Celebrating life...

In the past month, I have had the pleasure to welcome four new babies into the world. In the next six months I will meet 8 more new friends. I love watching new parents beam with pride over their newest creation. I an not a single gal who gets tired of listening to parents gush. With great excitement I welcome Emmerson, Katelyn, Stephen, and Addison. You are perfect, you are important, you are blessed, and you are loved. (On a separate note...I am not drinking the water).

As often told, with life comes death. My friends step-dad passed away this week. Last week, my friend's mother passed away. They were important, they were blessed, they are loved.

I'm too young for parents to be passing away so readily, right? And they're too young to be gone. It's a weird revelation when 64 seems young to you. So how old is 'old'? I mean both of them had hard fights against strong diseases, but if someone 20 years younger lost facing the same battle it would have been perceived as tragic. And I think this is pretty tragic, but there's more an air of sadness than dismay. That's not to say that I'm not terribly saddened that their lives were ended too soon, nor that Im not awed by the way that each of them faced their enemy in the eye with strength and grace. Because they did. And they were most certainly taken away way too soon but able to live long happy lives.

I hold my friends up in prayer as they face their new realities and try to support the rest of their family. It will take an abundance of strength that I am not sure I would be capable of. When my mother or daddy die, I will require sedation. Write that down.

In the meantime I stand AMAZED at the parent and child dynamic both new and old. How it grows and changes, challenges and supports...but mostly LOVES.