I’ve been with my growing-up family this week. All the sisters were together. The only one missing was our brother. My mother wrote a memoire and older sister, Joyce has been editing it the past few months. On Fridays, the five siblings and their spouses meet via computer zoom and she reads the next section of editing she’s completed. It has been rich to hear things you think you’ll never forget, but you do.

We sorted ones to keep, ones we had no idea who the people in the photo were, and to the individual families. Here’s my stack of photos:

You can’t see them clearly. On the far left is my late first husband, Bill. Probably 18 or 19 years old. Clockwise to the right is a photo of my daughter Erika. Her high school graduation with both sets of grandparents around her. Those grandparents are in heaven now. Next around is my son Todd at age three. A little man all dressed up in suit and tie. So young. Innocent. Now he is a man and has been for many years. I still remember the chubby cheeks and innocent words he’d say to me. To the right are photos for my cousins and one surviving aunt to sort through and remember.

My birth family was a singing family and it seemed appropriate that we sing together during sister Betsy’s visit. Each morning, Jim and I pick a hymn or praise song and sing it together and we did so while Betsy was here. It was good.

This morning as I reflect, grateful for the family I grew up in. I like what James in the New Testament writes,

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows (James 1:17).

While I have breath in me, I want to always remember the perfect gift God has given me through His Son, Jesus. It is a perfect gift. He placed me in a family that honors and loves that Giver of perfect gifts. He gave me my own little family, too. A perfect gift. He placed me in an extended family I can love as well.

Check out your scattered photos. I hope you have some special ones. Some remind you of difficult times, too. There are the happy ones. The sad ones. The in-between ones. All are a rich story of life and the gift of where God placed you throughout your life. Reflect and remember. And give thanks for the “good and perfect gift from above.”