Thankful for - FAMILY

I have really been struck lately by the impact that family has on people. Last week I was at an FCA conference where Joel Engle was the worship leader. During one of the sessions he talked about his family. He only knew his mother for a short while, never met his father and his grandparents passed away when we was still young putting him in an orphanage. (He sang a song about his father and I linked it below.)

As I heard the song and thought about situations in my own life I was overwhelmed. I have been incredibly blessed in my life with my family. I grew up in a an incredibly close family, on my Dad's side. At times we lived next door to my cousin's and those are my earliest childhood memories. Running back and forth across the church parking lot to each others house. With every bit of my heart and mind I know that those Aunt's and Uncle's, and cousin's loved me and still would do anything for me. Even when I don't see them for months or even year's at a time, the foundation of those relationships don't change.

My Grandfather and Grandmother are two of the hardest working and loving people I have in my life. They have doted on me every day of my life and I have never felt unloved or even un-adored by them. They have instilled in me a servants heart and compassion for others and unending dedication to ministry. My Grandfather is a lifelong learner and is the only one of my friends grandparents to not only be on facebook but to check it incessantly. My Grandmother is the classic Leave it to Beaver mom and prides herself on it. I would like to say I wish to be like her at her age, but I fear that I don't have her energy now so it doesn't bode well for the future hopes. They may not have been perfect people, but I think that is the joy of being a grandchild (or at least being their grandchild) because in my mind they are.

My brothers, my brothers. I begged my parents and I begged God for a sister for years, but it never worked. Then we did foster care for more than 10 years and I thought, this is my chance...we will just adopt one. What do we do? We add a brother. Oh, the irony. For most of my childhood the "majority rule" always worked against me and my mother saw right through my whining so seldomly were the cards in my favor. I think that I have enjoyed my brothers more in the last 10 years then ever before. They are great men that I would chose to know even if I wasn't forced to. Matthew Atticus, the addition to the group is by far the best of the whole group of us. He has been the joy of my world from the 3rd day of his life (which was when he entered our home).

Savannah has been the most surprising addition to my life and our family in every sense of the word and I LOVE HER! I have never before really been the type of person that could really see people's characteristics in babies, but oh my goodness, when she was born I have instantly been able to see my brother Tim in her (Julie too from time to time) but in a lot of her expressions and such. (She will be having her own dedicated blog post coming soon in the weeks to come.) My sister-in-law, Julie, can make friends faster then anyone I have ever met. She has impeccable taste and is incredibly hard working, surviving basically as a single-parent for Savannah for the whole first year of her life which blows my mind when I think about it.

When I was a young teenager I decided that just for spite I wanted to start calling my parents by their first names, instead of Mom and Dad. True to form, my mother was too stubborn to let me win and let me call her Cathy, and a lot of the time I still do. My father on the other hand would have none of it. So I can probably count on my fingers the number of times I have called him Tim. Just as with the names, my relationships with them have changed more then with anyone else I have ever known. I honestly think that my mother waited all her life to have adult children. I think she enjoys us all now more then at any other point. My dad, he is the first call for myself or for any of us kids when anything goes wrong or we don't know what to do. I honestly wonder, now that I am an adult, if he has a book somewhere that he looks in for the answers, or does he just make it up and we believe it because he says it. He is by no means a mechanic but when we have a car problem we call him and he says something with authority and we go with it. It's a little scary now knowing that there isn't instant wisdom that you receive when you hit 30, because I remember him at 30 and I am not as smart as I thought that he was. So there is a breakdown somewhere in my logic.

Okay bunny trail for a moment ***My parents decided to do foster care for babies when we were in High School, it was the craziest thing in the whole world. (Both parents worked and all three of us had very busy lives, but sure let's add a newborn to the mix. ) As we went through the process for the first few years and we had the unending questions from people about why? and how hard it was emotionally to say goodbye, I learned something. Foster care is the ultimate expression of unconditional love. Especially at that newborn stage. Seriously those babies come in and they are completely dependant and need you for all their physical needs and on top of that they need those smiles, and hugs to develop correctly. In the end, in most cases, you are preparing them to go homes with someone else. It is a long term babysitting gig that you never get paid for and never get a thank you for. *** Bunny trail ended

Marathon posting just to say, I hear these songs and I have these conversations with people who have missed out on their family (whether a mother, father, etc) and I guess in my mind I have a hard time understanding what it must be like to have that longing to belong. I have always had that security to fall back on, no matter what other crazy things may happen in my life. I am thankful for that, and I love them dearly.