We took time out in December 2009 to take a family vacation to Florida and I'm very thankful we did! 2011 brought four of the five kids graduations (2 from university and 2 from high school). That meant...yes....I pause...done the High School phase of our lives! We not only survived the kids are achieved great accomplishments and I couldn't be prouder.
At the High School grad I reflected on the fact that their schedules were now their own! With God's help we made it. There was no hesitation or slowing down however, because 5 days before the graduation we had our next generation join the family. Yes, I got to add Grandmother to my list of relationships! How truly amazing to watch your child bond with their baby. A moment I'll never forget.
Now we are preparing for the next wedding in the family. My second daughter is about to be wed in a few days and I find myself very contemplative about the speed at which life changes. Our family adapts so quickly to welcoming new people into the fold.
This month marks a whole new era for this family. As we gather for the wedding and a few other special occasions (Happy Birthday to my ex - 50! woot), we also prepare to move as we are starting new chapters of our lives. My family is spreading out, the new grandson 17 hours away with his parents, newest couple 2 hours away, my baby girl heading to her own place in Toronto to pursue her passion in cooking school, and my sons, one off to B.C. for a year long leadership course and the other...well maybe, just maybe he'll be moving with me to the big city of Toronto.
Change is.....opportunity. I for one am going to take this opportunity to communicate via my blog a weekly message to all these wonderful young adults because we've been so protected as a family and have so very much to be thankful for that I look forward to seeing them all 'pay it forward' in their own lives. Oh...and that means that special extended child of mine too! (He just became a Dad 2 days ago and I got to hold his precious son today!)
As sojourners on this planet I believe we are called to bring out the best in each other and my devotional reading today rang so very true to my heart:
Over and over in Scripture God says things like, ‘Be strong and of good courage, do not…be afraid…for the Lord…goes with you’ (Deuteronomy 31:6 NKJV). Why? To bring out the best in us! The history books are full of stories of gifted people whose talents were overlooked until someone believed in them. Einstein was four years old before he could speak. Isaac Newton did poorly in primary school. A newspaper editor fired Walt Disney because he had ‘no good ideas’. Tolstoy dropped out of college. There’s a lesson here: people develop at different rates. To motivate them you must always be on the outlook for hidden capacities. Your words create an environment in which people not only discover their gifts, but also develop and excel in them. John Erskine, Professor of English at Colombia University, was an educator, concert pianist, author of 60 books, president of the Juilliard School of Music, and a popular and witty lecturer. Writing about that remarkable career, his wife, Helen, attributed it to his ‘defiant optimism’. ‘He was a good teacher,’ she said, ‘because of his own excitement for learning and his trust in the future.’ He would say to her, ‘Let’s tell our young people that the best books are yet to be written; the best paintings have not yet been painted; the best governments are yet to be formed; the best is yet to be done by them.’ Within every human being there is a God-given drive to achieve something. If you tap into that drive and demonstrate that you believe in their future, they’ll do almost anything to live up to your expectations.
