Blended

Blending families is a delicate dance of God’s love, His endless grace, & a great hope for healing.

This is us… scars, stories, love, patience, and a hope of a new future with great promise. Often when blending a family, it is easy to forget all the brokenness that led to this road. My husband, Vincent, is a saint to deal with so much of my brokenness. I came from a place of wondering if there would ever be a human on this planet I could trust again. I still battle with trust, but he has stood there time and time again showing me that he will walk through this messy path with me. You may be wondering…How did a Catholic Arkansas State Attorney and the minister of a church, living 45 minutes apart, find one another? Ready for it? ……..

Tinder!!!!

Are you laughing? Or asking how in the world?

I was working on a youth retreat and a dear friend twisted my arm and said, “Deb, you just have to try. You don’t have to stay on there, just see if there are any possibilities.”

Well, this amazing man messaged me within days. After many weeks of messaging, he was the only date I had from Tinder. We both knew from date one (we probably really knew from phone call 1) that this was something with God’s hand all over it. He handed me a dating application within moments of our first date and asked me hilarious questions. Here’s a sample of four of the 37 questions…. Enjoy!

In case you feel you want to know me a little better. Here’s my answers: 1.YES 2.YES, but that was a jab at my love for the Boston Red Sox (we have a healthy baseball rivalry in this house) 3. YES! and 4. Seriously??? LOL but this one made me love him even more.

That was going to be a very long road to recovery. Shortly after, my kids and my home completely flooded due to a freeze and our pipes busting in the attic. Our house was destroyed and had to be gutted to the studs. We lost most of our belongings and so many of our memories. We were homeless. The beauty of God's hand in these moments was my then-boyfriend's parents took in my children and me with open arms when we had nowhere to go. While dealing with the house, his father, who had quickly become my spiritual confidant, died. Jobs were constantly shifting around us, and the world beneath us was very unsteady, and yet we managed to remain hand in hand trying to take one step at a time moving forward.

We came into this marriage both with a lot of heavy stories and experiences. We knew from day one this was not going to be an easy road, but we knew we had God with us. Together, we have four children, three daughters and one son. Their ages are 17, 16, 13, and 10. They are all so unique with each having a powerful story of the things they have had to overcome and push through. I will share some of their individual stories later on with their permission of course.

The truth is, blending is not some perfect recipe that comes out all put together on the other side. Vincent and I talk a lot about all the metaphors trying to explain our delicate balances of everyday blending. It's like having red and blue paint and you are looking for that right shade of purple. Some days we need to add in a whole lot more red to get to where we want and other days, it's a lot more blue. No matter how we approach it, it is a raw place that constantly needs prayer, God’s guidance, our amazing resources of people, boundaries, and a true authentic abundance of love.