Memories

Snow happens to hold a lot of my happiest memories. Growing up in Alabama, we were blessed to have a few really amazing snow storms. So, when snow was being predicted for Columbia, Leighton and I decided to stay home instead of going on our marriage retreat weekend. We wanted to be able to have fun with our kids in the snow. You know it could be another ten years before we get another snow:)

My mom was here, but I was so sad that my dad wasn't here. You see, he was the one who helped me have some of the fondest memories of snow. He would take us to the farm. Hook up the sled behind the truck and drive us around. Fun. Laughing. No fear. Free. Beauty. We would ice skate on ponds. Snowball fights were a must. Sledding down big hills. They are etched into my memory like it was yesterday.

You see this man has been instrumental in my life. He has loved me as I was his own from the very beginning. He started dating my mom when I was seven. He married his first wife, Jean, knowing that she would die. She had Cystic Fibrosis. They had Anna and then two years later Jean died. So, when he married my mom we became a blended family. At some point, I started to call him dad. My real father wasn't around much. Gregg became my dad. He loved me as his own. A gift from God. Seriously. A gift.

But, I wish he had been here this weekend so I could have thrown this on him....
'Cause I am a fighter......I totally got Mac with that big one:) I would have also done this...
then this.....
then this.......
We always make up. Because we love each other:) Thank you, Daddy for sharing Momma with us. Especially on Valentine's Day. You mean the world to me. I am so thankful that you are my Daddy! Thank you for loving me as I were your own. Your love has transformed me. Your love is a gift from God. I am so thankful that I now see Him in you.

Don't worry though, we saved some snowballs for the next time you come to South Carolina...hehe!

God Is Love

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.
1 John 4:7-16