Embrace

I'm challenged and encouraged to embrace change...

As much as I want things to look a certain way and as much as I want to "experience" family I'm finding that it's best to open my arms wide...letting go of expectations and embracing whatever the Lord puts in my path. 

There is just so much goodness that is waiting to be experienced and discovered and embraced.

"Family" might look different that what we had once hoped, it might be in flux or it might be painful at times but God has promised to set the lonely into families.

So I want to embrace the wonder of my own family - not being disappointed when it  doesn't pan out the way i had hoped, but looking for God and good all the time.

And creating space for the larger "family" of God that is potentially waiting in the shadows and ready to be embraced and loved. 

This little Easter escapade with my nieces and the kids was over the top wonderful.

Yes, I would have loved to have had my own son and daughter in love be a part of things, but they weren't.

And that's ok.

Because, Look...

This time THESE ONES were present and it was LOVE.

This kind of togetherness is a gift.

These people, this unbelievably beautiful setting.

This Spring...

God has to make these things happen.

Sometimes we experience alone and waiting.

And sometimes the doors fly open and "family" pours in.

There is chaos and laughter and joy and food.

There is nature and beauty and we get to be part of it,

Together in real time.

And yet there is sadness mingled into this wild and wonderful joy.

My sister is home alone, too sick to partake.

My Dad, isolated even in the midst of family. Hopeless and despairing. 

But we choose joy in the loss and in the receiving.

We live in the moment, knowing this is all so temporary.

The joy and the pain.

Fleeting vapours,

Every moment incredibly valuable. 

His beauty, His presence, His life swirls around us.

Foreshadowing glory.

So in these moments we say thank you with every breath.

To the giver of every good and perfect gift.

We breathe Him in

We hold each other close,

Hello's and Farewells almost overlapping as we journey to the place where we will be one.

There will be no separation, no loneliness, no brokenness.

No more farewells.