Congratulations, Lori and Jim!!

This evening we received the happy news via email that my sweet neice Lori is engaged to be married. In the past six years she has had to walk through some of the deepest valleys of anyone I know - colon cancer which resulted in radical surgery, the shocking unfaithfulness of her pastor husband which resulted in divorce, and then her mother's sudden death (my sister Janet). Through it all, in spite of it all, maybe because of it all, Lori has blossomed into a woman of incredible trust in God. She is an amazing person, absolutely beautiful inside and out.

She said that Jim had the setting for his proposal all planned out. He had already discussed it with Lori's dad Elvin and brother Scott a few weeks ago when they were together before Elvin and Pauline's wedding. He also told Lori's two children that he was planning to ask her to marry him. And last evening he popped the question right in the presence of her children! Isn't that the neatest thing?

And here's the funny part. Before Lori was married her name was Lori Peifer. Then when she got married she became Lori Harris. Now she's engaged to a man named Jim Peifer!! So she will once again become Lori Peifer! She jokingly said she is considering a hyphenated last name: Lori Peifer-Harris-Peifer!!