But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. – 2 Corinthians 12:9

Normally I am not a big “Throwback Thursday” participant. But today I have been doing some research in preparation for my next book (it’s slated to be a one-year daily devotional), and I ran across this photograph from 1980. It made me smile and I thought some of you may appreciate it too.

I’m pretty sure it was taken around our first wedding anniversary, the week we packed up in Central Florida and moved to Atlanta for Rebekah’s last two years at graduate school.

All we had back then was our college degrees, a few boxes of books, some wedding gifts, a temperamental Chevy Chevette, each other and this unshakable belief that God was going to do something unprecedented and spectacular with our lives.

We were moving into a studio apartment on the seminary campus. Rebekah was going to be a full-time student and I would be looking for some kind of a job. We honestly didn’t need anything else, because we were operating according to our belief that “God’s grace is sufficient.” We were just grateful for each other (we still are…) and for the promise of tomorrow, confident God had something special for us and that life would be an amazing adventure…

And of course it has been. Of course it still is.

Because “God is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us…” (Ephesians 3:20).

So we never asked for stuff, or for easy answers, just opportunity.

And, boy oh boy, did God ever deliver… does God ever deliver….

In love and because of love – DEREK