I recently celebrated a milestone birthday, eight decades! Wow, this was not an event I had ever visualized in my younger years. My five kids thought the occasion momentous enough to arrange a party outdoors.
Kathy and two exchange students who have become family.
They tried valiantly to keep the invitee count minimal. As it turned out those five children, their spouses and children and grandchildren’s children turned into a significant crowd. Throw in a couple of extraordinary foreign exchange students who were also part of the “children count” long term and we had ourselves a full yard of birthday party-ers.
I could see this gathering, though intimate in scope of relationship, was no small matter. We all meant something to one another that began as a love connection between my husband and me . . . and that got me thinking of other relationships I’ve been fortunate to enjoy.
Kathy and her family gather for her 80th birthday.
These others connections are based on a love for my Lord and faith and my church community. In this family, we lift each other up when we sing together. We share a sacred meal as a family member presents us with Christ’s body in host form. We hail each other with a peaceful sign and we listen to histories and letters from long-ago family members in the Scriptures.
This love connection began when God knew me.
Kathy Hanson is mostly retired if you don’t count volunteering as work. She enjoys learning new things and having unique experiences. With decades of raising a family with her husband who is deceased, working at a corporate career and serving as a worker/leader in community service and non-profit organizations, active is an appropriate definition of her lifestyle. Woven throughout that life a love of reading has been a constant thread. Kathy seeks to share some of the insights reading has given her in her blogging contributions.