Meet My Daughter's Prince

When you are busy raising your children you find yourself wondering who your child will marry. Do you already know them? What are they doing at that exact moment? Are they playing on the playground? What sports do they enjoy? Do they know Jesus? What is their family like? So many questions and so many prayers that the Holy Spirit will get ahold of that little person and turn them into the man or woman deserving to spend the rest of their life with your precious son or daughter. We were no different when it came to envisioning who our daughter would spend the rest of her life with. How we prayed for a man of integrity, with a love for the Lord and a personality that would balance and compliment our daughter. That is exactly what we got when our daughter found her Prince.

This is not to say that the road to finding him was smooth by any means. There were the occasional frogs and toads along the way, but there were also nice young men with qualities she knew she wanted in her future husband. It was a matter of finding all of those qualities in one person. The story of how she met her Prince has been told on her blog. The stories about the frogs and toads are old news. Our story is unique in that, I am willing to bet, most parents can't say they were friends with their future son-in-law before their daughter ever met him. To make a long story short, we were in a bible study that he led. We thought he was a great guy. As my husband would say at their wedding reception, "When we were praying for our daughter's future husband, little did we know that when she started kindergarten, he was off to high school." If our, then 21 year old, daughter had told us she was dating a 31 year old man we would have been a little leary of the age difference. It is hard to stand in the way when you already know the character of a man.

Our son-in-law's personality compliments our daughter's in such a way that they make marriage look extremely easy. He is the man of integrity that we prayed for. He stands firm in his beliefs of right and wrong. She is over-dramatic. He is calm and go with the flow. She wants things done yesterday. He sees no need to hurry. She hates clutter and he has agreed to keep his clutter where she says it is "allowed" to be. She wants things planned and detailed well in advance and he is more open to change. She is always goofing off and he says he would love her "even if her face really looked like that." He, too, is far from serious and there is alot of laughter in their home. She wanted a Golden Retriever. He wanted a Mutt. They got a Golden Retriever.

He is a Pastor. A profession that will never make him rich this side of eternity, but he makes sacrifices (like driving the old old car) so that our daughter can stay at home with their son. He is a great dad. Patient and loving, but firm when needed. He waited a long time to have a wife and a child and he adores them both. His influence in our son's life has been immeasurable. Our son is the man he is today, in part, because of the examples his brother-in-law has set for him.

Our son-in-law always seeks to follow God's will and recently that meant taking a job in another state. It was hard to let them go, but he has been very generous about "sharing." They have been gone two months and we have already invaded their new home twice and our daughter and grandson have come back here once. We thank him for giving them up for a whole week. We also thank the Lord for bringing him into our daughter's life. He is a wonderful friend, husband, father, brother-in-law and son-in-law. We could not have prayed for someone more perfect for our daughter.