I am fiercely protective of my wife – any man would be. With all she’s going through, I only want her to be seen in a good light…

Outside my window this morning, the world is white.

Here in Indiana, the snow comes much earlier than it does at home in Tennessee.  Some years it doesn’t snow at all there.  So when I saw the flakes start falling two days ago, I got really excited.

Our bus driver Russell is special.

When our career took off in 2008 and we first started having to travel all across the country and visit radio stations and play shows… Joey didn’t like flying.  She wanted to be able to take a bus – to make it feel more like being at home, even though we would be gone from our farm.

It’s a little after 6 am and I’m sitting by my wife watching her as she sleeps.  The table at her bedside is filled with framed photos, cards, and books… all carefully selected by Joey and her sisters.

We prayed.  We all prayed.

God answered.

At 4 am on Friday morning we rushed Joey to the hospital in Muncie.  Her pain had become too much to bare.  A few hours later the doctors told us that the pain was from the cancer tumors continuing to grow and become inflamed and we need to concentrate now on helping her be comfortable.

Like lots of other folks last night, we were with family and friends holding hands and praying for unexplainable healing and complete peace for Joey in the coming days and weeks.  There were tears in many eyes, including Joey’s and mine.  It was a special moment together. 

When we got married in 2002, Joey not only took on my name, she also took on my two teenage daughters, Heidi and Hopie as her own.

At the alter, in front of God, the preacher and the whole congregation, Joey and I exchanged rings.  After I put a ring on her finger, she slipped one on mine.  Then she called the girls up and gently slid a ring on their fingers too… a  symbol of her commitment to them, like her commitment to me.

We have been in Joey’s hometown of Alexandria, Indiana for the past week.  She is spending important time with her mama and daddy and three sisters in the farmhouse she grew up in.

Joey and her family have laughed together and shed many tears as they’ve walked down memory lane together – reminiscing about their school days, the Halloweens and Christmas’s, and the journey that has brought them and all of us here.