If they were alive today, two people who taught me what love truly looks like would be celebrating their seventy eighth wedding anniversary. My mom and my dad. Even writing those words feels both beautiful and heartbreaking at the same time because a love like theirs was rare. It was steady. Enduring. Familiar in the deepest sense of the word. They did not simply meet somewhere along the road of life. They knew each other as children. Before careers, before responsibilities, before wrinkles and gray hair, before grief and hardship and all the seasons life eventually brings. They shared literally a lifetime together. There is something sacred about that kind of history. Most people spend their lives searching for someone who truly knows them. Someone who remembers where they came from. Someone who witnessed the earliest versions of who they were before the world changed them. My parents had that. They grew up alongside one another. Their memories were woven together long before marriage...
There are moments in life when the pain feels heavier than the hope we are trying so desperately to hold onto. Moments when prayers seem to echo into silence, when exhaustion settles deep into our bones, and when our hearts quietly whisper, “God, are You still there?” Illness, heartbreak, fear, uncertainty, and waiting can make even the strongest faith feel fragile. Yet in the middle of all of it, there remains a truth that refuses to let go of me: our God is still in the business of healing. Healing does not always arrive the way we imagine it will. Sometimes we pray for immediate miracles and instead find ourselves walking through long valleys. Sometimes we ask for answers and receive only the strength to survive another day. But that does not mean God has stopped moving. It does not mean Heaven has grown silent. It does not mean miracles are over. The same God who opened blind eyes, calmed raging seas, healed broken bodies, and restored shattered lives is still working today. His p...