Woke up this morning feeling achy but happy to be in a home full of family that, though they aren't blood, do welcome, care for, and genuinely love me. There have been points at which I haven't felt at home here, or like I am part of this family which didn't birth me. And I can't promise perfect feelings of belonging in the future, for I learned quite a while ago not to trust feelings. They are far too fickle. (For God to love the fickle human heart full of changing emotion is beyond my understanding!) What I will say is that, this morning, today, I feel a part of this place, this family, this home. Today, I am truly an English.
I have felt this way before. I like it. I hope it stays. And I will, as I have been, practice feeling one with these people who are truly a daily blessing to me. This may sound "nonromantic" to you, but, to me, the trained heart, feelings which are guided by logic, are beautiful. The Renaissance plays in which protagonists learn to understand logically how to love and who practice that very thing, all the while seeping themselves in correct emotion--that is romantic to me; it is beauty; it is, in a sense, the Christian Life. Emotion and logic existing in harmony and calling back and forth to each other in a beautiful dance of melodious and variant sounds is what I like to call true love. It's how I love God, depending on logic when I don't feel, and depending on feeling when I start to simply "go through the motions." It's how I love Isaiah. It's how I love this family, my family, the one that, today, I know is mine too.
As for "the now," I am enjoying practicing Russian phrases and words with one of the Ukrainian girls in the English home this Christmas: Luda. Who knew a random college semester of learning this language would come in handy!? I am enjoying everyone's meaningful gifts and a beautiful breakfast that we are still munching on. I am enjoying the knowledge that soon, some of my friends from the Boardwalk will be with us again. I am enjoying the feeling of Christmas. I am still worried about the future; the back of my mind seems to be on fire with thoughts of stopping my job, new possibilities of work for Isaiah, concerns about a car or a home of our own, and the timing of all things called Adult Life. But thankfully, this Christmas, I can tell the back of my mind to "shut up" and leave room for faith, trust, family, a warm husband, fuzzy socks, and the smell of pine.
But most of all I can remind myself that there is a God who left heaven to die for me, who loved me in that moment and who loves me still, giving me gifts this Christmas as well: a loving husband to wake up next to, and two loving families: One I was born into. One I was adopted into by marriage. In one, I have "the ties that bind," the blood and love and memories I cannot escape. In the other, I choose to sew myself into a pattern that has already been formed, one that, though it is intricate, still makes room for a new piece of thread which wishes to become one with the design.
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