November 24 falls on the day after Thanksgiving this year, it is a significant marker for me; November 25^th 11 years ago was the day my life was changed forever...

No one seems to walk through life unscathed, we all have a journey, and we are guaranteed pain and suffering on some level...

My life was nearly perfect until I was 25.
  I had a great family, parents that believed in me, a happy and relatively uneventful childhood. Good education, caring friends.
 I loved God, and lived by the 10 commandments.
  I voted republican and paid my taxes.
  My testimony was pretty basic; I "found" salvation at the Baptist church when I was six, baptized at eight.
  I choose purity for my life sexually and every other way, and I preached"what I believed with judgment and conviction.
  I married at the tender age of 19.
  John Hunt was handsome, sweet, smart and funny, and very passionate about the Lord.
  Full of innocence and expectation we bought our first home,

and prepared for the arrival of our first born, Alexis Noelle.
  Two years later Emily Elise arrived, dark hair, blue eyes just like Alexis.
  My life continued a steady uneventful beat. Seven years into our relationship, I sensed changes in John, sleeplessness, quick temper, but I was to private and prideful to let anyone know we were hurting. M
ean while, I craved something big and adventurous.
I had always sensed that I was created for something more impactful than laundry and growing old in the mid-west. I volunteered at a local crisis center, and loved it.
  Though, I felt limited in my ability to truly minister to these lost and hurting souls.
 

     Thanksgiving Day 1995 John and I hosted a turkey feast at our house, it was nice but... uneventful.
  The next day he left to work over-time and said he would be home by
noon
.
  The girls and I waited to finish decorating the tree until Daddy came home to tell us which ribbon he preferred.
  John loved the Christmas season more than anything; we had even been married in December.
  We waited and waited; nervously I cleaned the whole house, changed the sheets and did all the laundry.
  Not sure what to say to the little girls and un-able to get a hold of their father, I tucked them in their fluffy pink beds for the night.
  I continued to make phone calls, no answer at his place of work; he was never late and always called me several times a day.
  I knew something was very wrong; I paced and prayed, and kept calling...nothing.
  I paid the bills, paced some more...I

looked at the clock, at
11:30 pm
a panic came over me, I knew what ever was "wrong" had just crossed over to devastating. I cried, prayed, begged God to save John from whatever was happening.  Time seemed to stand still, then finally at
2:00 am
a knock at the front door confirmed my worst fears. A policeman stood in the dark and the cold and with little emotion told me there had been an accident, and John was dead.
  John, the only man I had ever loved, my best friend, the father of two tiny girls that adored him. The panic hit me again, adrenaline rushed through my body like a terrible storm.
 There must be a mistake, this can not be happening, this can not be real.
  But I had known hours earlier something had been ripped

from my soul, I felt him leave...
  I will never forget that moment; I closed the door, grasped my heart and fell to my knees.
  I literally cried out these words, "Lord, you have my FULL attention, I just need You so much right now, please tell me how we are going to get through this, how to help my children, how to survive.?" I knew even in my shock and horror that my life had been changed forever.
  Any security or "uneventful ness" had taken a drastic turn towards tragedy.

     
 I have heard it said that the core of "who you are" is revealed at the moment of crisis.
 I believe this is very true.
 
 How we react and respond shows the truth of what we hold in our hearts.
  "WHO" we turn to will ultimately determine our growth and healing. This is the beginning of the journey, will we be broken by lives pain, or will we grow bitter?

Picture upper right, John in 1995, pictures of the girls at 4 1/2 and 2 1/2 November 1995.