Family

Never in my life have I learned a greater lesson than the one I am being taught now. God is using our daughter to grow us and teach us things that we may never have learned without her. One thing I will leave this journey with is a new appreciation for "family".

I have learned that the word "family" has many different meanings in my life. I have the wonderful family that dwells in my home with me everyday. I have the wonderful group of people who include my siblings, their spouses, my nieces and nephews, my parents, and my in-laws. I have the many thousands of people who have become family to me through Ashley's story. I have my fellow believers in Christ who go boldly before His throne on a daily basis for my baby, and I have an amazing Church family who could never be replaced. My heart and my life has been forever changed by the "family" that I have the privelage of worshipping with each week. The people that God has brought together to make up the body of Christ in our church family have gone above and beyond what they have been called to do for my daughter. I not only have a church family at Oakland Heights in Longview, Tx, but I have an extended church family all over Longview, all over Texas, all over Oklahoma, all over Louisiana, all over Georgia, all over Kansas, all over Nebraska, and in many, many, other states and countrys. My heart is overflowing with love for the many people that God has brought into my family. My hearts desire is for anyone who reads Ashley's story to have the same experience with family that I have had.

Tonight I would like to say to all of you who have become my family because of Ashley's story that I appreciate each one of you. I hope that someday in someway I will be used to touch your lives the way you have touched mine. I pray that at the end of this journey that we will come together in celebration of all the wonderful things He has done and will continue to do in our lives. You don't have to be great at anything, or have great wealth or great talents, you only have to have a great willingness to be used by Him and He will do great things. He is using our little 2lb. 12oz. gherkin to change our hearts and the hearts of many. Who would have ever thought that something so small could be used by Him to do something so big?

Let me encourage you to thank Him for the family He has given you. Let me encourage you to love the family that He has given you, and let me encourage to open your hearts to the ones He intends to add to your "family". You will never be the same. I love you all and pray that each of you will feel His touch in your life the way that you have touched ours. God bless you. Trish