Dear Abby

Dear Abby

Dear Abby,

Until today, these words would only call to mind to a long-forgotten newspaper column or a quirky song by one your Pop’s favorite songwriters. But thanks to you, those words have a new point of reference – a little girl that has stolen my heart, as you have and will many others. Abby, they have named you. And dear you are. Dear Abby, indeed. I like the sound of that.

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A Mother’s Loving Impact

Happy Mother's Day

Where does one begin to tell the story and weigh the loving impact of the mothers in their life? You’ve got a story. Not a perfect one – no one’s is. But one marked with enough love, support, and providence to know you would not be who and where you are today without them. I know I wouldn’t be. And I wanted to take a few minutes to tell you about them.

Mary Whitston was a farmer’s wife, widowed at 38, while expecting her only child. With little education and no capacity to work the land, she left it all to her departed husbands’s family and moved to the cotton mill city of Moultrie, Georgia. Her sister Eulala Boatwright made the journey with her. One worked the first shift, the other the second, living in a mill-village four-room house. They raised that child. Eulala never married and lived to be 97, owning her health and vitality to the fact that she never had to live with a man. That daughter, whose birth certificate shows her as named after her dad, often said she would never have known which of these two women was her mother had she not been told. It was a non-traditional family before it was cool. And what a job they did.

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Dr. Phil Lilly

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When I walked up to the door of FBC for the first time, it was Phil Lilly who met me at the door. In typical Phil fashion, he had two umbrellas and a welcome manual ready to share. It did not take me long to realize the role he had played in holding things as together as possible during the interim period and what a humble, hard-working servant he was and still is. He covers bases with the best of them, as he teaches, visits, officiates, negotiates, and holds frank and friendly discussions with the FDOT. And he has done all this while reducing his role to part-time and taking precious little time away from home.

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