Twenty-Nine Years of Growing Old Together in God’s Love❤️

Tammy Franklin
Sep 2, 2018 · 4 min read

There was something that was said this morning during the sermon at church that got brought to my attention. Which ties into answers I was asking God twenty-nine years ago. Where are You, God? Why would You punish me this way? What is so wrong with me, that I would get punished this harsh? Because it had nothing to do with me, but part of God’s Plan!

It was on a Sunday on Labor Day weekend twenty-nine years ago I got a phone call from my mom telling me to do “anything” I could to get bail money to get her out of jail because she had got thrown in jail for a DUI and totally rolled her car. When the guy she had living with her at the time was also in jail and he took the “rap” for her saying he was driving. The “anything” was to go talk to the other “someone” she was seeing at the same time… and go ask him for the money. Which was very uncomfortable for me to actually be around. So throughout my procrastinating of going and ask…

I get this phone call. I hear this familiar voice on the other end and he asks how I am doing. I begin telling him the situation that I was dealing with on this day. By the end of the conversation I was crying so hard that he couldn’t understand what I was saying. There were a few minutes of silence and he asks if he could come over to see me. I guess he must of seen me shaking my head yes, because he came to see me.

Before he got there I found out that my mom was released from jail. When Kelly had gotten there I was pretty shook up and so he took me driving around so we could talk. Kelly asked me if I would move in with him in another town. I really didn’t know what to say. A part of me still knew I had to be with my mom. Some one needed to take care of her. A part of me was saying it is time to leave the chaos.

There were some points to this sermon this morning that grabbed my attention. Don’t believe in karma but do believe in what you sow you will also reap. I never really gave that as much thought as I did this morning. When I was growing up I encountered a lot of chaos. I also learned how to live IN all that chaotic behavior and think it was fine… I learned how to take on everyone’s guilt including my own. Which I thought was very normal.

As I did move completely out of my moms house and about 60 miles into another town. I still held on to the guilt my mom liked to share with me. It may have took Kelly a little longer to propose into marriage than what some would say is normal.

A week from today will be our anniversary of when I first moved in with Kelly and where we are today. We procrastinated in marriage for eight years. I listed all the reasons why he shouldn’t marry me and he came up with all the right answers that we should be married.

That is one of my bad habits that some of my true friends will tell me. I always want to let all my faults be known before anyone has a chance to figure them out on their own. My true friendships have helped me break down that wall and let the bricks lay instead of picking them back up and throwing them at me like I try to do to myself when I was growing up. I didn’t realize it wasn’t always hurting me… because it never had nothing to do with me.

Ezekiel 37:27. My dwelling place will be with them; I will be their God, and they will be my people.

I want to tell you that Kelly and I started out from mud and mire but God definitely has let us shine for His Glory and not ours. Do I often think about if I never got that phone call twenty-nine years ago and the selfishness of two people of learning about forgiveness that only God can give us and bring us to where we are now? Often, but I always want to remember it had nothing to do with my own actions.