BY: Katherine Berry-Burns
On a cool October evening, the sun, mellow and golden, Darrell and Wendy welcome me into their home. With true Southern hospitality, they make sure that I don’t need anything before they settle in themselves. Darrell takes a seat on a dark brown couch with deep seats, the kind that invites you to curl up, grab a cozy throw, and prepare yourself for soulful conversation and belly-aching laughter. Wendy takes her seat beside him, her bare feet hovering just above the floor. Their body language says it all, tells their story before a word is ever spoken: a tender all-knowing glance, a delightful giggle, an invisible thread tying them together. Darrell and Wendy are unmistakably, undeniably in love – the kind of love that’s time tested,weather worn, forged by fire, shining as golden and eternal as the October sun.
Although they are confident in the connection they share and the commitment they have made to each other, they are both quick to tell you that oneness in marriage is not a state that a couple achieves. On the contrary, becoming one in marriage is a process that requires a couple’s consistent willingness to engage, to embrace curiosity, to wrestle with continuous change, and to strive for optimal growth. Wendy says, “We don’t want to paint a picture that we are perfect or that our family is perfect. Not at all! We just believe that God can use all Darrell and I have gone through and our little imperfect family to bless the world.”
Oneness in marriage takes sacrifice, selflessness, and the sustaining power of God. Ecclesiastes 4:12 states: “An enemy might be able to defeat one person, but two people can stand back-to-back to defend each other. And three people are even stronger. They are like a rope that has three parts wrapped together – it is very hard to break.” Darrell and Wendy share a passion for seeing marriages and families thrive and are bold in sharing that God is the third cord that is wrapped around them and creates their unbreakable bond.
The story of Darrell and Wendy Woods begins in the courtyard of Belton-Honea Path High School. A 16-year old Wendy leans close to her friend Angie and whispers, “Darrell’s looking kind of good.” Angie just happens to be Darrell’s cousin, and like any good cousin, she promptly shares Wendy’s compliment with Darrell. This is all the fuel Darrell needs to begin his pursuit of Wendy. One night, after a Halloween party, Darrell & Wendy sat in the car and talked for over three hours. After that first conversation, they both knew that they shared a special connection and soon began dating.
As high school sweethearts, they remained inseparable but were soon to face their first major challenge. Amid the excitement of preparing for high school graduation, they found out they were pregnant with their first child. Determined to do the right thing by each other and their daughter, they moved in together. Darrell reminisces, “I was there, but I wasn’t there. So many things were happening to show me that God was trying to get my attention, but I just kept running, kept being stubborn.” Until one night, while watching Channel 16 and looking at a track he’d taken from a payphone, Darrell accepted Christ into his life. The change was immediate. Darrell had made up his mind that he’d spent enough time running and wasn’t going to run anymore. The change in Darrell quickly brought about conviction concerning his and Wendy’s present living arrangement. Wendy laughs, “In other words, he couldn’t just be content with “shacking up” (the old school way of referring to an unmarried couple who lives together). Darrell moved back home, but fortunately, the change in Darrell initiated a change in Wendy, too. Over the next year, they both prioritized their relationship with God, and after six years of dating, were married in 1999. But it was a rocky start for these newly married high school sweethearts. Wendy reveals, “While we were on our honeymoon in Disney World, we fought almost the whole time!” Nodding his head in agreement, Darrell adds, “We argued so much that we both were questioning our decision to marry.” Luckily, the ride back home, afforded them the opportunity to remember what brought them together in the first place – their ability to communicate. They talked. They talked through their expectations of marriage and their expectations of each other. They shared openly and honestly. Through the inevitable ups and downs that every long-term relationship experiences, their ability to communicate is what has helped them find their way back to each other again and again.
Communication is what helped them make really tough decisions, such as deciding that Wendy would work part-time as a nurse so that she could spend more time mothering their three children: Kaliyah, Kaylyn, & Sam. Although they don’t regret this decision, it meant that they had their share of financial struggles. Wendy recalls their beloved blue Tahoe with the door that wouldn’t open & the leaky fluids. She laughs & states, “Everyone was so happy when we laid that car to rest.” But through it all, their commitment to God and to each other remained strong. Up until the kids were in high school, they made it a habit of having family prayer time. This anchored and unified them: “If you’re broke, I’m broke. If I’ve got something you’ve got something.” Their what’s-yours-is-mine and what’s- mine-is-yours mentality is what fortified them for the most challenging battle they were yet to fight.
At the age of 39, in 2015, Wendy received a diagnosis that would develop a different area of the commitment she and Darrell had made to one another. Wendy was diagnosed with breast cancer. She received the call while out shopping for a Father’s Day gift for her father-in-law. Wendy recalls, “I noticed that it was 3 o’clock in the afternoon, and I immediately broke down.” Overcome with emotion, the moment that would change her life forever, tattooed in her memory. Knowing that her best chance at pushing through this was to surround herself with the people she loved, she sat in Belk’s parking lot and called Darrell, her sister, Tasha, and her mom. Everyone told her to stay put until they arrived.
As Darrell made the drive to her, he recalled an incident at Electrolux, his place of employment. A stack of materials had fallen and made the loudest sound. When he went to check it out, he thought to himself, “Oh, it wasn’t as bad as it sounded.” “It’s not as bad as it sounds” is the refrain that the Holy Spirit played in his ears as he drove to comfort his wife. When Darrell arrived, these were the words that anchored him as he prayed for his wife and prepared their family for the journey ahead. Steadied by the presence of her husband, her mom, and her sister, peace came over Wendy as Darrell’s words washed over her and calmed her anxious heart.
Soon after receiving the diagnosis, they began to quickly set up appointments. As a nurse, Wendy’s surgeon and medical team were also her colleagues. Because of her medical background, Wendy did not shy away from obtaining all of the information available to her, and she was direct in making sure her medical team did not sugarcoat anything. She wanted to know it all. Wendy admits, “This approach, really pushing to know it all, had its good side and bad side, but I wouldn’t change it because it helped me to make informed decisions about my health and my body.” As part of her treatment, Wendy opted to have a mastectomy and breast reconstruction simultaneously which made for an 11-hour surgery. During the whole procedure, Wendy & Darrell had a waiting room full of people who loved them and prayed for them during the whole 11-hour surgery.
One major change for Darrell & Wendy was their prayer life, both individually and as a couple. The scripture where Jesus cursed the fig tree is the scripture that Darrell & Wendy stood on daily leading up to the surgery as Darrell laid hands on her breasts, anointed her, and cursed the cancer that had invaded her body. On July 20th, when they went to the oncologist, the doctor said, I believe someone’s been praying for you. Because the cancer had shrunk so much, Wendy was given the option to take Tamoxifen instead of having to undergo chemotherapy. When Darrell heard the news he ran down the hall unable to contain his praise and exultation for the God who had caused the cancer in his wife’s body to shrivel up and die just as Jesus had done the fig tree. The words, “It’s not as bad as it sounds” came back to him.
During the next leg of their journey —- Wendy took Tamoxifen for eight years —- Darrell would sometimes have to repeat these words by faith and not by sight. Supporting their family while his partner wasn’t able to give 100% was not an easy task. Wendy had been and still is a meticulous housekeeper and cooked most of the family’s meals. The family had to adjust to a new normal and that meant being okay with a little dust on the shelves and eating out more. “Being a caretaker humbled me, and I knew I couldn’t do it all by myself, so I had to rely on family and friends and take breaks when necessary,” Darrell shared. Wendy casually places her hand on his back, “Yes, I know it wasn’t easy, but I was so proud of him and was so grateful for the sacrifices he made.”
Although the side effects from the medicine were not as harsh as some earlier forms of treatment, Wendy still experienced thinning hair, mood swings, weight gain, and excruciating pain in her legs and feet. Through all of these changes, Darrell and Wendy’s commitment to one another never wavered, and this test only served to strengthen their bond. In fact, this experience intensified their desire to help others who are ill and to help those who are caring for loved ones. This desire turned into a dream realized when Wendy opened Loving Hands Homecare Services, LLC, a business that provides personal care assistants to clients who need in-home support with daily activities. “After going through what we went through, you realize how short life is, and I knew that I had to take this chance. I love that I get to spend each day helping to make people’s lives a little easier when they are going through a season of sickness,” Wendy explains.
Most of us are familiar with traditional wedding vows. We often silently mouth the words as the starry-eyed couple before us recite “to have and to hold…for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health…until death do us part. And yet the current divorce rate tells us that many people who take these vows aren’t ready to uphold them. What does it look like for a couple not only to survive, but to thrive when better turns to worse, when richer gives way to poorer, when sickness threatens to consume what was once healthy? This is the question that too often never gets asked or isn’t given enough consideration. But it is a question that is worthy of our attention and exploration, and couples like Wendy and Darrell show us not only what it looks like to survive difficult seasons of marriage but to thrive through them, forging a bond that is truly unbreakable.