Hello! I’m Amanda Criss, and I’m honored to welcome you here to my blog. I hope it will be a blessing to you in some way.
If the blog’s name didn’t give this away already, my husband (Jody) and I are both from the southeastern United States, from two small towns in Mississippi. We became friends in college at Mississippi State University, but it was several years later, during 2005, that Jody began to write to me from the Middle East, where he was serving with the Mississippi Army National Guard. When he returned to the U.S. that December, he asked me to marry him, and by March of 2006, I was Mrs. Jody Criss. God has blessed us with a son and a daughter, making us a family of four.
During our early marriage we encountered infertility and miscarriages, which I have written about some here on the blog. That season was hard, and so were the accompanying emotional and spiritual struggles. But God helped and provided for us during that time, as he has during subsequent trials. I hope I can encourage other Christians, as God reminds me often, that he is with us and has a purpose for us in our suffering and difficulties.
My husband and I are eternally grateful to both have been raised in Christian homes by loving parents, and we ask God to enable us to provide a Christian home for our children as well. My parents led me to the Lord, and I trusted in Jesus for the forgiveness of my sins and became a Christian right before I began first grade. My parents began home schooling me in the ’80s, and I was home schooled until I graduated high school and went to Mississippi State University.
I am grateful for the privilege of being discipled for 10 years by a precious “older woman,” Mrs. Joyce Ledlow (an “old school” Navigator and former overseas missionary). She weekly took me under her wing beginning when I was 14 years old, and she taught and modeled for me what it meant to take God at His word. After I got married, God brought Precept Ministries Bible Studies into my life. I learned so much from several Precept teachers about how to study the Bible inductively, and it was life-changing for me.
In 2019, my dad was diagnosed with ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease), and he entered heaven in the fall of 2023. At dad’s funeral, my brother shared on behalf of our family how a loss of a loved one is often termed “bittersweet.” He expressed our experience well, though, by saying that through much of the process, it has felt a lot more bitter than sweet. But God shared *himself* with us through our sorrow, and he was with us and carried us all the way, as he continues to do to this day. My comfort and hope, which was my dad’s, too, is the wonderful gospel message: Jesus died for my sins, was buried, and was raised from the dead on the third day. God offers forgiveness of sins and eternal life to all who come to him through his Son, Jesus Christ.
After a couple of work-related moves for my husband, we moved “back home” to the country in 2016. We are so thankful for the church family that God has blessed us with at New Hope Baptist Church. My days are spent raising and home schooling my children and working here at our home and with my husband on our little farm.
Welcome to my blog — in every way, may Jesus Christ be praised!
