Sibsational

[James] My dad grew up as an only child. He once told us boys that we didn't know how lucky we were to have brothers and that we ought to not take them for granted...

This past weekend Katie and I have the great joy of spending some incredible quality time with each of our younger siblings. Alison came into town for the weekend to catch a concert with Katie and she happened to be our very first overnight guest here in our apartment. Some of the highlights were biking around the towns, thrift store shopping, dinner at Honey, breakfast Saturday morning, Sushi before the concert and numerous heart to hearts about life, love, faith and family. There was no shortage of laughter between our story telling, exchanging of our favorite jokes and you tube videos. I LOVE HAVING SISTERS! It brought me so much joy to see Alison and Katie connect as sisters. I further realized that there are places that I cannot reach Katie, nor was I designed to reach her. Seeing the way that she and her sister would process and connect was so beautiful and I could see how life giving it was for Katie; she felt known and she felt connected to a family that I could not alone provide for her.


On the way to the concert we swung through downtown Chicago to pick up my brother, Bryan. We got to check out his incredible digs in the warehouse where he and his film-business has set up shop. The four of us then went for sushi, which was amazing, and again we held the richest of conversations. During the concert, my brother and I went near by to hang out for a while and we were able to talk more about our past, where we have been over the past several years, and where we dream of going in the next. It was powerful to speak of each of our brokeness and then even more so to realize that the brokeness we have is shared because of the places we have come from.

There is healing in relationship.
There is brokeness that comes from relationship.
How ironic that God uses the same medium to bring us healing as the things that cause us pain.

I am so thankful for families and for the new families that Katie and I now get to share with one another.