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Friday, September 10, 2010

Uniquely Mine



They are mine.
They belong to me. And I to them.
Over the past few weeks..... months actually, there have been moments.... snippets of time, when I catch myself smiling.
We are always together.
Usually all crowded on our couch. One touching the other.... legs draped over a sister, arm slung around a shoulder.... or head resting on a lap.
And we are always mostly laughing.
Either at one or another.... at a joke my son just told, or at the wise cracks that flow freely out of my daughter's mouth. They are usually flying out of mine too.
We laugh at ourselves A LOT.
We have to.
Life is too complicated not to.... it can be too weighty if we don't.
Our laughter and time together lightens the loads.
It carries us to the next moments that we can be together. Like this. Just us.


We have fought hard to have this. My husband and I.
We didn't come from this. 
Our history doesn't include a lot of what we have striven for with our children.
When I look at them....at him.... at us, I am reminded of this.
We have made our own mistakes. Fallen, and gotten back up.
Although there have been times that we have both wanted to give up. We haven't.
We have gone on, even when we are stumbling through, scraped up, bruised and broken.
And it has shaped us into who we are today. Who my family is.
We are special.


I know that none of this happened on it's own.
My husband and I can't really even take full credit. 
We are aware, fully and completely, Who we owe every laugh filled moment to.
Every precious smile. Every tender look.
The look on my oldest daughters face as she watches her sister, as I wait for the spontaneous giggle that I know is always forthcoming.
When I glance next at my son who's smile lights up my heart. His fathers dimple in his cheek... so much like him.
It is usually in that moment that I look up and see my husbands eyes on mine.... and the message that they send me.
My heart aches with the feel of it in an agonizingly sweet way.
We have shared so much.
Grown up together in so many ways.
And we have never stopped learning.
Learning that we don't have all the answers.
Learning that we are going to make mistakes. And trying hard not to kill ourselves over them.
Learning that it's okay to fall down once in a while. We just can't stay that way.
Learning that grace is far better to give each other than the harsh things that we pick up along the way.
Learning that no matter what we do, or what we may say, that the fact that God put us together... this family of ours, is meant to stay that way.
We are learning more and more that we need each other.
Not just for the self gratifications, or even for the knowing that we are not alone. 
But I need him to tell me. To remind me who I am. And why I am here. To show me that real love doesn't quit... or give up.
He needs me to show him that he is better than he thinks he is.
Stronger than he knows. More amazing with every passing day.
Our children need us to model for them what God's people should look like. 
Even when we make mistakes.
Especially when we make mistakes.
They need to see us running to the arms of our Heavenly Father.
They need to see the tear streaks running down our face.
They need to see Jesus as we serve one another. Love one another. And forgive each other.
They need so much.... and so often I feel incapable of giving it.


This brings me back to my point..... 
All of us are His.
Every moment is our gift from Him.
Even the moments that don't so much look like the gifts that I am asking for... or want.
He is everything to us.
And because of that, I believe that we are who we are.
That we are the family that we have become to be.... that we are still becoming.
None of this happened by accident.
None it from happenstance.


He chose us to be this way.
To be us.
To be together.
Every moment.
For all of time.
I am crying right now with the enormity of it all.
My treasures.
My gifts.
Everything else I will leave here.
But they get to come with me..... because they have all chosen the same path. Because we are all walking this journey together.
I am wondering if that is hitting you the way it does me right now.


I have asked for nothing more.... and nothing less.
And He has been so faithful to give it to me.


So you see.....
My family may not be the most amazing, the most beautiful, the most everything that anyone may define a family to be.
But we are us.... we are His... and we belong to each other.


I wouldn't trade that for the world.


.... util another tomorrow.


-m


"Don't be deceived, my dear brothers. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created." James 1:16-18


"As for man, his days are like grass;
         As a flower of the field, so he flourishes.
    
When the wind has passed over it, it is no more,
         And its place acknowledges it no longer.
    But the lovingkindness of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear Him,
         And His righteousness to children's children,
    To those who keep His covenant
         And remember His precepts to do them." Psalm 103:15-18














4 comments:

  1. Beautiful!!! Thanks again I needed to remember to see things though Gods eyes. Yesterday was our 10yr anniversary...wow

    Blessing
    Noelle

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  2. WOW..BEAUTIFUL! thank you for sharing

    One of the hardest things in life is to be married. Two people with two different personalities, two different values on life, two different upbringings and so much more...BUT the ONE true God makes them and their married blend... I love how children resemble the things why we fell in love with our spouses. Sometimes I wonder if that is why God gives us our children....to remind us of why we married our spouses when times are tough. I can NEVER imagine what divorce couples through..knowing that they will always forever see the faces of their exes on their children's faces, in their personalities, in their walk and so much more.

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  3. I love reading the things you write...you are very gifted

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