I'm 69, married to Bill for 49 years come July, have two daughters (plus two sons-in-law and four grandchildren ranging in age from 9 to 21), and am a member of . We were an AF family for 30 years, until Bill retired, yet I've not been to Alaska. (He has, of course.) I still think I'll make it one day.
I'm not a Bible literalist, though I've built my life around faith in God and the truth of His word as revealed/communicated in Jesus. I'm not a literalist because of things like, How could God create the world in seven 24-hour days when the sun (by which we measure those days) wasn't created until the fourth day? It's still abundantly clear to me that God created it, that He created it intentionally, according to His plan in order to accomplish His purpose, providing everything that would be needed by the human beings He also created -- which is, I think, the primary truth of the creation story. (Others here may well disagree -- it's a free world, especially if you're Baptist.)
I don't comprehend the entire Bible very well, either -- and I don't trust anyone who claims to comprehend the entire Bible very well.
I believe we're all learning as we go along, being taught by the Spirit as we focus on God's word and living out what we do understand to the best of our ability. Most of us here can testify that we know more about the Bible now than we did five years ago, or ten, or two.
So we have some things in common and some areas of disagreement -- which is usually the case with any two people, I think.
How'd you get to Alaska? Always been there, or followed a job? I'd love to know a bit about your kids and the shape of your days. You can send me a Private Message if you'd rather (notice the PM button at the bottom of this post -- just click it and when you hit "Submit" at the end, it comes only to me). Of course, you don't need to reply at all.
In either case, I'm more than delighted to have you here. We've always been a bit short of women at BL.com -- me, and Deb, and Jane, mostly -- so we're glad to have reinforcements.