About Lauren and Abigail

The Great State of Texas

November 12, 1984

Lauren Virginia entered the world adorned with curly, red hair and an indomitable spirit. Raised by conservative and loving (though, in her early years, unbelieving) parents, she soon excelled in academics and athletics. Softball became her passion and with her dad as her private coach and #1 supporter, she played with a fervor, discipline and determination that promised to take her far.

When she was ten years old, her Mom discovered Jesus and shared her discovery with the rest of the family. Quick to please, Lauren “accepted” Him, too, and began to attend church (albeit very sporadically). One day, in the midst of a softball game when she was thirteen, Lauren and a teammate charged for a ball that had landed between them. Their heads collided and Lauren wound up sprawled on her back, unconscious. The Lord used a concussion to knock some sense into her. Laid up and temporarily unable to excel in her beloved sport or school, she began to see her helplessness—not just physically, but spiritually as well. She knew she needed a Savior! The seed her Mom had sown took a firm root and sprang up.

During high school, Lauren found Christian encouragement through a group of girlfriends and her local church, which challenged her to dig in to God’s word each day. Good teaching bore good fruit in her life as she struggled to balance God, grades, family and softball. She graduated with a smile on her face, a bat slung over her shoulder and a scholarship in her pocket and headed off for a little college in Arkansas, where she met this guy…

The Plains of Kansas

June 5, 1987

Abigail Joy made her debut in a hurry—5 A.M. on her due date—leaving barely enough time for the fill-in doctor to arrive. The rest of her life continued in a similar manner. Fed Bible along with her baby food, a three-year-old Abigail overheard her mom explaining the way of salvation to her older brother, Nathaniel, and decided it sounded like a “good idea.” Haphazard, lively and seldom serious, Abigail came to a crisis at age thirteen and had to determine for herself “what does it mean to serve Yahweh?”

Through godly parents who chose to homeschool, she received constant discipleship and Bible teaching which enabled her to learn, little by little, the answer to her question. One stronghold at a time, her control zones and success goals came crumbling down as the Lord worked to gently claim her allegiance. The summer of her sixteenth year, her last efforts to run her own life reared up in the ugly form of an eating disorder that threatened her health and relationships. Finally recognizing her helplessness to be anything apart from complete surrender, she entrusted her soul to a faithful Creator and chose to do what was right.

A few weeks later her best friend and older brother, Nathaniel, left home to study engineering in a little college in Arkansas, where he met this girl…

A Little College in Arkansas

“I want you to meet Lauren,” Nathaniel told Abigail. “She’s a lot like you.” The opportunity came when the family visited Nathaniel for his birthday and he arranged for Abigail to stay on campus—with Lauren. Sunburned from a softball game the night before, she lay back in her bunk bed and asked, “So…how did you meet the Lord?”

Three years, uncountable e-mails, phone calls, letters, packages and visits later, Abigail and Lauren sat on the floor of the girl’s suite admiring Lauren’s engagement ring and making plans for Lauren’s wedding—to Nathaniel.

Our friendship started with an outpouring of our hearts, a testimony of the Lord and a desire to grow in Christ. It grew by leaps and bounds as the Lord brought us through all kinds of purifying processes and taught us both to open ourselves and share what He is doing.

Sometimes it seems that marriage interrupts other friendships, like an invisible wall that can’t be crossed. How do we relate any more? One has a husband and one still serves a father. One has a kitchen of her own and the other still searches for rearranged items in her mother’s kitchen. One wears a diamond and the other still wears pearls.

 

Diamonds or pearls, we’ve discovered that the path for refining is not so different. The call to holiness still looks much the same. The Master we both serve is the same yesterday, today and forever. A pearl and a diamond can even complement each other sitting side by side in His crown—neither diminished, both bringing glory to Him, by His grace.