly and the disabled to bring them to church.  He also served with the Methodist corps on numerous disaster relief trips.  They've been on missions and supported missionaries.  They raised four successful children, including my daddy.  My Grandma is intelligent and wise.  She is a historian and an author and has faithfully stood by my Papa's side through thick and thin.  She's the glimmer in his eye.  I am so proud of them!

I've been thinking about them a lot lately because my 90 year old Papa recently had spinal surgery.  What was supposed to be a 4 hour procedure was only one and a half!  He bounced back incredibly quickly and is proving to be a difficult patient that can't sit still!  I can only hope that I'll encounter patients as fun and lovingly difficult as he is when I am a COTA one day.  We are praising God for the success of this surgery and are praying that it will prove to relieve his back pain and leg weakness so he can keep on keepin' on.