My Mother-in-Law

So we all have those people in our lives that see us for who we are right?  The people that know how awful we can be, how judgmental, how petty, how unforgiving, how just downright rude we can be.....and they still love us despite all the nastiness that can sometimes inhabit these bodies of ours.  I am lucky to have quite a few people like this.  They love on me even when I am unlovable.

But then there are other people...........

These people seem to have blinders on.  It's as if they don't see the ugly and just see the beauty of who we are.  I talked to one of these people last night........amazingly enough, it's my mother-in-law.  I gave her the book "Kisses From Katie" for Christmas because I want EVERYONE to read it.  Plus Sharon has one of the biggest hearts of anyone I know and I knew she would love it.  So I was talking to her last night and she said that she was reading the book and, indeed, she loves it.  She said she just keeps reading and the whole time she was thinking about me.  That I am just like Katie, that I would be doing the things that she is doing.

Huh.

Katie has 13 kids.  I have 3.

Katie is single.  I have a loving, wonderful husband who is SO SUPPORTIVE and takes over whenever I feel like quitting.

Katie lives in Uganda.  I live in Canton, Ohio.  Just use your imagination to think of all the differences that entails.

Katie runs an organization that feeds children, sends them to school, provides medical care and numerous other things to the people of Uganda.  I occasionally run the sweeper.

You get my drift............there are some MAJOR differences.

But what I love is that in my searchings of late I have asked God that people see Him through me.  Not that I do great and amazing things, necessarily, but that He is shown through me.  That people know His love, through the love that I am able to give.  And while Katie's heart and walk and journey seem so much further along than mine I am bolstered by Sharon's words.  I feel as if God spoke through her to reassure me that I am on the right path.  And thank God for people who see past the ugliness, that don't even recognize it and are able to speak into your heart.

Oh and the other great thing about my mother-in-law?  She is watching the kids, BY HERSELF, for three days and two nights while Joe and I go off on a little getaway.  This is something we do every year in February.  It is something that I look forward to all year.  One year?  Nico was 2 months old, Fia not yet 2 years old and they went to stay with Grandma Goats for three days, 2 nights during a snowstorm.  Joe and I had the whole house to ourselves and were able to SLEEP for hours......it was amazing.  That's right I left my kid for 3 days when he was 2 months old.........it was GLORIOUS :)

Now I am feeling REALLY different from Katie................I am going to go love on my kids now.