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.