"Our 40th Wedding Anniversary is coming up. What should we do? Where should we go?" Our anniversary is January 1st. We already had plans to spend time after Christmas with my mother in Illinois. While there, we decided to go to a popular state park in Illinois, spend a night in the lodge, have some nice meals, take some pictures, and see Christmas lights. We made reservations to fly out on Saturday, Dec 28th.
Christmas Eve was filled with two different church services, and dinner. Christmas Day was a morning Zoom Bible study for those who might be lonely, or just wanted to spend some time reading about the birth of Jesus in Luke Chapter 2. (We had never done this before, and weren't sure what would happen, but it turned out to be a pretty special time for all of us.)
Thursday, Dec 26th was a quick run to the local Hallmark store to get a few special Christmas ornaments I wanted at 1/2 price. In doing so, my throat felt a little scratchy, but I was praying it was nothing. As the day went on, it got worse. I warned Lynn, who then said, "I am not feeling very well either." She was catching a cold.
As the day went on, I knew this wasn't going away. In order to get money back on our reservations to Illinois, we had cancel 24 hours ahead of time. A decision had to be made fast! We could not take this in on mom, nor did we want to make anyone else sick, so we cancelled.
I had a very sore throat, pounding headache, chills, and bad chest congestion, with cough. Lynn had a bad cold. We were both "very" tired too. We figured we "had" to have the same thing, since we had been in the same places, and got sick at the same time. That wasn't the case....
I gathered the prayer warriors together. We had a new prayer request. "Lord, we ask for quick healing, but please at least heal us by our anniversary, so we can do something together."
By Monday morning, Dec 30th, I was feeling better, and getting stronger. Lynn was still struggling some. However, as the day went on, my nose started running, and it got worse. I had Lynn's cold! Discouraged? Yes! Back to back illnesses. "Well... so much for an answer to our prayer request!"
By Tuesday (New Year's Eve), Lynn was pretty much well. I was miserable, blowing my nose all day. Going many years back, Lynn and I have done what we call "Praying In The New Year." While the world is celebrating when "midnight" comes, we are praying. We start about 11:45 p.m., and go until maybe 12:15 a.m. Lynn always goes big for this time. She pulls out her giant notebook, and spends a good part of the day writing down our prayer requests. She also asks everyone else for their prayer requests, writing those down too.
Right on time, the praying began. Somewhere in the middle of this praying, (I think after midnight) I began to feel better. My nose stopped running. After we finished praying, I told Lynn. I wasn't feeling super confident it would last (when I get a cold, like clockwork, it lasts a week). We went to bed. In the morning, I still felt good. I told Lynn, "I think maybe we can do something today!"
However, still exhausted, a nap ensued. Lynn went for a beach walk while I napped. After the nap, as night approached, I declared myself healed! Lynn was healed! We went out! By almost anyone's standards, it wasn't an exciting night, especially for a 40th Wedding Anniversary. We went out to eat at a local restaurant. Afterwards, we wanted to find a place to get a good picture of us. A Cracker Barrel fireplace (no fire), a local lit up landmark (too dark), a fancy hotel lobby (nope).
We ended up at a large local outside Christmas light display. What was always packed with people, was virtually empty. We found a good place for a picture, but no one to take the picture. Off to the side sat an old lady with a sling on her arm. To ask an old lady with a broken arm to take a picture, or not?? Yup! I did... I was just wanting her to push the button on the camera with her good arm, but off went the sling! I wasn't wanting her to do that! But, she insisted.
So, we have the picture. Two people, exhausted, worn out, and a bit frazzled. But, it is a good picture. We looked at a few more Christmas lights as we headed home. At home, we plopped down to watch our favorite college basketball team play a game, then off to bed.
It wasn't exciting, or filled with great adventure, like we originally had planned, but it happened!! Many of you prayed for it to happen! We prayed for it to happen. God gave us our desire! He answered our prayer request. We went out for our anniversary!
More anniversaries, and adventures are to come, but for our 40th Wedding Anniversary, we got a present from God: A Testimony.
A 40th Wedding Anniversary To Remember!
