The first Sunday of every month is communion Sunday at our church.
I look forward to sharing this time of fellowship with my church family.

It is also the day new members are welcomed.
More family members…making our circle bigger.

Three of the four new members that were added this month are part of the same family.
Typically, that would not have been something unusual.
This time, however, it was two generations of the same family.
A patriarch…his daughter and her husband.

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There were two babies born in the past few days.
It is such a blessing to see a tiny new life.
One day here…the day before…on the other side.

Each baby already has siblings.
The parents have been through the miracle of birth before.
I enjoy seeing pictures of the new family.
The siblings getting acquainted with their new brother or sister.

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He sits on the kitchen counter.
Not really a “he”…but an “it”.
He has been there since my children were little.
A life saver, really, with five children all asking the same thing…every day.

What’s for dinner?

Five times each day that question would be asked…at various times of course.
Really…six times…my husband would ask as well.
I decided to remedy the situation.
I set out on my quest!

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October 17, 1981.
Thirty one years ago today, my husband and I were married.
It was a gorgeous fall day…with the trees ablaze in color…and the sky the bluest blue.

Let me go back to the beginning.

High school…the next step.
After years with the same friends, you are suddenly thrust into this ocean of people.
People from different schools…different towns.
Everything different.

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One of my husband’s cousins is compiling a family photo album.
Pictures from the past…the Gallagher history.
It is a blessing…and a catharsis…since both of my husband’s parents died this year, seven months apart.

A walk down memory lane.
Seeing my husband as a boy…with his brothers…and only one sister at that time.
They all have the same faces…they are now just an older version of themselves.
They have the same mannerisms.
The brother that teases now…was the brother that teased then.

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The mother of my dear friend died the other morning.
Her obituary said that she went home to be with her Lord and Savior.
That is true!

There is such comfort when a believer, in Christ, dies.
There is no wondering…no uncertainty.
There is assurance.
Such a wonderful word!

Assurance is defined as a positive declaration intended to give confidence; a certainty about something.

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We just finished lunch.
I usually have a salad…others have leftovers…some want a sandwich.
Even with a sandwich there is variety.
Peanut butter and jelly, grilled cheese, tuna fish, chicken salad.

When a child eats a sandwich, very often they will remove the crusts from the bread.
Some like their sandwiches cut right down the middle…some like them cut diagonally.
When my youngest was a toddler, she liked her sandwich cut into four triangles.
However you make them…or eat them…the sandwich is a staple of our diet.

But it also is a phase of life!

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Almost twenty years ago, we took a vacation to Florida.
We have been to Florida since then…but this trip was different.
On this trip…we drove!
Imagine…

We only had four children at the time, under the age of nine.
Our youngest was about 18 months.

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She was born in a heat wave.
It was the summer of the centennial celebration of the Statue of Liberty.
My second child…due the day before my birthday, but born eleven days early.
Ready to meet the world.

Look at her hands…Look at her long fingers…
The first thing my husband said after seeing his second child…his second daughter.
Those hands would reach out to many in love and compassion.
Those long fingers would one day masterfully play the violin.

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When my husband was sixteen years old, he worked for the YCC.
The Youth Conservation Corps.
He was away for the entire summer after our sophomore year of high school.
He worked in the Gettysburg National Park.
He rebuilt the post and rail fences, painted barns, restored the peach tree orchard.
I like the fact that when people walk around the battlefield, they are seeing things that were rebuilt, painted, and restored by my husband and others, all those years ago.

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