Jody Farmer: I So Look Forward to the Weekend

I so look forward to the weekend as I know it will be another amazing trip to spend with another parish. Many questions come up during our visits, especially about our family and my own background. It warms my heart that people genuinely want to know about my sweet family!

Alex and I have three children. Our oldest, Jake, is 31 years old, and is married to Paige. They have two boys, Cooper (5) and Blake (2). Jake is a lobbyist for Walgreens and they live in Tallahassee.

Our daughter Charleigh is 29, and she is married to Andy Ward. They have a two-year-old son named Ridge. They live in Orlando, where Andy is the Director of Youth at First Presbyterian Church downtown. 

Samantha is our youngest (27) and is married to Jake Crawford. Samantha is a social worker and is currently working for the Hospice Association in Tallahassee. Her husband is in IT at the Department of Health. They are expecting their first baby this June—another boy! (You can see why it wasn’t hard to move to Tallahassee.)

I was a stay-at-home mom for 18 years. I remember praying for my children’s spouses even as they crawled around the floor in my living room. It is wonderful to now see those prayers answered. Sweet Christian marriages grow daily in their faith with each other. It is an awesome privilege as a parent to see such faith passed down to the next generation and bearing fruit.

As the parent of adult children, things have definitely changed. As they go through highs and lows, I now see things that, when the children were younger I might have had my hand in them, and now I have to lean on the Lord—and pray even harder! Still, it’s wonderful watching them now be parents, watching them be spouses, and looking for ways to encourage them in those relationships where we can.

Below is one of my favorite pictures. It’s the night our youngest Samantha was proposed to. And in Farmer fashion, we all were there. This was a few years ago so two grandchildren are “missing,” but I included a few other recent photos so you can see all three.

I look forward to our next visit!

God bless you,
Jody Farmer