Thankful Thursday

Last night I stood in my backyard talking over the fence with my neighbor. His daughter and her 3 kids are visiting and Lucy and Murray have loved having kids behind us to play with. There has been a large amount of handing kids back and forth over fences and minimal moms jumping over the fence...unless absolutely necessary...

Lucy and Murray were playing bubbles and sidewalk chalk while the grown ups chatted.

Somehow or another the topic of cancer came up and Bob mentioned a friend who had died at 27 when he was younger. "Not everyone lives a long life..." he said. 

I know it's true. I know it is all in God's timing. I know that each day here on earth is a blessing.

But somehow we just forget. We get lost in the busyness of the day to day, we forget that each moment could be our last. 

Today an email popped up in my inbox. I almost didn't read it. In the hustle and bustle of the day I almost didn't take a moment to check on a friend. But then, I did. I opened it up and clicked on the link. It was an update on a journal a friend of mine has on the caring bridge website. The update was just a few sentences long..."she's coming home...she's under the care of hospice now..."

and just like that today is different. Just like that I'm reminded to love my children just a little more. To hug them one more time. To laugh at them chatting in their bunk beds instead of laying quietly going to sleep. Just like that being able to celebrate Lucy's 6th birthday with hers is an honor... Just like that I'm reminded each day is a blessing...

Just like that I'm reminded "Not everyone lives a long life..."

"My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when i am weak, then I am strong.

2 Corinthians 12:9-10

This may not seem thankful, but it is. I am thankful for the opportunity to be a wife...a mother...to see my children growing each day. I'm thankful for a high school friendship. I'm thankful for a friend who shared her smile and complained about boys with me. Who made gym class and my senior prom something just a little more fun.

I'm thankful that she has a loving husband who has stood by her as she battled this disease. I'm SO thankful that she was able to her sweet baby girl in her arms and watch her grow...even if just for 3 short years. I'm thankful for all the people who love her, who won't let her daughter grow up without knowing her.

I'm thankful God cares for her...

for her family...

in the coming days/weeks/months she has left here with us.