Thanksgiving in review (Part 1)

In my last post, I mentioned that we would be spending Thanksgiving day at my in-laws little ranchette in East Texas. We call the place "the farm," but the only farm animals you will find are cows and a few unwelcome hogs. "The farm" began as a parcel of land purchased by Keith's grandparents, so needless to say, it is the backdrop of many family memories made over the years. When his grandparents passed away, Keith's parents eventually retired there and his Aunt's family built a weekend home on the property as our burgeoning clan began to grow.

If you read my last post, you may also remember an interesting bit of trivia I mentioned about another family member who also happens to be in full-time ministry. He is a speaker, an author, and has a slew of other titles that make my little resume look ever-so-plain. Louie Giglio, the visionary architect of Passion and creator of Six Steps Records (represents Chris Tomlin, David Crowder, Charlie Hall) is married to Keith's cousin, Shelley.

If you are familiar with Passion, you may know that they just completed their World Tour where they stopped off at such exciting places as Kyiv, Stockholm, Paris, London, Johannesburg, Mexico City, Vancouver, Hong Kong, Sydney, and Tokyo, just to name a few. Shelley and Louie's travel schedule is insane, so it's not often that we can all gather at "the farm" at one time. Seriously, when my schedule is seeming a bit out-of-control, I pop over to Louie and Shelley's site and check out their calendar to get a whole new perspective.

Needless to say, we took advantage of the full family gathering with a family picture (above) right before we ate the Thanksgiving meal. And if you're a Louie fan, I have a real treat for you. The vintage photo below was taken in 1986 on my first-ever visit to the farm.










Shelley must have taken the picture and I'm sure she's feeling pretty relieved about being spared the 1980's fashion victim humiliation this picture brings. I have been teased mercilessly about my debut visit to the farm over the years because city-girl (that would be me) upon seeing the cows, asked boyfriend if there was some sort of service that came by to clean up the manure in the pastures. Oh yes I did. And as you can tell by my outfit, I am looking every bit the part of a ranch hand in training in my ever-so-fashionable knit polo and 14k add-a-bead necklace. I topped off my city-girl fashion ensemble with a pair of stark white Keds. I think the future inlaws probably dropped to their knees in prayer at the sight of me, asking the God of mercy how a child could grow up in Texas and not own a pair of Justin Ropers.

When I showed the vintage picture to Louie and Shelley this past week, Louie commented that it looked more like I was headed off to play in a doubles match tennis tournament at the country club. Of course, I had a few things to say about the sleeveless number he and Keith were wearing. Seriously, they look like they are channeling Kevin Bacon and about to spontaneously break out into the famous warehouse dance number from Footloose. See any resemblance?

Although, I must say that Louie's shirt scored major points with my two Auburn college kids. He and Keith got bonus points for reenacting the picture with their rolled up shirt sleeves and even having a some muscle tone to show for it. The picture brings back such great memories because Keith and I were soon-to-be engaged and Louie and Shelley were engaged and just months shy of their wedding day. I was a brand new believer, having become a Christian the year before at a Christian conference for college students. I also just so happened to meet Keith at that same conference. Louie also became a Christian during his college years and like me, experienced a radical transformation. He was in the infancy of his calling as the founder and creator of Choice Ministries at Baylor University. Choice was a weekly Christian gathering that drew over a thousand students. And folks, the rest is history and too much to document on this post.

At the time the picture was taken, none of us could have predicted in a million years what God had in store for the future regarding our respective ministry callings. And when I say "our", I mean all of us. Sometimes the visionaries are the ones to get the credit when a new ministry is birthed, but without implementers like Shelley and Keith, most visions would never get their wings. What really strikes me about the vintage photo is that my own kids are close to the age we were in the picture. They are in the infancy of their divine callings with their whole lives before them. I get goosebumps thinking about it.

Below are a few more pictures of our Thanksgiving celebration. After we left the farm, we headed to the lake house to do a post-Thanksgiving celebration with my side of the family. I'll plan to post some pictures from that gathering later this week. I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday!