This time last year, life was so very different.
We were expecting the opportunity to foster, then adopt Mary-Faith, but we hit snags during the Christmas season. Without going into great detail, on Our anniversary (12/29/2016), Mary-Faith seemed out of our reach.
Thankfully the Lord was preparing our hearts even more and we eventually became her foster parents by February. Right before her birthday! What an awesome time!
‘Round about that time, I got informed that my Dad had prostate cancer.
Yeah, a great blessing followed up by something extremely scary. No matter how many times people, especially my Dad, told me God would work everything out, I didn’t choose to believe it. I spent the next couple of weeks picking God’s brain as to “Why my Dad?” I don’t know if you guys know this, but from time to time, I tend to be pretty idiotic.
Our family has walked the cancer journey a number of times. My Pawpaw had cancer...my Granny had cancer...my Nanny had cancer...Jenn’s Dad had cancer (prior to my joining the family, but it happened)...the list goes on and on.
But it was never *my* Dad!
In June, Dad had surgery to remove the cancer and came out like a champ.
My Granny has had a roller coaster of medical ups and downs the past few years and that’s been a journey.
It’s a difficult thing to live what you believe and what you speak.
I’m just being real, I tell my kids at school all the time, God works everything out for His purpose, but I’m not always the one who’s in line to believe it when it starts.
Here we are, a year to the day we were standing in Wal-Mart and were given a bleak outlook on the future with Mary-Faith.
As I type this, she’s in the next room asleep and couldn’t be a happier little girl!
We were blessed for about four months with a sweet baby girl, y’all know her as “C”. We are blessed to be able to periodically keep up with her and see how she’s growing! She’s so cute, it’s not even funny!
I firmly believe life would be so cool with a soundtrack, like a movie. If the things you’re going through and your daily life had accompaniment!
As the year closes out, I think the obligatory flashback montage of my life would play with background music by Tauren Wells. *Hills and Valleys* has been a smash-hit for him and I believe that’s because it’s truth. That’s what our life is. The Bible shows us that, that’s what we experience in life. That song would be the theme of this year.
All that to say, I can sum life up like this...
It doesn’t matter what kind of car you drive, what house you live in, or what stores you shop at. The logos on your clothes don’t mean anything. The trophies on your shelves, the letters after your name, the plaques and certificates on your walls don’t stack up. The church you go to, the country club you’re part of, you’re Madden Ultimate Team, they don’t matter.
The only thing that matters in life is relationships.
First of all, your relationship with Jesus Christ. Folks, I don’t mean the magical prayer hotline you use when you hit the valley. I mean the daily walk you have with Him. Don’t expect a good relationship with Him if you’re only willing to meet him for an hour every weekend. It’s got to be a daily, hourly, minute-by-minute walk.
Secondly, you’re family relationships. I’m writing this at 2:58 AM from a hotel room. I’m doing what’s become, over the last year, my favorite things to do: travel with my girls. Our relationships have grown so much over the trips we’ve been able to take this year. Over the time we spend just sitting on the couch at the house. It’s about TIME and TOGETHERNESS. Dads and Moms, as much as we want to *give* our kids, they don’t care. They want the one thing many people fail to give. They want your time. To go further, they want your eyes. I see too many times parents looking ahead to the next activity or to the next person. Stop and look your kids in the eyes. SHOW them what it means to be a REAL man or woman. Stop allowing Netflix, Apple, YouTube, Snapchat, Instagram, and all these other mediums steal away your kids attention!
***Side note: You have to realize why our kids are so attracted to Social Media apps like YouTube, Snapchat, and Instagram. If you’re completely lost, I’ll tell you why...
They’re so attracted to these things for the **attention**. We have to get our attention off all our extra stuff and back on our kids.***
Last but not least, our extended family and friendship (and even people we don’t know). If you’re believer, this is vital. You can’t do things alone. God created us to be relational. We’ve got to start being that.
So in 2018, let’s be more intentional with our relationships. Let’s love God and love people the way He intended us to!
