Who does Life with You?

Do you enjoy mingling?   Are meetings where people stand around and make small talk with a drink or little appetizers in their hands fun for you?   I absolutely abhor them.   Part of it is probably that I am in in pain when I stand, but the other part is that I really don't do shallow.  I don't enjoy conversations where there is no depth and I always try to steer conversations into something more meaningful.

Knowing that you might not be surprised that the thing that matters most to me are the relationships that go deep....  the ones where people "do life" with me and where no conversations are shallow.   I would love to go back and tell you about so many of those friendships that I have had over the years, but I would leave someone out (or take more of your time than you are willing to give me).    I'm sure you have a list too.  People who have allowed you to know them and to whom you have been willing to be known.   For some people it's a very short list ... maybe a list of one.  I can think of least one person that stands out in every chapter of my life who has been "my person" for that season (as our friend Meredith often said of Christina on Grey's Anatomy).

(Excuse the photo above…. I sarcastically post it because it really isn’t me to have bouquets all over my dress, and it certainly isn’t like Bart to take my hand and gaze down at me lovingly.  Just sayin.)

However, today is the day that I celebrate "my person" over the last 21 years.   Today is our anniversary and Bart and I have sure packed a lot into these years.   There is nobody else who I can imagining doing life with over hills and valleys of pastoring and parenting that we have encountered in our marriage.  He is a patient and supportive husband (I could not have done any of the things I have done the last two decades without his encouragement).   He is also an amazing father and the best grandpa a kid could ever want.   I am so very blessed that HE is the one I get to hear preach every Sunday, regardless of where I move because he is so gifted.  Having him walk with me is by far the second greatest gift I have ever been given.

Which leads me to the ultimate blessing of my life ... the fact that I have had Jesus to "do life with me." Above and beyond all others -- He is "My person."  He knows me fully and I have spent my life yearning to know Him as fully as I can.   He has walked with me from the moment of my birth and nowhere I have ever moved or been has been a place He wouldn't go with me.   He has never once left me to do life by myself.

So on what I have called #ThankfulThursday I give thanks for all those who have walked with me, done life with me, known me and been known.  They are what has added the color to my life.