I Am Glad For Many Things: Nearest and Dearest

It’s easy to complain about our children. But when we want to express our joy, our love, the words elude us. The feelings are almost so sacred they defy speech.

- Joan McIntosh

If you have children you know what I mean.  Nothing tests the limits of your physical stamina, patience, flexibility and unselfishness like children.

But there's nothing like children. 

There's nothing like the way they make everything (except trips to Costco) better.  They bring a delight and fresh energy to everything they touch.  I am thankful for my children, for how they entertain me, instruct me, challenge me and make everything I do worth it.

It's amazing the lengths you'll go to in the name of helping your child.  And that stretching is good for me.

(If you'd ever seen me do yoga, you'd know I need all the help stretching I can get.)



I am grateful Adam is my husband.

I can be sitting next to him at church and poke my elbow into him when something makes me want to laugh and he'll whisper back, "I know."

And he does.

I can give him a "get me out of here" look in a crowded room and he will.  Sometimes when I don't even realize I've given him a "get me out of here" look.  We can carry on a whole silent conversation over our children's heads with eyebrows and head nods.

He's the piece that makes me whole and the superhero of our family.  He's the driver in snow storms, the calmer of nerves and the one with an idea for dinner when I'm out of inspiration.

And he always makes me laugh.

Chains do not hold a marriage together.  It is threads, hundreds of tiny threads which sew people together through the years. 

~Simone Signore