All In The Family

November 9, 2013

Thursday’s High			73
Thursday’s Low			36
Days in Las Cruces			138
Steps/Miles walked June 2013(in Las Cruces)		73,509	36.8
Steps/Miles walked July 2013		215,276	107.64
Steps/Miles walked August 2013		217,546	108.77
Steps/Miles walked September 2013		251,186	125.6
Steps/Miles walked October 2013		300,043	150.0
Steps/Miles walked Thursday		10,036	5.0
Total Steps/Miles walked in Las Cruces		1,148,152	574.1

As I write this blog, I’m listening to: “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right”

Well, it ain’t no use to sit and wonder why, babe
Even you don’t know by now
And it ain’t no use to sit and wonder why, babe
It’ll never do somehow

Anyone care to guess who sang it?

In Friday morning’s blog entry, I mentioned that Thursday evening I went for an evening walk with the girls, just to get my step count up. For some reason last month, I had little trouble averaging nearly 10k steps per day. So far this month, I’m doing so only because of Tuesday night’s 7 mile hike!

I also mentioned I had already come up with the topic of THIS blog entry. “All in the Family”.

Throughout the 70s and early 80s, Mom & Dad & I had a tradition. There would be some television show on every week, and we made it a point to gather for these shows. It was generally just one show per week. At various times it was “Dallas”, “Love Boat”, “Fantasy Island” (da plehn da plehn!) I think “6 Million Dollar Man” may have made the list. “M*A*S*H” certainly did! As did “The Jeffersons”, and of course, “All In The Family”. I can remember sitting in the family room at our house on 106 Street in Omaha, Mom & Dad, Grandma Yates & I, eating popcorn, chocolate bars & apples (Scott & I still do that once or twice a year).

And all that has NOTHING, absolutely NOTHING, to do with today’s entry, other than to provide a catchy title for me!

No, today’s entry is about “Family”. I may have written about this before, but here I”m writing again, partly because ‘it’s my blog and I’ll write if I want to, write if I want to’, and partly because it’s timely for me today.

There are two kinds of family. Well, there are probably hundreds of kinds of family. But today I’m thinking of two in general. There is the family we are born into. That is called “Family of Birth”. That term can also apply to a family into which a child is adopted.

And there is “Family of Choice”. This kind of family is the circle that we choose to surround ourselves with as members of our family. Nearly twenty years ago, when Scott and I first started attending MCC Omaha (Metropolitan Community Church of Omaha) we attended an Excel Weekend, a Weekend Exercise in Christian Community Living is, I believe the sub-title for the weekends. While there we made a whole bunch of friends. Two of these friends were Jim & Jerry. Scott and I became pretty tight with Jim & Jerry. Eventually, that tightness would result in Scott and I moving into Jim’s home after Jerry died. We did so, because had we not, Jim would have lost his home, and the two Little People who lived with him, would have also lost a home.

Jim and Jerry were like family to Scott and I. There were others we included in that circle. Carla and Sharon were two more friends from our church who were included in our circle, in our “Family of Choice”. So was Karla, who we knew through both our church and our involvement in Excel. The two Little People, Pam and Gary, also became members of that close family like unit.

Time has a way of bringing people together for a season. It also has a way of pulling them away from each other. The heart remains fond, but the tightness of relationship sometimes slips a little. Jim and Jerry have both passed away, as has Pam. Gary went his way after some ugly occurrences. Carla and Sharon have moved on to Florida, Scott and I have moved to New Mexico. The bonds of this “Family of Choice” are weakened, but not gone. Until my dying day, Karla, Carla and Sharon will all be my sisters.

Some of us take on “Families of Choice” because our “Families of Birth” are horrid. That isn’t the case with Scott or with me. Both of our families are loving, supportive families. We didn’t need “Families of Choice” – well, to be honest when we first started developing ours I did think it was necessary, but I was ever so wrong!

But, now I’ve come across another kind of family. It’s one that neither birth nor choice, but both birth and choice.

I have two brothers, Paul & Bob. Paul and Bob and I share a wonderful mother. But, I was 19 years old, studying genealogy in college before it ever dawned on me that Paul and Bob were really half-brothers. I knew they had a different dad, I just never connected the dots! And it has never mattered.

Paul and Bob have a half-sister on their father’s side of the family. The first time I ever met her was at a family reunion about four years ago. I honestly did not know how to respond to that situation then.

The other day, she found my blog through Bob. Bob told me what a wonderful sister she was, the most loving sister a man could have he said. He asked me to accept her as such, too.

I told Bob “Any sister of Bobs is a sister of mine”. So, tonight I sit here thinking to myself “I have a sister!”

I HAVE A SISTER! Welcome Sister! By the way, are you my Big Sister… or my Little Sister?

And the song now playing is:

I called up the Captain,
“Please bring me my wine”
He said, “We haven’t had that spirit here since nineteen sixty nine”

Anyone? Anyone?

DAILY GRATITUDE

Today, I’m grateful that God has given me a sister!

PRAYER INTENTIONS

“For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.” — Jeremiah 29:11

I’m foregoing the “Prayer Intention tiles” that I have spoken of over the past weeks today.

Instead, I’m focusing my prayer request on God’s guidance. The verse I’ve quoted, Jer. 29:11, has spoken to me for over ten years, actually, since about the same time as I first heard of the Prayer of Jabez. I believe this. I have seen the fruits of this all these years in my life.

I’m hoping that one of two prospects pan out this week. It would entail taking on a management position in a retail setting, in three small stores nearby.