Been very slack the past few weeks with my writing. Just never enough time and when I do find I have an extra hour or two, I tend to spend it cleaning which is the thankless task that seems to never have any finality to it. Our horse of a dog is now becoming somewhat of a problem. Either we get a bigger house on about ten acres or we resign ourselves to a life of constant aggravation,dog hairs and wear and tear on the house that an animal this large inevitably brings. What were we thinking??? But oh the other side of the coin.....the joy and love that he brings which has made me realize these past few weeks, that there are two sides of love...the agony and the ecstasy. This topic of agony or the sacrifice for the better came up several times this past weekend. It made me stop and think about how true it is that suffering is woven in our life from the moment we are born and was woven in Jesus' life as well. Much has been written on this process of purification that exists when we acknowledge that God is always stripping away the negative to make way for the positive. In this process there is a division that is inevitable. As we walk through it,we sometimes whine and complain and when it's too hard, cry out to God...Why???, but in hind sight we always see the bigger picture and thank God that we have a Father that won't let us take the easy route. He uses our life experiences to perfect us and form us day by day,moment by moment into what we are suppose to look like in the Spirit.
This Thanksgiving 2009 was probably one of the best gatherings that we have had in a long time. I'm not sure why, as we always have our large family together with a ton of delicious food but for some reason this year it just flowed at an easier pace and of course I can't put enough emphasis on the fact that our new baby grandson was a part of the picture....a very big part.
Ira's parents were here and the children especially enjoyed interacting with them. George going on 92 and Nellie 87 were in rare form, both looking and feeling good. Eli made the comment that a very rewarding time this weekend was spent having conversation with his grandfather and that George seems so different in his old age; much kinder,more interested in wanting to know what was going on in his life and eager to share stories of his long journey in this world. His comment was "it's too bad he wasn't that kind of grandfather while we were growing up." I noticed Ira staring off into space and I knew what he was thinking...what kind of father have I been and will my children have those same thoughts about me? I thought to myself, do the mistakes of our youth come back to haunt us and are they the sacrifices that we carry to perfect the future? I could feel that very moment that Ira was taking mental note of the kind of grandfather that he wants to be to Isiah and I know that Eli is doing many things different in his role as father than he experienced from Ira, in hopes of perfecting his image of a good father. So it seems each generation carry's some kind of a load to better the next.
In Scripture it says that there is no condemnation in Christ Jesus so as long as we are living by the Spirit of God we can at least know that God uses our mistakes for the good.....always for others. The task now at hand involves recognizing the old, impure part of us and grasping the revelation of the perfect. As Norman Grubb many times said, "you have to know who you aren't in order to know who you are." I have to give my mother credit......she was a great grandmother to my kids. Not so much as a mother to me but then maybe she finally got her revelation of unconditional love by the time my kids came along. I've had my share of sacrifice as well and I hope that all the pain I carried as a child has made a difference and is perfecting our ongoing generations. I guess we will never get it absolutely perfect until we sit as children in the Father's house in heaven and finally see the "big picture!"
So for now I am sitting back with a big smile on my face as I look at this picture of a family.......it is my family with all it's wonderful imperfections that are being LIVED out, day by day. I hope we all won't be too hard on each other as we move through life and realize that love is the glue that holds it all together and we do love each other more than words can express.
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