too many blessings...

If you read my last post you knows its been a hard month for me and my family. Last post I made a list of all the people my husband and I had lost in our 13 years together. So many of you commented and said beautiful things that lifted my spirits but what Julie said really struck a nerve, she said "I would like you to write another blog. Of all the lives that have entered your's and  Eric's lives in 13 years....Think how much longer that list would be!" and I thought, "she is SO right!" Then this morning my Scripture of the day calendar had this verse "From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another." John 1:16 and I thought "gosh even God agrees with Julie!" :)

SO...This is a long but incomplete list of the people we've GAINED in 13 years.

I gained his family; The Rieblis, The Millspaughs & The Alcantaras, and a whole bunch of friends of the family too.

I gained his surrogate families; The Gunns (and their friends & family) & The Fosters (and their friends & family)

He gained my family; The DeVoss' & The Stevens', and a whole bunch of friends of the family too!

I gained his high school friends & he gained my high school friends.

We both gained The Group of Friends & the men of SAE.

The men & women of CompUSA 217, we were meeting you guys at the same time we were meeting each other so I'm including you in this list as well. :)

All my amazing Mom2mom & Ignite friends.

All the incredible mommy friends I've made through school, play-groups, Girl Scouts, Softball, Dance, and so on.

Our wonderful neighbors.

Since I'm not sure I would have finished college with out Eric pushing me I am also including all my teacher friends & my students at SHHS.

Eric's work friends & work wives too! :)

I have 290 friends on Facebook and he has 212 and almost all of them fit into one of these categories and while it often feels like the opposite is true, not everyone we know is on Facebook. So I know we've gained even more people then that in 13 years. Eric & I are very, very blessed and while it might mean we have to stand in black at your funeral or you at ours every friendship we've gained, every life we've added to ours is worth the grief we'll feel if/when we lose you.

And last but absolutely NOT least in 13 years we've gain the 2 most important people in our life today: our little girls. They have brought so much to both our lives and we are so grateful that God gave us these two beautiful & amazing creatures.

I have indeed "...recieved one blessing after another."