Are You For Real?

As I may have mentioned a time or twenty, I find myself lately with a lot more time to just sit and think. Sometimes it drives me stark raving mad. Other times, it gives me the chance to trip over an idea! Like yesterday...it occurred to me that if I'm going to spend much time talking about my kids and grandkids (and, believe me...I plan to!), it would be a lot easier for folks who don't know the brood in real life to get a little introduction to each of them. And as this notion firmed up a bit, I realized that God has used my kids and their kids to teach me a LOT of important stuff! That's when I knew that I'd just taken care of upwards of 20 blog entries right there! (Yes!)

I'm not saying that the next few weeks are going to be one long walk through the pictures in my wallet. No doubt, other things will come up that I might deem blog-worthy. But if we're going to be friends, I would like you to get to know the people I love the most in the whole world! It's so nice when your friends can become friends with each other.

However...you know that expression about how you can't tell the players without a scorecard? I think it really applies here. I'm not talking about 2.3 kids and maybe an in-law...what we're dealing with here is a full-blown Broadway-style musical cast with a full orchestra! So with that in mind, I decided that the only thing to do was to offer you a cheat sheet in the form of a homemade family tree. It's not the prettiest thing ever, but you should try to google up a template for this crowd! Not to be found! Buckle up!

Once a teacher, always a teacher...so I'm now going to spend way too long explaining a handout that you're perfectly capable of reading for yourself. (Didn't you just love it when they did that to you? Yeah...me neither. But it never stopped me from doing it when it was my turn!)

You will notice that we have lines of children shooting out in three different directions. There's a very simple reason for that: We're a blend. (Like Starbuck's House Blend coffee or a really yummy mixed-fruit smoothie.) When Sweet Jimmy B and I walked down the aisle seventeen years ago, we became an instant family of five. I already had Krystal, who was eight at the time; he already had Lyndsay and Kayla, who were seven and five.

By the by, I love to refer to Lyndsay and Kayla as my easiest deliveries. One quick walk from the back of the church to the front...a few songs...a unity candle that wouldn't light...BAM! Two new daughters!

All the back-story pertaining to our blendedness (See that? I just made up a word! And spellcheck hates it!) will come up later (maybe), but it's really not so important right now. From the get-go, we saw ourselves as a family unit. Yes, we were having to deal with some messes and baggage that made things complicated sometimes, but we simply never dealt with the girls as "his" or "mine"...they were ours.

When we had been married for three years, more children started to arrive...sometimes in rapid succession! As time went on, we had children who were old enough and children who were little enough that we were accused of being grandparents way before we were! The older girls loved that...believe me. (or not)

It turns out that when you have a blended family, you get to hear some really funny stuff that people never intended to be taken as funny. For example, when Lyndsay was a senior in high school, Jim took her to get her senior pictures taken, but first he took her to get her hair done. As she was chatting with the hairdresser, she mentioned her brothers and sisters. The hairdresser asked how many siblings she had, and Lyndsay told her. Once she regained the power of speech, the stylist turned to Lyndsay and asked, "But how many of them are real?"

If I remember the story correctly, Lyndsay's response was something like: Well, ALL of them. You can touch them and everything!

When the girls were all getting ready for Kayla's wedding in August, Krystal had the opportunity to talk to a friend of Kayla's. During the conversation, the friend asked Krystal which sister she was, and Krystal replied that she's the oldest...to which the friend said, "Oh, so you're not the real one." I'm sure Krystal's response was one for the record books.

See...here's the thing. If the psalmist is right (and he is) that "all the days ordained for me were written in Your book before one of them came to be" (Psalm 139:16b), then the children I received through marriage are no more a surprise to God than the children he allowed me to carry around for nine months...or the ones He delivered to me via social worker. They are no less a blessing! (Check out Psalm 127:3-5.) They are my children

And they belong completely to each other as well. I have never heard any of the older girls refer to one of the younger kids as her half-brother or half-sister. (I mean, I've heard them call each other plenty of things, but I've never heard that one!) Blood relationships (or not) really don't have anything to do with our family relationships. And I'm so glad that God doesn't treat me as a second-class family member either. Romans 8:17 says that I am co-heir with Christ! Not a step-sister...not a half-sister...I am a child of God, with Jesus! For real!

Around here, most of the time, we all honestly forget that we are a blend. It's only when we meet someone new or start blogging or something like that when the need arises to clarify.

In fact, after today, you will probably never again hear me use the terms step-this or half-that. After seventeen years, we're pretty much completely integrated.

One last funny story though: Our daughter Krystal is an OB nurse at a local hospital. One day, Jim went to the hospital to visit someone, and later that night when Krystal went to work, a co-worker mentioned that she had met Krystal's dad earlier...and that she would have known he was Krystal's dad even if no one had confirmed it, because he was just like her!

We always kind of giggle when stuff like this happens. And it happens quite a little bit.

But it also makes me think. Krystal picked up on Jim's mannerisms...his vocabulary...his values...so many of the things that are Jim-like...because she became his child when she was so young. Then she proceeded to live with him until she left for nursing school. So it's really no surprise that even a casual observer would recognize that the two of them are related.

I pray that the same thing can be said about me and the Heavenly Father who claimed me as His child.

I agree. That was good. Thanks for posting.

Nice read!

Can't help but compare this quote from the end of the article,
Children are a heritage from the LORD, offspring a reward from Him. Psalm 127:3
with this- “I've got daughters. Nine years old and six years old. First of all, I'm gonna teach them about values and morals. But if they make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby.”
— Barack Obama

Worlds apart.

3 posted on 03/01/2011 5:09:35 AM PST by MaryFromMichigan (Be kinder than necessary, for everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle)

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