Family

In the span of my 26 years of life, God has put some pretty incredible people in my life. 

 From early educators (public school and Sunday school alike) through university college professors.  From my days of being a youth looking up the youth leaders wondering ‘how they know all they know’, to now working alongside some of those same leaders who are still IN the same youth ministry- I can see God’s hand in it.  From to getting to know a family who moved to a struggling community simply to love on the people and help guide them through life, to spending a week with a missionary couple on a Northern Manitoba Native Fly-In only reserve, have helped reveal my love of missions to me.  

God has given me the honour of getting to know incredible, ‘sold out’ people for Jesus, of all ages, languages, race, backgrounds, and nationalities across this globe.  From America, to Latin America. From Western Europe to Easter Europe.  From India/Nepal, South East Asia, Philippines, and Australia, down to multiple countries in southern Africa and many other places in between.  The list continues to grow.

Just when I think that there is ‘no way’ God will provide me with friends stronger than those I already have, friends (and friendships) that date back to the diaper age of life and high school life, He blows my mind with my college buddies.  Providing a community, and friends, to ‘meet me where I am at’ not only during those years, but to this very day.  Friends who will drive an hour simply to say hello and bring me starbucks.  He doesn’t stop there and goes even further when He has me traveling with a group of complete strangers who became ‘like family’ in a short span of 11 months.  Friendships that, no matter how far away we physically are from one another, who I know will always ‘have my back’, God has never ceased to amaze me 

With all the incredible people that God has placed within my life, at home and abroad, I cannot forget those who share in the same bloodline as I do.  From my grandparents, to cousins, to my uncles and my aunts.  All have played a part in shaping who I am today.  Closer still, my immediate family that continues to grow.  What began as an immediate family of 5, grew to 6 through marriage and now 7, through the birth of my nephew last summer.  Yes, of course I when have my moments when I claim to be ‘adopted’ simply because of the uniqueness of those who God has immediately placed within my life.  Those that will always be there, simply because we ARE closely blood related, but that’s family right?  We are all unique, with different passions, hobbies, skills and personalities but that’s what makes us, us.

If God has taught me anything in my 26 years of life, is that the saying really is true…you CAN pick your friends (and sometimes they pick you) but you CANNOT pick your family. 

Today, right now in this moment, I am thankful.  I am thankful for those God has forever placed in my life.  I am thankful for the lessons in which I have learned (and continue to learn) through them.  For the good times and the bad times.  Times in which we are all together around the supper table as a unit and for the emails (and photos) that continue to unite us even when we are physically apart.  It is BECAUSE of my family, that I AM able to have done what I have done within my 26 years of breathing.  It is because of my family that I will find the strength to continue to walk with HIM each and every day, no matter the ‘road less traveled’ in which my life may take me on.