In the world of Sunshine, this blog is all about how blessed I am.
(warning... this post is all about me talking through figuring something out)

Six weeks ago, I was blessed with the most amazing opportunity in the world... I witnessed the miracle of life take place.
Eden Olivia Wells was born and my life was changed.

I have had the blessings of good, steady, solid friendships in my life. I think God knows me well enough that I was never meant to live life alone. I need people around me, living life with me, walking beside me and God has been so gracious in strategically placing people all along the way.

The friends who have been placed in my life are not surface "how ya doing?" passerby kind of friends. They are the kind who look me in the eye and say "how are you." and no matter what the answer, they love me. At that question, I have given all sorts of answers at all sorts of points of life with all sorts of emotions... and the people who are really on the journey have always stuck with me.


What I'm starting to discover about life is that relationships really are the most important part of life. They take hard work, they change and evolve, and they don't always happen the way you think, but they are what's important in life.
I feel an overwhelming sense of gratitude for the people who God has allowed me to walk with. I don't have much to offer to the friends who I've been given, but I love them.


Eden entering into this world a few weeks ago was one of the most life changing events that I have every experienced.

Standing in the hospital room with Rachel and LG was a total representation of what I want my friendships to look like. It represented a way of life. Rachel was obviously the one who had to do the work, but LG and I were right there letting her know she wasn't in this alone. Not only was she not going to do the delivery alone but that she wasn't going to have to raise her alone. It was like LG and I were signing up for life... we're in this!

The next couple of hours and days of Eden's life helped me to remember what level of dependency children have on their parents. She looked to Rachel for everything... security, food, love, shelter... everything. My thoughts immediately turned to the miracle God gave me ... Adeline Grace. Oh my word. I remember being the one in the hospital bed with a newborn depending on me for her every need. It wasn't too long ago! It forced me to try to figure out at what point I started letting everything be more important than her.
Ministry life is draining and fulfilling. It's rewarding and exhausting. The problem is that most people forget that it's not the one getting the pay check, but it's the entire family who is impacted by "ministry life". It never turns off. You have to always wear your ministry hat. It's part of who you are. It is my responsibility to show Adeline that before I love one single person in the church, I love her. That's what's really important in life. The relationship between me and my daughter. I'm her mom before I'm anything in the church... and somewhere along the way, I lost sight of that. Since then, I have cut everything except Wednesday night youth services. I want her to know without question that she's more important than anyone else.
That, of course, those thoughts led me to a relationship that's even more important than that one. My daughter will have the most amount of love and security if she knows that I love her dad more than anyone. That means a little more PDA (this one falls on me). It means that I keep our house running as a home and my husband knows that I love and respect him. I want Adeline to see the solid foundation of her parents loving each other with a mature love. It's playful and it's passionate. It's silly and sincere.
Moving on to the most important relationship ... it's the relationship with my creator. I want to be continually falling in love and pursuing the heart of God...

I guess in my journey right now, I am at a point of discovering what's really important in life. It's my relationships with people.
Not the relationships that have ill intentions, but the ones that are a deep rooted love for one another that will stand through the test of time...

So. What's most important in life? Relationships. simple as that.



1 Corinthians 13 (The Message)

1 If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don't love, I'm nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. 2If I speak God's Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, "Jump," and it jumps, but I don't love, I'm nothing. 3-7If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don't love, I've gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I'm bankrupt without love.

Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn't want what it doesn't have.
Love doesn't strut,
Doesn't have a swelled head,
Doesn't force itself on others,
Isn't always "me first,"
Doesn't fly off the handle,
Doesn't keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn't revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.

8-10Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled.