30til30: day 12, reed and marian

i have 30 days until i celebrate my 30th year of life. i thought i would share with you 30 people, events and situations that have shaped my life and who i want to be. it has been very challenging to come up with 30…i hope it inspires you as it has me. this part of the list is in no particular order.

day 12: reed and marian

as i’ve written about earlier, our church and our sunday school class has played a major role in our lives since moving to dallas. a huge part of that has been reed and marian.

reed and marian are the ages of our parents (roughly) and have children our age (their catherine is just several weeks older than me). they have been actively mentoring young couples for years. reed is the primary teacher of our sunday school class and marian leads our bi-monthly women’s bible study.

they have both had a profound impact on our lives. in many ways, they have been our parents in dallas. they have encouraged us and supported us and allowed us to learn from their years of marriage and parenting. they have honestly shared their lives with us – both the good and the bad – and been a great example of what it means to walk with the Lord for decades.

reed is the best motivator i know. this year, he and marian have established a reward system for those in our class who memorize scripture. for every 20-30 verses we each memorize, they will pay $500 per person toward a $2500 cruise we’ll all take at the end of the year. michael and i are so excited about going – and eagerly learning our verses.

but, there has been one specific way in which they have really ministered to us this last year.

about 25 years ago, reed and marian lost their daughter wendy in an automobile accident. though i know it must still be painful at times to talk about and we still see tears in their eyes on occasion, they have openly discussed the tragic circumstances and how it impacted their lives.

when we found out that our dear friends andy and cari lost their daughter caden last fall, reed was the first person michael called. reed doesn’t even know andy and cari but he cried on the phone with michael as my husband shared the news. his father’s heart broke with michael’s and remembered the pain that our friends were facing. over the weeks and months, reed and marian have spoken with us about what walking through grief was like for them and how we can support our friends, even from a distance.

keep praying, marian once said. that’s when it will get hard – when people stop praying.

i really believe that every young couple needs a reed and marian. they have deeply impacted our dallas-lives and the last four years wouldn’t have been the same without them.