Grounded.

Sometimes life is busy.

Sometimes the business of life has a way of pulling a family in so many directions

that it doesn't feel like you're ever really ALL TOGETHER

-- at least long enough.

And I start to get discouraged.

Frustrated that the time together is too quick

and not filled with enough "quality."

(I think I am starting to feel the pangs of my kids growing up,

and going their own ways, doing their own things

-- things not specifically related to our family.)

Last night, I pulled a book from a shelf.

It was a book about Christ-centered homemaking.

I grabbed it - perhaps thinking that it would help me

get back to a place where I felt our home (our family) was doing okay.

Or at least confirmation that we were "normal."

I read a few pages, and then turned to a page where a bookmark had been inserted.

Not a bookmark, really.  An envelope.

Interesting choice.

Probably from the same birthday that earned me this book, I thought.

I turned it over and read this:

And it grounded me.

It served as a reminder that

whatever twists and turns our family takes,

however imperfect in our "timing"

to be all together in the same room,

it all comes back to love.