This blog post is very special to me because it is of my baby sister and her husband! Hank and Gerry Ann will celebrate their first wedding anniversary on August 9th, and I could not be happier for them!!! They are such a fun couple, which you can tell by their pictures (seriously silly). They love Jesus and together are better than apart. I think that is what we all hope when we get married, to be better versions of ourselves when we love and are loved. Their story is great as one can clearly see how God’s hand brought them together. Gerry shares how she met Hank and knew he was “the one.” 

{Gerry Ann’s Story}

I always knew I only wanted to have one great love. In fact when I used to pretend to get married I named my future husband Henry. When I was fourteen my friend from church brought Hank (Henry) Bates to church. I jokingly looked over at him and told my friend well that’s it I’m gonna marry him. He was nineteen at the time. I didn’t see him again for many years.

I was nineteen and had been struggling with making childish decisions and wanting to grow up a little. I told my dad that I was really ready to meet the “one” but I couldn’t trust my judgement to find him. Dad said,  “well then we will pray that he comes to you and that you just know he’s the one. Hey, maybe he will just come through the door at Church.”

The day that my daddy prayed Hank was at home pouring his last beers down the sink. He had fallen into drinking and partying at the age of twenty-one and at twenty-four God reminded him of his purpose in life and he quit cold turkey.

A week or so later he walked into our new church building. I told myself (I’m not superstitious I was just being a girl) that If he sat by me he was the one. 🙂  He sat one seat over, and I was depressed! But our friend’s wife asked to switch seats so she could sit next to her husband. Crazy as it sounds, I knew then Hank would be my one and only.

If Hank would have stayed at church when he first visited our age gap would have caused us to never date. If I had seen him partying or he had seen me at fifteen being silly, we probably would have never been attracted to each other. We have so many mutual friends we were like ships passing in the night. God’s timing is perfect.