Grafted And Grateful

I sit here in my house on Thanksgiving grateful for many things - too many list. But I will highlight one. Today (right now in fact), I am surrounded by four new family members (two more are back chillin' at their hotel). My brother, Blane, and his new wife, my new sis-in-law, Crystal, and her kids Blaze, Melissa, and Hayden are watching Pearl Harbor with Kelly and I. It's really cool.

What's cool is that this gathering today was born out of great pain. The Carr family (new fam) lost their dad a year and a half ago to a brain tumor. Two years ago my brother's family was rocked by divorce. Both very different experience, but both very painful. What's even cooler is that God in his grace has joined us together.

This grafting of two families is very much like our grafting into Christ...powerful, tough, joyous, mysterious and born from brokenness. And through it all something new is being born. Something good is happening. Rough, refining, and redemptive if we are open to it. My bro and my nieces and my new sis and my new niece and nephews are experiencing all the highs, lows, fruit and fragileness that comes with new relationships.

I'm thankful that Kelly and the kids were apart of it this week. Thanksgiving was a chance for all of us to experience a deeper sense of the grafting that God is doing in all of us. With Him and with each other. It's amazing to be apart of it. I am truly thankful for that this year.