Thank you
For my 18th birthday, I sat down with my family last night to celebrate my 18th birthday.
After the traditional singing and blowing out the candles, my dad asked my mom and brother to share two things; a memory of me they have and a word of encouragement. My brother started off, “When Michelle first got her license, we drove around everywhere. And we got to talk a lot in the car. It was nice.” My mom went next and said, “I remember when Michelle was two years old she would stand on chairs to dance and sing. Her ‘ehgyo’ overflowed when she was little. It was so cute and always put a smile on my face.” And after this is when I started breaking. She told me for the rest of my life that God will lead me and that I’m in good hands.
I honestly don’t know what happened, but tears started to form in my eyes, and as I’m recounting of what happened they’re forming again at the moment.
My dad went after my mom. At this point my eyes are red, and I’m doing the best I can to swallow all the tears I have. And thank you dad for breaking the dam. As he was saying that the first time he held me in his arms at the hospital he bawled, I started bawling, then my dad seeing me cry, started as well.
And I just sat there with the cake in front of me, still smoking from the recently extinguished candles, tears streaming down my face. I was so happy. I was so happy. I was sooooooo happy. As I looked around- my mom laughing, my dad crying, and my brother looking so confused-all I could think of was that this is what family is supposed to look like.If this is the kind of love and happiness that my earthly family can give to me, I am overwhelmed by and yearning for the love my God can lavish onto me.
Thank you family for being so good to me. Thank you God for having been, is, and always will be good to me.
(I don’t even remember my dad’s words of encouragement, this was encouragement enough)
