I was thinking today about God's blessings. I've always been able to look back over my life and my families' lives and could see where God blessed us. I can clearly see where He placed things in our path or took things out of our path and helped us make decisions. It's amazing to me.
This week, some thoughts really played loudly in my head. I can see those blessings happening again. I can look back over several months and see where our direction changed and we headed where God decided we would fit best.
I used to pray to God for my husband. Now, this was when I was in high school and college. I prayed that God would take care of him (since He already knew it would be Byron and I didn't) and keep him safe. I now know how safe God kept Byron. You see, Byron was a bit "rowdy" as a teenager and young adult. I remember one particular time in high school that Byron was letting me drive his Monte Carlo and I thought it was so cool to drive his awesome car. He told me he needed to stop at the bathroom so we turned into the local park and he ran into the bathroom. A few seconds later, he came running out and told me to go and as I got ready to pull out of the parking spot, I heard a big boom! Byron had thrown a cherry bomb in the toilet! That was a small thing for him. There were people back in those days that didn't think Byron would make it doing anything important. They figured he would always be in trouble and never really make much out of himself. Little did they know about his work ethic and his wonderful family who supported him and kept encouraging him. He started as a Vet Tech, then began working at the hospital as a Phlebotomist and eventually joined the Navy as a US Navy Corpsman ( or Doc to the Marines and Sailors). Now, he's a Physician Assistant joining the Navy again as Lieutenant Byron Breeding!
While he was in the Navy, I was at school at Freed Hardeman. I never really got into any major trouble in high school. I was a "good girl". Something happened when I got to FHU and I don't know if it was the freedom I had or what but I went a little CRAZY. I won't go into detail but I dated some boys that I shouldn't have, I went places I shouldn't have and I did things I will NEVER tell my child about. What is interesting about that time is I'm glad that everything that happened, happened for me and to me. I learned so much about life and how to react to those things. I learned who I was and who I didn't need to be. Now, here's where Byron comes in. I "met" Byron again at a place in Jackson that I did not to be. If FHU had found out I was there, I would have been kicked out of school. Now, how does a person find God's blessings in a club? I'm not sure about that but ever since that night, my life changed. I believe we were supposed to meet again and we quickly fell in love. Right after we met again, Byron shipped off on the USS Shreveport for a 6 month float around places like Egypt and Israel. My love only got stronger while he was gone and we were engaged about a month after he returned and married 8 months later in January 2001.
I KNOW that God blessed my life with Byron and I think what if the things in my life never happened? What if I missed the opportunity to see Byron again and missed out on this wonderful life we have? You see, we probably weren't supposed to make anything significant out of our lives because at some point, we were both into things we shouldn't have been into. I made lots of mistakes, acting a fool to a lot of people and I just hope that I can take those mistakes and teach Emma how NOT to do things. Would I change anything? Absolutely not. I had a lot of fun growing up and made some of the best friends of my life. It's amazing how God blesses me and how he continues to do so. Just look at Emma! What a little blessing...she's so much like me and Byron it's scary but I can't wait to see what she makes of herself!
