Family Struggles

It is time to begin my blogging again. It has been 2 1/2 yrs. since my last blog. So much has changed about our family.

We live in OH now, in a small country home on less than an acre of land. I have longed for country living for years and so I enjoy this home.

Don and I work part time jobs in hardware stores just to keep active.

We now have 6 adult grandchildren, two married with one child each. One Marine in California and another headed to Paris Island in Sept to join his brother in the Marine Corps. One granddaughter with a boyfriend who has a daughter. (adding a potential 3rd great grand to our family.) One grandson starting his 3rd year at the University of Indianapolis. 

We have a junior, a sophomore, a freshman and an eighth grader this year.

Our greats are a Kindergartner and an almost 3 yr. old already home schooling.

I long for answers to where is Andrew, Alex and Tanner are. Have they kept up in their grades, are they content or do they wonder where is my family? Are they safe? Are they with Jesus? 

Five divorces have taken place within this family and we will see yet another within the year.

But, I have grieved, suffered, let go and forgiven. I have found a place to be content.

I share that I struggle to keep my family gatherings strong. So many families, so many gatherings to attend. How can our families juggle all these gatherings? 

How does the 1st generation of a 4 generation family keep the gatherings together. I have not found a way to gather them together in the same place at the same time. 

It was a joy this past month to have us all together to celebrate our 50 years of marriage.

Sun. dinners, tried and failed; Easter tried and failed; summer gatherings; tried and failed; you see the struggle.

Aw, Christmas now that works as long as long as we alternate the Christmas weekend and the New Year weekend. Oh but wait, we have a NE family who can't make it home; a Marine and soon another miles apart. 

My dear family, please know I love you all, I miss you all everyday. You are near and dear to my heart, you are my joys, my sorrows, my pains and my laughter.

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your strength." Deuteronomy 6:5

Taken from Ephesians 6:
"Wives submit to your husbands as to the Lord." 
"Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her..."
"Honor your father and mother..."

"Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another - all the more as you see the Day approaching." Hebrews 10:25

As I quote these scriptures, I know it is God first and all others second. I know it is the meeting together as Christians we cannot neglect. 

But, I also know for a family to stay strong they must follow all these things first to Honor our Heavenly Father, then to honor father and mother then each other.