Family...

Yesterday as I sat at my Grandma's dining room table...I looked around and couldn't help but smile. I truly enjoy my family. I truly mean that. Not in a I have to because they are my family kind of way...but really, really enjoy being with them.

While I know many families have their "skeletons"...our family has many things that others might find "unsavory" or "scandalious" or "embarassing". My family has children before we are married. My family uses illegal substances. My family breaks the law. My family gets into fights. My family gambles. My family drinks. My family divorces. My family...is rarely on the same page. We argue and debate--politics, employment, faith, child-rearing, finances, social concerns. We too often hold grudges. We too often gossip. We too often have anger issues.

And yet...

We LOVE.

We LOVE.

We LOVE.

There is devotion to each other. There is unbridled affection. Cousins who I sometimes want to smack because I think they are sooooo narrow minded....the same cousins who probably sometimes want to smack me because they think I am soooooo overbearing....we would go to bat for each other over and over if we had to. They need not ever worry that I would not be there if they needed me. If there was a way for me to humanly help them...there would not be hesitation. It doesn't matter to me that we aren't always heading the same way. That we disagree. Love covers a multitude of sins. Love heals. Love brings people closer together. Love conquers. Love is not a feeling. Love is a commandment. In Matthew, Jesus tells us to love our neighbor as ourselves. It's not a choice. Jesus models true love...agape love. God loves us unconditionally.

My family also has a great earthly teacher of love. My Grandma. The glue that holds us all together. I am blessed with a Grandmother who loves her 10 children. She loves her 25 grandchildren. She loves her 29 great-grandkids. (and the two on the way!) She loved her husband and chooses to remember and cherish the wonderful qualities he had...when there are many difficult things that she could dwell on and feel pain about. She loved her father and cared for him at the end of his life..bringing him into her home and in doing so allowing us the gift of a grandpa. She loved her grandson enough to take him in and raise him as her own when his parents weren't able to care for him. She prays for each of us and trusts that God can do what she can't.What a legacy of love she has given us. It is not something any of us should take lightly.


Family matters. Family is more than just people you are genetically connected to. I love my family. I pray for my family. I am thankful for the sordid crew that we are and I know that God is doing a great work in our lives. In our generation and in the generations to come. We've come from heartache and pain...blood, sweat and tears...devotion, hard work and loyalty...patience, forgiveness and acceptance.

Thank you Lord for the gift of my family. Thank you for our differences. Thank you for the love that we share and the love that we are given. I am grateful to have them in my life. Help me to continue to live out loud for you, never ashamed of who I am, where I came from or what I've been through..always reflecting your light...always accepting ur will...always growing.

Brand New Day

Everybody look around
'Cause there's a reason to rejoice you see
Everybody come out
And let's commence to singing joyfully
Everybody look up
And feel the hope that we've been waiting for
Everybody's glad
Because our silent fear and dread is gone
Freedom, you see, has got our hearts singing so joyfully
Just look about You owe it to yourself to check it out
Can't you feel a brand new day?
Can't you feel a brand new day?
Can't you feel a brand new day?
Can't you feel a brand new day?

Everybody be glad
Because the sun is shining just for us
Everybody wake up
Into the morning into happiness
Hello world! It's like a different way of living now
And thank you world! We always knew that we'd be free somehow
In harmony...And show the world that we've got liberty
It's such a change...For us to live so independently
Freedom, you see, has got our hearts singing so joyfully
Just look about, You owe it to yourself to check it out
Can't you feel a brand new day?
Can't you feel a brand new day?

Everybody be glad
Because the sun is shining just for us
Everybody wake up
Into the morning into happiness
Hello world! It's like a different way of living now
And thank you world! We always knew that we'd be free somehow
In harmony...And show the world that we've got liberty
It's such a change...For us to live so independently
Freedom, you see, has got our hearts singing so joyfully
Just look about...You owe it to yourself to check it out
Can't you feel a brand new day?
Can't you feel a brand new day?
Can't you feel a brand new day?
Can't you feel a brand new day?

So my friend Amy Teal...got me so thinkin' about this song and it's so stuck in my head that I had to go and look up the lyrics and couldn't stop smillin' :)

If we get our heads and hearts right----racial reconciliation might just be more than a pipe dream!! This doesn't have to mean division unless people choose to let it be. I pray with great fervor that those that think race shouldn't be an issue might understand why it is. Why those that think it is the only issue might see that it's more than that.

I was told on two occasions by two teachers in school that there would never be a black president in my lifetime so I shouldn't even think it was a possiblity.
I am the great granddaughter of a man who ran away from his country at 12 years old because he believed it to be true that in the United States there was opportunity and he could have a good life.
I am married to a man who in his own church had someone let the info booth know that a strange man was wandering in the lobby and should they call the police.
I am the mother of children who were daily being called the "n" word at school right here in Waukesha.

There is a great rejoicing in my heart because the hope that I have kept stirring deep down in my soul...regardless of these circumstances...might now be realized by countless others.

There is rejoicing in my heart because I know that I don't just live in a world that is bound by the laws and bills of the land...but in a world where the Spirit of God is alive and well and He lives in ME and I can make a difference...and that might be now realized by countless others.

There is rejoicing in my heart because change is revolutionary and God is always up to something good. There is more to this world than what the politicians have to say about it.

There is rejoicing in my heart because my son said to me this morning...you know--I could be president and I could honestly respond--if that's what God has for you then YES YOU CAN.

God can do ANYTHING!