My Bigger Picture Moment came to me this week {as so many of them do} while I was editing photos from the Fourth of July picnic we attended at Brent’s aunt and uncle’s house. I was going though the images from that day one by one and thinking about how unique it is to be with family versus hanging out with friends.
As children, it’s something very special to spend time with people who have always and {hopefully} will always be in your life. I can remember back to when I was a little girl playing with my cousins; the old taking care of the young, the young following the old, all of us just free to be ourselves knowing that no matter what, we’d always be cousins.
And whether we saw each other once a year or once a week, we knew them! And they knew us. And we were friends not because we had really cool toys or we always let them have the blond haired Barbie…but because we were family. And now that I’m older, I can see how those relationships…the easy and dependable ones…can really help to stabilize the often transitory life of a young child. How seeing the same faces year after year can help them build a sense of who they are and where they belong in this great big world.
And as a parent, it’s so nice to have other people in the world who genuinely love your children; people who want to spoil them with extra cookies, extra kisses, and lots of lots of their time!
It’s nice to have people who are willing to do crazy things with your children just to see them smile! Because as parents, we try so. hard. to give our kids the best; to make them happy. But sometimes it’s relieving to watch someone else give our children their best…because then we don’t feel so alone in the massive plight that is the raising of our children. We can remember that there are multiple people loving our children and feeding their souls with good things that will help them to be happy and hopeful adults!
And as you get older, that same family will remind you of what you were like as a child. They’ll help you remember your proud moments and together you’ll laugh at your not-so-proud moments.
And as you sit and recall all those stories from all those years that you’ve been playing and getting together and spending time and having conversations, you can remember who you are and where you belong in this great big world.
You can look back and laugh at hard times while seeing the faces of the people that have known and loved you, literally, forever!
And in those little spans of time, the weight of the world that rests on our now adult shoulders gets lifted for just a little while and we can feel free to be a kid again…because someone else is loving your children and your uncle just pulled out all the toys!
Today I’m finding the Bigger Picture along with my friends at Bigger Picture Blogs and our community. There are moments where we’re so caught up in it all, the hectic mind boggling pace of the day. We encourage you to take this opportunity to take a moment and view the Bigger Picture. Whatever that means to you. A moment where you recognized the role your faith plays in your every day life. A moment where you take note of motherhood and the importance of what you are doing. A moment that made you stop and breathe in the bigness of it all. The hugeness that is life and the small moments adding up to one Bigger Picture.
We will be finding the Bigger Picture each Thursday and we invite you do the same! This week, you can link your “Bigger Picture Moment” post over at Sarah’s place, This Heavenly Life.
Beautiful moment!
It just reminds me how important it is to make that trip every year to see them. Beautiful post!
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