A Mother's Day Tribute to My Wife

A Tribute to the Prettiest Girl in High School, the Best person I have ever known, and the Greatest Wife and life partner any man could ever have.

Carolyn, I want to thank you for the many years of your life that you have devoted to the Lord, to me and to our family. You are the cement which has held it all together for so long. There is no way for me to tell you how central and necessary you have been to the life work God has called me to. In many ways, you are the one that made it all happen and not me. I want to thank you for the many sermons you sat through with grace even though you lived with me and you knew my weaknesses and foibles. You always set the proper example for a Godly Preacher's wife and you were and are highly respected for it. Many women in our churches looked to you for a model as to how to live life. "Miss Carolyn is the perfect example of what a Pastor's Wife should be" is a statement I have heard many, many times over the years of our ministry together.

As I get older, it becomes even more obvious to me that you are the glue which holds everything all together in my life and in the life of our family. You have far more influence than I do in most ways. Our girls look to you for many of the answers of life. I have always done that far more than you realize. The success of my ministry is largely attributable to you.

I absolutely do not know what I would do without you! From folded socks and T-shirts to a checkbook which is balanced to the penny, to your example of what a Godly woman should be, to always seeking to have things right in our lives, to always doing what is right instead of doing what is easy, to furnishing leadership you are not even aware of, I find that you are truly the "other half" of me and I would be lost without you.

I thank the Lord all the time for putting us together. He answered your little girl prayer to let you marry a Preacher even though I was not one when we married. In God's sight, I was a preacher in prepar- ation. He knew the part you would play in His plan for the many who would be saved through our ministry. He knew I would need YOU and not some other person. He put it all together and it is obvious.

I also want to thank you for always seeking to be pretty, neat and clean not only personally but in our home. You take great care of yourself and it has paid off. You are still very, very pretty. The prettiest girl I know! Many of my preacher friends have voiced to me over the years how "good-looking" you are. They can't understand how I got you and neither can I.

Thank you for just being Carolyn Harrell. Thank you for not compromising on life. Thank you for your unrelenting support of me and the ministry God gave to me. Thank you for being my Wife! My love for you grows deeper all the time. As I look back over the years and all that we have been through, I know beyond doubt that I would never have made it without YOU.

I love you more now than ever,