Recently I was fortunate enough to go to London to watch the Broncos play a game against the Jaguars. Friends have asked me (and still are) how my trip was. I like to be transparent and sincere in my responses especially when I know that the person asking is genuinely asking. The trip itself was nice, but my life after has been forever changed.

It’s been a couple of months since I returned from London and nothing is back to “normal” so I did what I always do when things aren’t quite right. I looked deep into my faith. As funny as it seems, I realized that one of my three wishes has already come true. In a previous post, I revealed my current three wishes that I wish for whenever we go to a new church. In that post I wrote, “We all wish for things and when we wish, I think it’s more like a prayer. I acknowledge that God is the one granting our wishes not a fairy or a genie in a bottle. Why not wish out loud? Or as I like to say, “Put it out into the universe”. So here it goes, here are my current three wishes:

1. My first wish is for my family to be here for one another no matter what - growing closer every day…”

My children have rapidly grown into teenagers and I reflect back on a friend’s observation about mothers not wanting to miss out on their baby’s first milestones like walking, eating solid food, etc. so they stay home, leaving their careers but they vow to go back to work when their kids are more independent. This friend said the teenage years are more critical for the parents to be around. I will second that observation. This whole NFL season has been a very trying time for our family (not to mention the whole organization). Before the season even started, I had decided to pay closer attention to my teenagers and put family first. In full transparency I will share that this is very hard for me to do because I have goals and aspirations. I am always tempted to do more for a lot of people instead of doing little for my immediate family. In other words, I would like to impact more people with my big picture goal and if only it was enough that I could just hope that my kids would turn out ok. For now, the big picture has to wait a little longer. Let’s dissect my number one wish - for my family to be here for one another no matter what - growing closer every day. Well, God has shown me that he heard my wish loud and clear. He has granted this wish about 5 times over since I started wishing for it. All right God, I see it now - my family is passing all the tests that some families never recover from. I am very grateful that you have granted me this wish.

I’m reminded about a homily that I heard over 20 years ago. During the homily the priest shared that he hated when parishioners would come to confession and ask God to grant them more patience. When the priest said this, I remember that I sat up in the pew wondering why he would ever say that. He explained, because the only way to have more patience is to get tested to see how much you have. Well that certainly deterred me from asking for patience ever again! So of course, if I ask for my family to be there for each other no matter what, God is going to throw situations at us to see if we will be there for each other no matter what.

Family is life. Life is family. So when it comes to prayer and wishes, how do I keep my family as my top priority? How do I phrase this? How do I make it easy for God to send me more thoughtful pinches? This wish is hard; it is what I want and need the most. How can I ask for our family to be close without asking for the tests that come along with it? I have thought about this many times because I need a new prayer. I need a “re-do” or a refresh or another version - Family 2.0. This is why the old saying, “Be careful what you wish for." was invented.

I think gratitude is an equalizer. It doesn’t matter how rich, poor, what our nationality is or gender or political party - when we look for blessings, we can’t help but be grateful. So when my wish for my family to be grateful is tested, which it will be tested, I hope after all the situations in which we have a choice to be grateful or not, results in our family feeling closeness. My hope is that since I acknowledge within my wish that there will be life lessons, God may give us less hard ones to learn from. I’m not asking for a perfect life or to win games or for material things; I’m asking to learn and therefore it’s my way of making this easier on him.

{Side Note: Wish #2 is also coming true and within my lifetime - Holiday Huddle, is a gift that I will forever be grateful for and I hope to leave more positive contributions to society that will be remembered for years to come. Wish #3 is basically the same as #1 but it’s only for me and #1 is about my family - which has a lot of moving parts}.

I appreciate you processing this with me. Thanks for reading thru my round about way of getting my #1 prayer/wish all straightened out. I was getting pretty worried that the tests kept coming at us one right after another. I figured it would be worth my time to sit still and come up with a prayer “re-do”. After all, it is the holiday season and I would love to focus more on what the season is all about: Family.

Pinches,

Barb