5/31/09 - Blessed

I am blessed. We are all blessed. What a world we live in, where we get to have attachments to other people, so powerful that we would literally HURT if they were taken from us. That feeling, that emotion, is an amazing thing. I can look at my daughter sleeping next to me in a hospital bed, and I can FEEL that powerful feeling of love that we have been blessed with. What is that feeling we get from the moment our children enter this world that would cause us to walk through fire to save them? I remember well when my oldest Taylor was born, I was OVERWHELMED with a new feeling I had never felt before. I had never imagined I could love someone so much. Now I have this family full of children I feel that way about. Every mother (or father) knows what I mean, I would jump in front of a moving bus without blinking an eye if one of my kids was in danger. That is God given. That is a blessing. That "emotion" that is instilled in parents is there for a reason. The reality is that all of us parents endure a great deal of suffering on behalf of our children. Why don't we just walk away? Wouldn't life be easier? When we begin that wonderful, difficult, emotional journey of parenthood, whether it be through childbirth or adoption, we are blessed with a bond that could not tear us from them. It is a beautiful thing. Have you ever watched a mother look at a child like they are her whole world? Or a father, a MAN, notorious for being tough, melt when his daughter wraps her arms around him and gives him a kiss and calls him Daddy?

Families. They have a purpose. It is part of a plan set up by a Heavenly Father who created us that we might have JOY. Families are essential to that joy. My sweet Jade said to me the first night of this hospital stay, when David was staying with Brinley "I just want my family together in this world." It was a bitter sweet moment for me, when my family is split apart it is a difficult thing. But she GETS it. Our families belong together in this world, and in the next. I have been taught the importance of families my whole life (thanks mom and dad), and now I am reaping the blessings of those teachings. I love having a family in this world. I pray that none of them will be taken from me early (I'd like to go first please!), but I know this life is unpredictable. I know it happens to good, decent people and I have learned that I am not exempt from it. I can't imagine the pain I would feel if it did happen, I imagine it would be just as powerful as the joy I experience with them, however, I would know that things don't end in this life. We get to be reunited with loved ones after this life, how will that feel? We are blessed!!!