Those quiet moments

It's rare, but I love those quiet moments where a simple reflection can have an amazing impact on you.  Where you notice something in your life that you never did before.  Those quiet moments seem to hold wisdom that somehow you always possessed but never noticed before.

I myself sitting here suddenly in one thought realized that our family would be very different if it weren't for my husband.  I'd still be working, I would have to trust my children to wake up in the morning and get to school on time with breakfast in stomach and homework and lunch in hand.  They'd be limited with their friends being from such a small town until they got their licenses and could drive themselves to other high school dances etc.  Granted I'd have all my friends every weekend and my kids would have all of their kids as friends as well.

But....

We would be very different people.  I don't know that any of us would have been forced to grow the way we did altogether.  So many events changed our lives in such unexpected ways.  Changes always force us to grow whether we are ready for it or not.  I'd probably be sort of active in the church.  My kids would be less shielded than they are now.  They would have been forced to deal with individuals that could have truly hurt them both physically and mentally.  Myself included.  There would be no little sister to entertain us with her silly antics and adorable logic.  I certainly wouldn't trust my children to the capacity that I do now.

My husband made us the kind of family that we always wanted.  He's had to learn to grow up and be a father and I've learned to trust again.  We fight for our family all the time.  We fight to love, we fight to stay together, we fight to grow together and become better people than we are now.  We laugh together, encourage one another, and no one person can be overwhelmed when all of us will carry each other's burdens.  My favorite is that we learn together.  Everyone learns as they go, new things will always trip you up some, but we stick it out together and dismiss any judgments that may come our way because we aren't experts at it yet.

There's a lot of love in this family.  The more people we've added to it, the bigger the love has grown.  I'm so grateful for my husband and his presence in our family.  I'm thankful for his leadership and his kindnesses.  I even love his quarks!  I feel so blessed to have children and watch them grow.  They are amazing kids and I'm so excited to see what they do with their lives and their futures!

And to think....it only took a moment to see it all.