God and the people in my life!

I have been thinking about life today and what God wants from me. My first love is my relationship with God. Nothing else is as important is that relationship. Nothing that happens is without God knowing and being my strength to hang on to. My trust is knowing that He is my rock. My next love is my best friend, my husband and partner, Rick. He is the gift that God brought into my life. We have fought, cried, loved, hurt, made up, had fun and grown closer over the years. We are never done learning more about each other and growing closer to each other as we grow closer to God. He is our center.

I have my wonderful son. I so love getting to know him and watching him grow and change and become a man of God. He is a gift in my life. I have a beautiful daughter waiting to welcome me into heaven. She is my girl who will welcome me home into eternity. I can't wait for that blessed day. In God's time not mine!

Then we have our friends and family.

How do you define family? I have almost 100 kids! I have so many sisters that I can reach out to and love. These are not family only by birth but by adoption. Some are family by being adopted into God's family, by birth and by marriage. But the "family" that I am talking about is also those relationships that have happened when we adopted each other into our hearts and lives. What would I do without these sweet relationships. They sustain me, lift me up and energize me. God has blessed me with a large family of my heart that I have always wanted.

We all need each other. We need to know we are loved, needed and missed. We all need to hear "you matter". We all need to pray for each other. God created a hole in our heart that only he can fill. He also created a need in our soul for relationships.

Thank you for being my family! I Love you!

hugs! (Happiness under God's smile)

my brother, Chris

This morning, after 3 days of being in the open heart unit at the hospital, my 27 year old half-brother, Chris, died. Chris and Tonia were only 15 months apart so they grew up together. I have pictures of them together as babies! When Sean was born I have a picture of them both sitting on the floor with him, wondering what this new baby was all about. My heart is hurting for my dad. He has lost a grand-daughter and now a son. He doesn't have a relationship with God to help him through this sorrow. Please be praying for him.

My heart is hurting so much. It is so hard to believe that these two young lives are gone. Our strength is not coming from within because I feel as if I have aged 10 years in the last 5 1/2 months. I have nothing left to give, yet God is very present. I cried with my sister, Lisa, on the phone last night and then again in the wee hours of the morning when she caalled to tell me that Chris was gone.

I have so many memories of Chris; talking about rock climbing and jumping his bike and just being a boy. I remember Christmas mornings when Todd, Chris, Tonia and Sean could hardly wait to wake us up. I remember when Chris would show me how to do stuff on the computer.

Chris leaves behind a 4 year old daughter who will need our prayers.

This Christmas will be bittersweet. We will be surrounded with family and friends but there are special people who will be missing. This Christmas will be much more about the promises of Christmas than ever before.

God is weeping with us today as I remember.....