A Mother Always Knows, With a Little Help From the Father

I am not a prophetess, though there are times when God brings me knowledge I would have no earthly way of knowing. It’s been our thing a time or two.

Always athletic, my oldest son Jeremy had an uncanny knack for picking up, with ease, any new sport or activity he sought. It was kind of annoying, and sometimes terrifying. I’ve seen him get hit by fastballs, take a heart-stopping flip on his dirt bike and land flat on his back, and I’ve watched tumbles down hills on four-wheelers, and on snowboards down ski slopes that I was certain would result in injury. Against the odds, very few injuries occurred.

So, when he wanted to join a competition cheerleading squad, it seemed a natural ask. And he turned out to be a natural at it.  I remember him once questioning the masculinity of his participation. My response, it takes a whole lot of strength to hold a teenage girl up in the air, using only one arm! And you’re not on the field getting tackled. From my perspective, it was a win-win. I think he was okay with that!

One evening, it had to be late 2001, or early 2002, I remember it was cold, and dark came early, I drove to the gym to pick Jeremy up. He jumped in my 1997 Boysenberry Blue Ford Escort, though it was really purple, and I put the car in reverse to head out.

A cute young girl, dressed in her cheerleading outfit, skipped past our car, her brunette hair bouncing along with her. She yelled out “Bye, Jeremy!”

“Bye” Jeremy answered back, and she disappeared into the gym. I paused for a second, something niggling at the back of my brain. “Who was that?” I asked my son. “Oh, that was McKenna.”

“Hmm,” I mused out loud, “that’s the girl you’re going to marry.”

“McKenna?! No, way!” Jeremy insisted, “I hate McKenna. Everyone hates McKenna” he assured me emphatically.

I just sighed, shook my head and told him, what I now knew to be a statement of fact, “I don’t know what to tell you Jeremy, but that is the girl you’re going to marry.”

We didn’t discuss it further. No further discussion was needed. Jeremy had dismissed the notion as being ridiculous, I held onto it knowing God would do what God would do.

I wasn’t privy to all the interactions in this budding relationship my son seemed so reluctant about, but I know it took until January 15, 2003, for McKenna to take the initiative and ask my son out.

This is a date that will feature in more of my posts, as it is significant to not just this good memory, but some painful ones too. God is like that sometimes. In the midst of our sorrow, He brings hope.

Jeremy and McKenna will celebrate their 20th anniversary in July of 2025.

While I love this memory, and I absolutely love that the Holy Spirit poured this prophecy into me, what I love most is what God has done in and through Jeremy’s and McKenna’s lives since that day.

Because the Lord had a plan for these two young people that brought, along with great joy, so much sorrow, so much suffering into their lives. Watching God’s plan unfold has been a beautiful, terrible thing. Another theme I’ll come back to time and time again. As, yes, there are things God brings into our lives that are both beautiful and terrible. Consider the cross.

I’ll share more of their story as we go along, for now, this is almost enough. I close with this…

In all my days, through all the people I’ve met, I can honestly say I haven’t seen a couple as one-flesh as Jeremy and McKenna…and they were this way long before they came to know God’s word and Christ as their Lord and Savior.

I believe that is the extra measure of strength God gave them ahead of the trials to come. It was strength they were going to need. More than once.

One sidenote before I sign off…Jeremy didn’t hate McKenna. Not everyone hated McKenna. That was the automatic defensiveness of a hormonally challenged young man. McKenna is awesome, and Jeremy’s life is not the only one that has been blessed by her, and by her place in our family. I love you girl!!!