Family

Family- for many, that is a painful word.

For me- it evokes warm, fuzzy feelings and lots of good memories.

Last night, my family celebrated Thanksgiving. It was a very loud gathering of people. The young boys were playing football in the basement, the younger children were playing school, and loudly trailing the 'cow bell' through the house, the adults were having various conversations throughout the house, some of them talking loud enough to be heard above the din. There were several quiet conversations sprinkled in too. Little Josiah was trying to fall down the stairs. Mom/Grandma's delicious food was devoured. It was a special evening. There were 40 of us there, which means about 25 were missing. Like I said, it was loud.

My family looked like this 30 years ago-

Now we look like this-

The siblings-

The grandchildren-

Random fun pictures of my family-

I am very blessed. I have some of my best friends in this bunch of people. There has been a lot of pain in our past, losing Dad being one of the big ones, but it has brought us together. We will never see eye to eye on every issue. But like a wise person told me once, "If we can't love when we disagree, we have nothing to offer anyone." And I keep coming back to that.

Too often our preferences or beliefs can completely divide families and friendships. It's the 'I'm right and you're wrong every time' mantra that gets us into a lot of trouble. We can accomplish a lot more by taking our concerns for our family to God and letting Him change hearts than we can by trying to be the Holy Spirit in their lives.

And so today, I'm thankful for my parents, my siblings, my nieces and nephews and every in law, and out law :) in my family. My life is so much richer because of them. I am blessed.