Fascinating Me ... ?

The title is not to say that I am fascinating. Well, not exactly anyway. More so it is to say that there's something really simple out there that has been fascinating to me.

While looking up soccer information recently, I came across the website for the City of Pasadena. It had the council members listed with a brief biography of each one. It was really neat to see where people had been born, gone to school, how and where they had met their spouses, when they'd had children and so on. Just plain, regular people and I was captivated for quite sometime.

So, I'm going to be a trend setter. (That's only if everyone who reads this follows suit ... hint hint.) I'm going to start a post called Fascinating Me. If you decide to do it too, please leave a comment so that I can be fascinated by you as well!

In 1973 at Memorial Hospital in Lufkin, Texas, I entered this here old world. My parents, who were both 18 at the time, were married just six months earlier. Need I say more? They would divorce before I reached the age of 3.

My mother re-married in 1979 and we celebrated their 25th anniversary last year. I grew up living with them and my first two little sisters in Lufkin, while my father and his second wife and my third little sister lived in Houston, two hours away.

We moved to Garland, TX, in mid-1985, then to Lake Charles, LA, in late 1986. I finished middle school and started senior high at Barbe High School there. I didn't know it then and certainly wouldn't have guessed that I had met (and looked over) the eternal love of my life.

We moved to Round Rock, TX, in early 1989. Life really took off for me there. I excelled in Band and Choir at Round Rock High School. I made some of the best friends ever that I still keep in touch with to this day. I was courted by a missionary's son, long-distance from Aruba, and really thought our future was set.

In late 1990 the greatest loss of my life until that point occurred. My Granny lost a six month long battle with cancer and passed from this world. It was really devastating to our whole, extended family and I really don't think we've recovered from that even now. I have to say though that I've noticed in the last few years that I am able to think of her and smile where there were only tears before. Time does heal, thankfully.

I ended up moving in with my father and sister in the middle of my senior year of high school. I turned 18 and thought I knew it all. What a schmuck. I graduated from Westfield High School in Houston with people I barely knew and have barely spoken to since. Live and learn.

Thank heavens for old girlfriends who have cute guys as friends. Mark brought an old friend of mine to see me in 1992. It only took us 2 years after that to actually start dating! And we had to go and put over 400 miles between us first with me being back in Round Rock in 1994 and him in Baton Rouge, LA, attending LSU.

We dated for almost a year before I moved Baton Rouge. He proposed on our one year "dating" anniversary and we got married 5 months later in August 1995. (We wanted to marry before the Fall semester started. That was the only rush.) Oh, and we honeymooned at Walt Disney World!

We moved to Po-dunk, I mean Crossett, AR, in 1996 right after Mark graduated from LSU. He's an engineer girls ... :-)! I hated Crossett. I all but refused to bloom where I was planted on that one. Then I met my April ... my buddy! We went to high school in Texas within 90 miles of each other and it took the state of Arkansas to bring us together as adults. Serving on the Board of Directors for the Ashley County Humane Society together didn't hurt. And April is the one I wrangled into taking Cake Decorating classes with me.

I rededicated my life to God in July 2000. I haven't looked back yet. He's been so good to me even when I wasn't interested in returning that love.

Mark and I were blessed with daughter Trinity Faith in 2001 and soon moved to Deer Park, TX, where we are so happy and reside still. She may not have been born in Texas but we got her here as fast as we could! We suffered a miscarriage in late 2003 which was so devastating after trying for 11 months. Then our ray of sunshine ... William Christian joined our clan in the fall of 2004. He's a Texas thoroughbred.

Our family worships our Heavenly Father at Missouri Street Church of Christ in Baytown, TX. We're forming bonds with fellow Christians that will sustain us and our children through our walk of faith on this earth and serving our Father as we go.

This Friday Mark and I will celebrate 10 years of marriage. It's almost hard for me to believe. A girl who came from divorced parents, who moved around without any real ties for so long. I never thought I'd have such a stable relationship to call my own. I'm thankful everyday for the life and the love we share and for our two precious little gifts from God who fill my days with so much sunshine and joy (and frustration occasionally).

Little details, all compiled, make up a life that was purposed long before my parents even knew. Maybe I'm not fascinating to anyone on earth. But my FATHER created me like no one else and HE is fascinated by me. Even when I'm in my pajamas at lunch time and even when I get a little too self-serving and lose my focus on Him. He's still working on me and fabulous or fascinating or ordinary beyond belief, I'm a child of God!

I throw down the gauntlet ... it's your turn to fascinate me ...

"To the world you might be one person, but to one person you might be the world." -
Author Unknown