The Weirdness of Family

Meet Mager and Kong. These are Brandon and Kylie's Great Danes. They are huge and they are the most docile, lazy and trouble-free dogs I have ever seen. They have sweet and gentle personalities and they have been known to come and sit (like a real person) in your lap. That seems to be the norm for Great Danes. Mager is young and playful. Kong is old, gray and arthritic. He recently got a brown spider bite that was very painful - both for him and Brandon and Kylie - they had to doctor him round-the-clock, it was very expensive and they really thought at one point that he might not survive. With their great care he is again thriving.
Meet Elly. She belongs to Matt, our middle son. She is pretty and she's sweet but she sheds like crazy. She adores water and has been known to FROLIC in Brandon and Kylie's custom, one-of-a-kind water fountain at their home. (Much to their horror and consternation because Kong and Mager had no clue that you could/would or want to play in water.) Prior to Matt's marriage to Amy, we were the ones who had to babysit her when Matt had to be out of town. She really was fun and no trouble if you don't count the white hair EVERYWHERE, the dog poop in Billy's immacultely groomed yard and the drool on the windows and doors. What's a little inconvenience with family, right? When Matt married Amy their little family grew to include Katie, a rescue lab, Charles, a Chihuahua, Maude, a Persian cat, Brie, a stray cat and Harley, a horse. If you are wondering why they are not pictured above - I am a little overwhelmed at the thought of trying to get a 'family' picture.

This post is really not going to be religious. It's going to be a way for me to vent. You see.....I would like some homo sapien grandchildren. Nothing wrong with the four-legged kind if you are an animal lover but frankly, I'm not. I'm a nurse. I don't like drool, poop or dander. I don't like being dirty. Now, I know what you're thinking......kids are dirty. They poop. But for the most part it's contained. And it's sweet to wash kids. It's a nightmare washing dogs. And to me - well, they smell worse wet.

sigh

Our church encourages adoption. Billy said that was meant for younger people.

sigh

I had some abnormal blood work at my annual physical this year. I warned the children I might not be able to babysit if they didn't hurry.

smile

I don't think they were convinced.

sigh

Family. My family. They are just weird to me. By their age I had kids in school.

sweet memories flooding in

But you know what? They're my weird family and I adore them. You probably already guessed that.

smile

It takes all kinds to make family. Some of us are weirder than others. But when the rubber meets the road we are bound by invisible cords that stand the storms of life and the minor irritations only stand to give us something to laugh at when the day is done. I'm not a perfect mother - according to my boys I'm not even a great one - but I am crazy in love with my kids - ALL of them. And in the scheme of things, that is the greatest gift I can give them. My crazy, mad, umbilical cord-of- steel love.

Life is tough. Bad things happen. Love endures. Tell your family you love them today. Hug them harder. Forgive them more quickly. Blow off the unimportant.

One of the greatest gifts of getting older is realizing that - shhhhh, it's a well-kept secret.................

"WE'RE ALL WEIRD!!!!!!"

So stop sweating the small stuff. Stop comparing. Stop worrying. Love. It bears all things, believes all things, endures all things. Love NEVER fails." And at the end of it all, to know that we loved well is the greatest epitaph of all.

I love you!

Vacation, Camp and Heaven

This is the time for the kids to go to camp and families to travel. It's a time for making memories and discovering new wonders about the world we live in or in the case of camp - new things about ourselves. One of the things that we all do before we send our precious child to camp or ourselves to another destination is preparation!

We would never dream of sending or going without researching the destination. After all we want to make sure that it is 1) worth our time and 2) that we derive the ultimate fulfillment from it.

When we learned of our Justin's relocation from this earth to heaven I remember wracking my brain trying to figure out what he was doing and what he knew and could see. I realized very quickly that while I thought I knew a lot about God's word I had never really studied up on heaven. Nor had I heard many sermons on heaven. And I realized that I had sent my child on ahead to a place I had not researched or truthfully even been too interested in.

Most of you could probably relate. After all - we trust God, right? We just believe that He's got it all under control and that heaven will be great. So why sweat the stuff we can't understand anyway? After all, the Bible says it's a mystery, right?

Wrong! The Bible is rich with examples and hidden treasures regarding heaven. In fact, C. S. Lewis says that it's only since men have quit thinking so much about heaven that they have become so earthly minded. We are told to "set our minds on things above where Christ sits." God's word says that "the spirit reveals" those things that are too wonderful for us to comprehend. We can know and are in fact, commanded to know.

It took my son's relocation for me to really sink my teeth into study about heaven. Thankfully there are some wonderful writers that have done a lot of the work for us - Randy Alcorn being one of the greatest of our day. I would encourage you to read his work. He has many excellent fictional novels that will pique your interest in reading his apologetic, Heaven.

Here are some of the benefits of learning so much about heaven: a lack of fear about dying, immense gratitude for the work that Christ accomplished on the cross, a sense of wonder at the hugeness of God's plan for redemption and a desire to live better, serve harder and love more deeply.

The desire and compulsion that many of us feel to investigate vacation or camp spots has to do with our excitement and interest in those places. Don't you think we should have that same excitement and interest in where we will spend eternity? Don't you think God deserves our - at the least - curiosity about the place He has prepared for His beloved children? I do. I am sorry it took Justin's moving there to motivate me but I am not sorry for the time I have invested in studying about heaven. I am like a kid on Christmas Eve. Living in the anticipation of what lies ahead. And knowing for once I will not be disappointed in the imagining! It will be better than any brochure, postcard or dreaming.

I can only imagine........

A Word From Oswald

In my journal today I read these words from Oswald Chambers' My Utmost for His Highest and I believe someone else needs these words as desperately as I do. I pray it encourages you today as it did me.

"And the parched ground shall become a pool." Isaiah 35: 7

"God gives us the vision, then He takes us down to the valley to batter us into the shape of the vision, and it is in the valley that so many of us faint and give way. Every vision will be made real if we will have patience. Think of the enormous leisure of God! He is never in a hurry. We are always in such a frantic hurry. In the light of the glory of the vision we go forth to do things, but the vision is not real in us yet; and God has to take us into the valley, and put us through fire and floods to batter us into shape, until we get to the place where He can trust us with the veritable reality. Ever since we had the vision God has been at work, getting us into the shape of the ideal, and over and over again we escape from His hand and try to batter ourselves into our own shape.

The vision is not a castle in the air, but a vision of what God wants you to be. Let Him put you on His wheel and whirl you as He likes, and as sure as God is God and you are you, you will turn out exactly in accordance with the vision. Don't lose heart in the process. If you have ever had the vision of God, you may try as you like to be satisfied on a lower level, but God will never let you."

Get on the wheel of God's love today. You are in no safer place than His hands. Here's to the vision!!!