I Married a Preacher

The story of two common people married to each other and committed to their God. Billy Ray Rigsby, born to share croppers in the hills of North Alabama, and Emma Jean Woodall, a typical teenager in the nineteen fifties. Converted at age nine, Billy developed a deep love for God. At the age of thirteen, he surrendered his life to the call of God and ministry. After high school graduation, he entered Tennessee Temple College and, from there, a tour of duty with the United States Air Force. While stationed in Orlando, Florida, he met his lifelong companion. Attending church one Sunday morning, Jean was captivated by a young serviceman in a blue uniform. Later they were married in the same church. Fifty-two years of joy, sorrow, laughter, and tears are revealed in the tale of two ordinary people with a love for God and each other. Everything that happens to you is for your own good. If the waves roll against you, it only speeds your ship toward the port. If lightning and thunder comes, it clears the atmosphere and promotes your soul's health. You gain by loss, you grow healthy in sickness, you live by dying, and you are made rich in losses. -Could you ask for a better promise? It is better that all things should work for my good than all things should be as I would wish to have them. All things might work for my pleasure and yet might all work my ruin. If all things do not always please me, they will always benefit me.- -Charles Haddon Spurgeon