Meet My Son's Princess

Sometimes when you don't want to do something and you do it anyway, God rewards you. That is exactly what happened a couple of summer's ago when my son was asked to be a counselor for a week long sleep-over camp at Sea World. He did not want to do it. It wasn't his job. He was a day camp counselor. He did NOT want to sleep at camp and he did NOT want to eat camp food for seven days, but he did it anyway, albeit, with a pretty rotten attitude. Well, in the end, he was glad he did because that is where he met his beautiful girlfriend.

My son's girlfriend, like my daughter's husband, is an answer to a lifetime of prayer. She was the little girl on the playground who was being raised in a Christian home by loving parents. The little girl who loved Jesus and her family. She was the teenager who made wise choices, living her life for Him on a daily basis. She is now the adult who will soon be making her mark on the world either by working with animals or teaching elementary school. Whichever direction life takes her, it will be with Jesus at the helm guiding her way. How we praise God for bringing her into our son's life!

Just as our daughter had her share of frogs and toads during her journey to find her prince, our son had his share of ugly step-sisters. (This is not to imply that any of these girls were ugly, rather that there were differences in life visions, beliefs and goals.) Our son's girlfriend is like Cinderella in that the glass slipper fits. They both want the same things out of life and both are striving to follow God's will for their lives.

When we first met her I remember that she seemed rather quiet. I was worried because, quite frankly, our family doesn't do quiet. It didn't take her long to fit right in with our wacky family. She holds her own when we have our highly competitive board game nights, she has joined us on many camping trips, spent 10 days on Maui with us, gave up part of her Christmas break to spend "after" Christmas visiting our daughter and her family and is the best "Auntie" in the world to our little grandson. She even agreed to be drug along on a backpacking trip with our son. She is beautiful inside and out. She has an infectious laugh and a smile that lights up a room.

She will be finishing up her undergrad this year and our son will finish grad school shortly thereafter. Both of them will be ready to start the rest of their lives. While nothing is official, it looks like those lives could be spent together. We hope and we pray that that is God's intention. She makes our son very happy and she completes our family. We love her as much as our son does and we would love to see her saddled with our horrific last name!