Introducing, my other family..

I've always heard.. friends come & go, but family lasts forever. Friends drift in and out of your life and few stay for the long haul. Family, on the other hand, wouldn't dare leave you. They would be lost without you.. just as you would be lost without them. I have been blessed with a beautiful mother, a loving and strong father & a precious little brother who I love with my whole heart and then some. My parents raised me to love and chase after the Lord.. while my brother teaches me every day to be patient and to love. I talk about them a good bit on this blog, so I'd like to introduce you to my OTHER family. They go by the name of.. The CRASH.

This is my family. Beautiful, aren't they? I look into these faces in this picture & I can flash back to a point in their life where they showed me who Christ was. My Crash is made up of many parts.. there are the strong guys who I can always lean on when I feel like falling apart, who hold me up without questioning me. On the other hand, there are the sweet, darling girls and sisters. The girls that I have spent hours upon hours sitting with on a bunkbed giggling, crying & talking about our Savior. There are the gentle spirits, the loud & lovable ones, the serious, the silly, the strong and the courageous. We have disagreed, fought, danced through the victories, cried through the pain & linked arms through it all. We've made mistakes, hurt each other & spent too much time on other things.. but even through those situations we searched out God's face & He pulled us out. He pulled us out of the messes that we made & sat us back down in a big house together once again. We learned to serve others, as well as each other. We had a tearful Lord's supper, a night of healing through bandaids & thankyou's through water, and a night with a room full of washclothes & tubs to wash each other's feet. We traveled to many states.. One where we lead two children to God's throne. Together we painted, cut grass, cleaned & sheet-rocked. Blood doesn't decide who is family.. He does. I have found a brother and sister in the people in my CRASH.. They have held my hand through sad times.. & they have picked me up as I fell back to square one. They never gave up. They never let me go. There is always a sweet smile, a warm hug & an "I love you" among my crash. So.. here's my thank you to my family. Thank you for loving me unconditionally and without hesitating. You have pulled me closer to my Christ & I couldn't have asked for anything more from you.