Just some random pics from the past couple months. I am going to try to get back into the swing of things here on the blog...I need to take the holiday photos and start planning the Christmas card etc. This year has just flown by!
Lately I've been doing a lot of reflecting on my life, my family, and just the great privilege of being alive and seeing my kiddos grow! WOW how things have changed and how Tim and I both have grown and changed and it all is kind of overwhelming to me. I came across some VHS tapes this week of Tim and I "back in the day" as new parents and yet to be married. We were living in the apartment and we were so young and so silly, and joy-filled, and thin!
As I watched tape after tape I began to realize just how precious life is! That may seem obvious but you know day to day I can get so wrapped up in the bs of life that I forget that truth. I saw how much we loved each other and how much we loved Morgan. I was amazed by the sheer joy and super abundance of love we had to give our new baby. This little person seemed to have this same effect on all the people in my family. I watched all of us fall all over ourselves to have a chance at making her smile or better yet produce a little baby giggle or gurgle. We all seemed to be united and focused. Of course the back drop for all this joy and unity is vital in understanding why I got so emotional as I watched the videos play.
I couldn't help but marvel at all of our transformations. I couldn't help but be awe struck by the obvious graces poured out upon us. We were a family touched and transformed by God. One unplanned pregnancy became the catalyst for many leaps of faith! And we leaped and leaped and we keep on leaping today! My vision of my mysterious baby still invisible to me as a gift, a mystery worth discovering, worth taking a risk for is the vision which opened the door to Christ in my life. He used my surrender then and there and the chain of events since that have been just one blessing upon the next. My mother, my father, my sister, Martin, Tim, all of us have been changed over the years. We love each other more and as a new person has come into this imperfect and often "dysfunctional" family we have learned how to love MORE and sacrifice MORE and we are ALL the better for it! And there it was captured on VHS.
We don't appreciate life. we don't stop to think about what a gift it is. We take it for granted. Our growth, our learning, or changing, the love we feel, the love we give, breathing in and breathing out. Opening our eyes to a new day, day after day and given a chance to be more and do more! It is all so amazing!! I am amazed by the love of God, and how we forget it, ignore it, as it is all around us. I am glad I got some time to see it and contemplate it. I have made a promise to myself that I will be more deliberate about stopping to SEE the people in my life. I will SEE them and how they are ALIVE. I will SEE their LIFE and see it as a gift and a treasure and a MYSTERY! I will marvel in the mystery of my own life and my own personhood. God made me. God has a plan for me. He has always had a plan for me and He has loved me from the beginning of all time! WOW!
