Family At It's Best Is A Beautiful Mess

Today has been a day of festivities. It's been a day of love and symbolic ceremonies. It's been a day of laughter and of love and beauty. There's also been some awkward moments and some unexpected ones. I'm reminded today what makes family so great. You never know what you're going to get. Sure you're related via blood or marriage to many people that you call "family" but you can't control much of what you get when that all comes together. And with all those people comes all types of emotion and expression and hang ups and habits and beauty and joy and love. Family can be messy sometimes. It's a great big beautiful mess. Family is there to support one another. As my sister-in-law and now brother-in-law said their vows today a room of surrounding family and friends stood as witnesses to the event. Our job is to help support them in this new step into their journey as husband and wife. There are no doubt others in the room who have been married once and that failed or thought about getting married but didn't. To them days like these can be hard. What does family do here? We surround, we encourage, we pray, we lift up. Why? Because we're family. We all have junk. We all have things that go wrong or that we aren't proud of... and that my friends it's what makes family at it's best such a beautiful mess. We love each other beyond words, though sometimes we can't stand each other, but at the end of the day, when the light fades and the shadows of that which haunts our souls creeps in like death we surround, we encourage, we pray, we lift up... because we are family. I wish nothing but joy and happiness to my sister-in-law and brother-in-law as they begin their lives together. It's my prayer that Kristin and I can be that encouragement and the help to them when they need it. I'm so thankful for family. It comes in many shapes, sizes, colors, and flavors but at the end of the day...

it's family that keeps us together.