Blessed

So, I've been looking at some of the photos I ordered from Mimi and Tim's photographer and they are even better than I thought when I bought them.

It may be unlucky to say this out loud (or write it in a blog) but I am one of the most blessed men alive.

I look at these pictures of my family (Bern, Mimi, Josh, Cathy, Tim, the grand-girls Emma, Morgan and Tegan) and I realize I've done nothing whatsoever in my life to deserve this family. I've not been smart enough or clever enough or inventive enough...and certainly, not ever 'good' enough...to deserve two kids who turned out better than I could have ever hoped and married two people I love and gave me three of the smartest, most beautiful, funniest grand-daughters in the world. And to have spent now over 44 years with my high school sweetheart Bern.

Nothing in my life would deserve any of that.

I'm really not as sweet and wonderful and compassionate as I appear to be. Not by a long shot....

And I've been in a job as an Episcopal priest that has brought me into contact with families gone amok more than I like to remember.

(I only wish Virgil and Cleo, my parents, were here to see how blessed I am, how well it all turned out. I wish that fervently. Looking at the pictures of my joy, I wish I could share that joy with them. Some folks I love and respect would tell me that Virgil and Cleo 'know' in some supernatural way. And I appreciate that sentiment and am thankful for it. But I'm not sure it's true. I guess I should hope.)

But what I am as sure of as any human could be 'sure of' is this: I am blessed beyond reason.

And I want everyone and the cosmos and God (whoever He/She/It/ really is) to know this: I am more thankful and full of gratitude and appreciative and wonder-struck at my blessedness that anyone (except perhaps God) could ever imagine.

I'm a guy who didn't even get lemons to make lemonade with. I got 'glory' to rejoice in.

And I do rejoice as I look at those photos. Rejoice, more than I can tell you. A man of many words, I have no words to tell you my thankfulness and joy.

The only thing that holds me back is the sure knowledge of those who are not blessed--so many who I will never know, who will never know how I feel.

I lament that. Greatly. Profoundly.