God made us family!

It is such a blessing to be part of God's family at Fairfax. Everyone who has emailed me or spoken to me on the phone says the same thing....Bob and Tresa and their children are on their minds, in their hearts and in their prayers all day long.
The first time I realized the bond that God creates in the hearts of people who love Him and give their lives to Him was when Don and I had our oldest child. We didn't think anyone knew much about what we were going through. I had to be hospitalized twice--the second time for 12 days, and we had no medical insurance. I had worked to pay the few days I was supposed to be in the hospital for--and then I went into premature labor, and had to be hospitalized early. Then I had pre eclampsia and ended up having an emergency C section after a long labor. There were doctors everywhere that we owed, and we had only been married 15 months--and were college students. We didn't tell anyone...but the church gave us a wonderful baby shower, the college students collected money for a money tree, and at Christmas when Chris was a couple of months old, some of our friends came in with bags and bags of groceries, baby supplies and gifts from anonymous friends who signed the card "Santa Clause!" We were so shocked that we were speechless (NOT normal for me!) and both of us cried. The same type of thing happened when Don was critically ill twice in one year back in 1999 and 2000. In between those times countless things were done for us...and we are just one family! I'm just sharing this to say that we are family to one another, and we aren't the ones who decide to be family. It is a miraculous heart change that happens when we become children of our Heavenly Father.
That is why we are filled with sadness and burdened by the suffering of those we love. We can mourn with those who mourn, and we can rejoice with those who rejoice--as they enter the eternity we have been promised--because Our Father creates love for one another in our hearts. Praise our loving Heavenly Father, who is love Himself.