What an awesome God we serve! You are awesome, O God, in your sanctuary; the God of Israel gives power and strength to his people. Praise be to God! Psalms 68:35 He is so good, and He cares about every detail of our lives. I am personally thankful that He works out our good for His glory. Romans 8:28 I have
been reflecting on my life, and realize through the good times and the bad my Savior has been with me. I am married to a wonderful man, who has an incredible capacity to love me and take care of me. I was blessed to experience that in my dad also. He is and was very patient and loving with us growing up. I went through some tough times as an adult, and even if I wasn’t always walking right with Jesus, my Heavenly Father still was patient with me and loved me anyway.
I experienced a divorce in my first marriage, but God has truly redeemed my past.
I am happily married. Michael and I have a blended family, we have five children. We
have so much to be thankful for. Our children all get along well together - they of course
have their moments, but don’t all siblings. Michael had two boys, I had two girls and then God blessed us with a daughter together. We definitely have had to pray a lot.
Blending families is not easy, and does not come without a lot of hard work and prayer.
Another big key to making it work was communication. We must constantly communicate with each other, especially in the first years of our marriage. However, the most important component for our marriage and for a blended family to be successful is to have Christ at the center of our marriage and our lives individually. We have to hold each other accountable. We must pray for each other, and be our spouses best friend. We also discovered we must spend time together as a couple. With five kids in our house of all different ages, finding time together is hard - we try to schedule a date night occasionally. But one thing we both agreed to do is to go away at our anniversary. We spend a couple days or longer together to re-connect. No matter where we go or how long we are gone, we look forward to the time alone. It has been so important for our marriage, and we would recommend that to any couple.
I am so thankful that God redeems our mistakes. Rise up and help us; redeem us because of your unfailing love. Psalm 44:26. My prayer now is that people will see
Jesus in me. That I will, with His constant help, be the aroma of Christ to others.

Sharon Riccio