Weddings and Such

So I'll be honest here, I've been dreading this post.  I have tried to compose it in my head for weeks now, only to have it dissolve into a pile of mush (ie me crying).  And I'm only doing it because I know someone will read this someday and know exactly how I feel, and my pain will not be for naught and it will help that person.  So here it is:


It's been over a year since my baby brother died, we've 'celebrated' all the holiday's at least once, we've done life.  But now for the next new thing, another sib is being married.  Pity party for one please!  The problems I'm facing, one Eric's not here and I want him here.  Two this sib is my step-brother, and due to life events we aren't close, it's something I wish were different, especially now, but he and my step-sis are super close and I'm the odd man out.  The one without, and that's what the enemy has made me focus on for the last few weeks.  I don't have this, I don't have that, poor poor pitiful me....


Now, I am not trying to minimize my pain (it's there and real and should be here), and Eric's absence is tangible, and I miss him more in big events such as weddings.  But I've focused on what I don't have, not on the blessings of what I do!


I go to BSF on Monday's, we sing hymns at BSF (those are the songs in the books at the old churches ;-)), we sang Great is Thy Faithfulness on Monday, I love this song here are the lyrics.  It made me think of what God blessed me with, way before my life changed again with another death.


He blessed me with a complete (however messed up) family, we lost my dad yes, but he gave us another man who loves my mom and two more sibs that love me too (and the seperation I sense is me alone, not something my step-sibs do to make me different).  I'm not sure what my life would be like if God hadn't blessed  me with my Harless family.  Certainly I wouldn't be as loved, and I wouldn't have the relationships I do.  God saw my need before I had it, and gave me them before I knew I needed them.  They are "Blessings all mine, with ten thousand beside"


"Great is Thy faithfulness!" "Great is Thy faithfulness!"
  Morning by morning new mercies I see;
All I have needed Thy hand hath provided—
    "Great is Thy faithfulness," Lord, unto me!

Maybe I don't see His mercies every day, but they are there, all I have to do is open my eyes, and swim out of my pity pool.  

So tomorrow I rejoice because my brother Sam has found his soul mate, because she completes him fantastically and together they will shine Jesus' love to the world around them better than they did separately.  I rejoice because they know Him, and walk with Him daily.  I rejoice because God is more than enough, for me and my family.  I rejoice because God took Eric Home, earlier than we would have liked, but Eric is Home, and we will join him when it's our time too.  I rejoice because all my sibs are children of God, and that makes us real siblings, not step siblings or in laws.  I rejoice because God's faithfulness is Great, especially when my need is.  I rejoice because "He is my strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow".

--A