Baby G Makes Three: Families Are Us

It's no secret that I think our church rocks. If it didn't have "Baptist" in its name, it'd be pretty darned near perfect. HA! Our pastor recently completed a sermon series titled "Families Are Us". Each week he focused on a different part of the family unit. He said some pretty impactful things, but at the top of my list of favorites is the following statement. My dad inclulded it as well in a letter he wrote to all of us kids.

“I have learned through the years that healthy families are made by intentional efforts by family members in real time in real life circumstances. Healthy families are not created by accident. It takes time and energy. You have to be committed to stay with it! Communication, love, grace, discipline, accountability and encouragement have to be constantly monitored and maintained in relationships.

No family is perfect. Jesus was born into a family. He was perfect-his family was not. His brothers and sisters did not understand Him. He had to deal with the pressures of family situations that were challenging to Him. We have to do that as well. Our families are places of refuge, blessing, hope, affirmation, and challenge.”

Gives you, ok me, a lot to think about. Coming from a blended family, there are all sorts of "reasons" I can find to not be intentional on building and maintaining relationships, but all of them are flat out lame. They are excuses, and lies that I have come to believe. I am so thankful for the family that I have. We are lucky to live really close to all of our parents, and a few of our siblings. Other siblings live out of the "I'll just drive over and meet you for lunch" range. We do really well at being intentional We do really well at being intentional with most of our relationships, but not with all. My heart is starting to feel burdened by the latter part of that statement. I really need to commit myself to pray about that.

This wasn't supposed to be a deep post. Oops. :-)

To end the sermon series, the Preschool Ministry sponsored a photo shoot with 5 resident photographers (all of which are in the young married department, too!) for the families of preschool children. We sat for a 10 minute mini-shoot and got a handful of pictures by a professional photographer for freeee! We are so stinkin blessed to have so many talented people a part of our body.

So, here are our photos. They were done by Anna Cook at Laughlin House Photography. She was great, and I am so pleased with what we got. I am pretty surewe also got the first ever photo of our family with THREE smiles!!