A Tribute

I’d like to break from my trip reportings to celebrate two wonderful people.

It is beautiful what time can do. Time gives us life. Times gives us experiences, knowledge and wisdom. Time gives us joy, no better demonstrated than within marriage. Brandon and I have only been married just over a year and a half, but as time in our marriage passes we experience greater and greater joy. I am beginning to foresee the indescribable joy we will experience as more time passes.

Love is joy, a principle greatly illuminated by the most admirable of peoples: Blaine and Susan Burnett, my parents.

Today is their 34th anniversary of getting married! Congratulations!

Time has also blessed me with the wisdom of appreciation and recognition of the beauty of my parents. Perfection is obviously not attainable within this life. But I must say that I, recognizing all the follies of my parents, I do not think it is possible to parent more perfectly than how they did it. The list of things parents should do is long and, frankly, impossible to actually complete, especially on a regular basis. It is my strong opinion that my parents were as perfect as possible in this life at doing all those things. And I thank them for that. A better upbringing for me and my siblings could not have been.

It is such a blessing to reflect on their examples and to talk with them about parenting. It is such a blessing to watch them now, now that I have some frame of reference as far as marriage goes, and now as they endure many trials. They surely are remarkable.

And how happy it makes me that I am not the only to recognize it! A few years ago, my dad lost his job and it has not been easy since. I was talking to a dear friend, who knows them well, about it. She pointed out to me that, because of their obedience, they can face this trial with confidence knowing that it could not be a consequence of sin but merely a trial of faith.

I love them so much and am very grateful for the sacrifices they made and keep making on the behalf of their family. It will be a true pleasure living beside them for eternity, continually learning from their examples.

Thank you!