Prevenient Grace Talk

Personal Story

I was raised in the church. The message of Jesus Christ was a foundation of the culture in which I was born and raised.

When you something has always been a part of your life, you can develop a unrecognized perception or understanding that the thing that has always been a part of your life. You can take it for granted and this usually goes on until of course, it no longer is a part of your life. When something that has been constantly present, suddenly is absent the loss becomes self evident.

The reunion was at Lake Beauchanan every year at that time. So, Gary and the boys would spend a lot of time at the beach and fishing pier. Jered was never too far away from them. She would often sit with them while they were fishing and talk. As she began to become an adolescent, she would often spend a large portion of her time with us and the boys. Overtime, we became concerned for her as we learned more of her story

Jered was always at the Newman family reunion. Gary and I had started attending these reunions when my eldest son, Cullen was born. Jered was two years old then. It was a large gathering of people who we didn’t really know because, Gary’s father had married into the family. My mother-in-law Janna insisted that we come primarily because she wanted to make sure her new grandchildren were there. It was part of her grandmother bragging rites but technically we were an adopted family line of the tree. Yet it became a part of our yearly, pattern each summer.y