Day 10: Family

    Once again, I'm thankful for my family.  My sister is sick. My aunt is sick. My mom is spending tonight and tomorrow at my grandma's so that she can be there tomorrow for Grandpa's surgery. My other sister and Dad and I went to my other grandma's house for dinner because it's Dad's birthday. Somehow, we all get along and take care of each other. I'm so tired. I'm hoping that I don't get sick next. I'm so glad that even when things get rough I can still have fun with and take care of my family. Thank you, God, so much. Now I'm going to bed.

Day 8: Loving my family

     My family has been under quite a bit of stress lately. Combine that with staying up late watcing feel-good movies for escapism, and, needless to say, everyone is a little testy. It's been bothering me. Today was the same old stuff. But later my sisters and I had fun building a Quantum Flier 2037, and watched the Spiderwick Chronicles. After seeing that family, mine isn't so bad. I really am thankful for my family. I just don't like dealing with their issues sometimes - usually when I am equally tired and overstressed.
     Lord, Thank you for my family. Please help me to love them like You do. I don't like being upset and annoyed with them. I know it's not right, but I can't help it. It's my old self talking, and I don't like feeling that way. Help me to love with the love that only You can teach me, so that I don't give into my old self. Thank You for giving me a family that I can learn to love and be a part of.

Day 5: Evidence

     Today was fun but busy. My grandma had put all the family photos, trinkets, recipes, files, memorabilia, newspaper clippings, and crafting supplies in her back room. You could barely walk back there. Today my aunt, mom, sister, and I helped her clean it out, or at least begin to. We began sorting through furniture and personal mementos tossing out brochures, expired coupons, and broken or useless items as we went. There were dozens of boxes of photo albums, old family documents,  and magnetic audio recordings (the kind that have magnetic tape wrapped around a spool which you hook onto the machine). It was hard for me to feel God's amongst all that distraction and busyness. It was more like seeing the evidence of Him - where he had been (or since God doesn't inhabit time...is? 0_o). A fingerprint here, a footprint there, left behind as evidence of a previous work. One box had family Bibles with bookmarks and bulletins in there pages, as well as Bible commentaries and devotionals. Some members of my family wanted to learn about God and bought those books to find out more because it was important to them. It made me feel good looking at the old bulletins and thinking about what might have happened at church that day, whether or not they knew that God was there with them. Someone had also made a book of paper between painted wood planks. Adhered to the pages were envelopes with baby announcements in them going back nearly 70 years. Someone had collected all these cards and made a book to put them in - there were "new arrival" announcements for people who had died before I was born! I got such a weird feeling looking through it. My great-grandma Hatcher had woven dozens of crosses with yarn. I don't know why she did it exactly. Was it because she loved God that much and wanted to share it? I was so young when she died that I didn't get a chance to know her that well. She gave most of them away I think. We only found a bag of ones that she was working on when she died. My great-grandpa, George Haworth, also died while I was young, but I got to know him a little bit better. He didn't go to church that often from what I hear. I'm pretty sure that he was saved, but I guess he just didn't do church that much. My mom remembers when she was very little sitting in church with Grandpa George on Sundays when he did go to church. She would play with his keychain - a silver, jointed fish. Grandma found it today and Mom took it home. She says that it's the only thing of his she's ever wanted and it's the only thing of his she has. God's fingerprints are all over my family. Whether they've seen them or not I don't know. But none of them can deny that He's been there, and I dare them to try.