This Girl's Family

Four nights ago we met my Dad at Steak n Ale because they had a special on prime rib. I think he just wanted to get away from the hospital for a little while so he could feel somwhat normal again. We had a great dinner. He told stories - some we had heard, some were new - and the teenagers actually enjoyed listening along with the rest of us. We laughed and skipped down memory lane. I drove him back to the hospital, and on the way there he said, "There are those times when it hits you how much you need your family." My Dad is a tough old guy. He doesn't like to admit that he needs anyone's help. He is determined, and if you tell him something is impossible, he'll do his best to prove you wrong. But he knows that he'd be lost without his family. So would I.

They say you can choose your friends but not your family and this is true. But I believe that God has blessed me with people that I would probably choose anyway. We're all a little quirky, none of us perfect, but we all seem to fit together as if it were divinely ordained. Imagine that. During my turbulent teenaged years, I convinced myself that I just didn't fit into this family because they were not my blood relatives. I felt as if I were the square peg in a family of round holes. But so many people have been grafted into this family of mine over the years and I have realized that God has placed us together to hang on to one another whether we share the same genes or not. My Dad is right, we need each other, even if some of us are so independent that we often don't realize it. So here is my family. I love them. And I'd choose them all over again if God hadn't already given them to me as a precious gift.