Love

If you could only instill one thing in your children what would it be? I feel like most people would say hard work, or something of the sort. But I believe that the only thing you need to be, is loving. If you can love others and love yourself, everything else will flow out of that. Kindness, empathy,  respect, humility, integrity, responsibility, forgiveness, all naturally flow out of love. And if you exhibit those qualities, I believe, you will be respected and successful. If you look at Jesus' teachings, they all come back to love. Even the first commandment is to love God! So I try to make love and kindness a first and foremost everyday in our house. 

I just finished putting up my valentines decorations. I think I might like putting up valentines decorations as much as Christmas decorations, maybe. I love having reminders of love all over the house. I often leave some of them up year round, because love isn't a passing holiday. But I put my valentines decorations out earlier than most because they perfectly fit the theme of our next holiday. On January 21 our family has Family Life Celebration Day. It's kind of like valentines day just for the 6 of us. Some adoptive families celebrate "gotcha day" and people celebrate all different types of anniversaries. Well January 21 is kind of like our "gotcha day" for Maelyn, and all of our kids. It was the day that we were told that we would never get to meet Maelyn. The first doctor to look at her by ultrasound, at my 20 week appointment, told us that she would not be able to live with the heart that she has and that we would need to let them know when we were ready to terminate the pregnancy. Luckily that doctor was wrong, Maelyn is able to live with that heart. We learned a lot about fetal development and life and death through that experience, but really we learned that every day of every life is a miracle and a blessing. We learned that life, health, time, nothing is guaranteed. So on January 21 we celebrate each other. We give gifts, have fun together and love on each other. We remember how lucky we are to have each other. It is not all about Maelyn, it is not about the negativity of that day. It is about our family and how blessed we are to have had each day together, and how lucky we will be to have more days together. I got a new decoration this year. It's a banner that says, "Love Every Moment". I think that sums up Family Life Celebration day pretty well, love each other like God loves you, and love each and every moment He gives us.