Guess what! It is going to snow again today! I'm so surprised. It has been at least 24 hours since any measurable snowfall! Oh well, as my southern mama would say "Ain't nothin we can do about the weather except talk about it" We do seem to talk about it a lot though.
Nothing exciting to write about today so I thought I would post a note about my perfect childhood today.
When I look back on my childhood and think about the stories I have heard from others about growing up, I realize how thoroughly blessed I am. My parents were not only married until the day my father died, they were happily married! I am fortunate enough to say the same about my maternal grandparents. Happily married "until death do them part"! How did they do that? Well one story I have heard about that is that they all waited until they found the right person to spend their lives with. They didn't get married to get away from their parents or even because they had to have children (or were already expecting them). They also had a good sense of how God played into their strong relationships. There was never a more "godly" woman than my grandmother. She lived out her faith and made known her desire to serve one lord, Jesus Christ, every day.
My grandmother took the words of St. Francis of Assisi quite literally. Those words are some of my favorites. "Evangelize continuously and if necessary use words!" I have heard from a number of people my age and younger that they had no idea of their parents' or grandparents' faithful lives because they were never told. I was never told what to believe by my parents or grandparents but I certainly got my faith from them. It was shared with me in the little things like watching my grandmother prepare meals for the family with love and meticulous care. It was things like them making me feel welcomed into the family by always listening to what I loved and dreamed. It was patient teaching in many areas not just religion. It was heated discussions around the table at Sunday dinner about the church service we had just attended together.
The other thing that I was allowed to do within my family was experiment. I don't mean with illegal things but I was allowed to attend religious services with friends that were not the same religion, I was allowed to test my independence and to return home to process all of the above!

I didn't realize that my experience was so unique until probably a decade or so ago. It was rather unnerving to try to count the friends I had with similar experiences... I got to 1!!