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Funeral day.19Sept…. Remembering Cousins and Connections, Blood and Blood, 17MAR

So today is funeral day for my cousin Mike, and my Aunt (his Mom’s cremated ashes from many years before) … It’s 6AM and already an emotional day… Some of my cousins have gathered here in my home town, we stayed up last night gazing at the milky way, we are way out of town at a camp, it’s so dark here, and the last bit of the night I talked one on one with one of my wonderful cousins about my spiritual growth and everything… At the end of my yapping, and she sharing her faith too, I saw an amazing shooting star… Good God, God is good…

My 23 first cousins and our spouses are the best and I am the youngest of those 23.. I have so much crazy love from them, stemming from my five uncles and five aunts and my parents… We support each other immensely because that’s how we were taught to live, we were taught to LOVE… I learned a new word from my brother… Avuncular…Kind and friendly towards a younger or less experienced person: reassuring, and trustworthy…. Yes, that’s EXACTLY the word for what I feel, what I have experienced from SO many…

Cousins… My cousin Mike’s passing evoked one of the biggest emotional pieces for me to that date, on St Patrick’s Day… If I call you a cousin it is because you are… If you know me, you know I can skip all the formalities and just “luv ya”.. I just do, it’s a completely Agape LOVE of cousins in Christ…..

Thank you for letting me exude the love that I can’t help but exude, I have way more than my share and am humbled to be God’s instrument to share it….

Here’s that emotional piece… Thank you… LUV YA!!!!

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Recap #97 I love this piece !!!!!!!

Cousins and Connections, Blood and Blood, 17MAR

> Yesterday I felt so glad to get some “unfinished” writings out… Because I told myself that I was now going to fill my mind with things that I (with a capital I) wanted to fill it with….that I asked God to empty my mind – and yes He did… and I did get about 3 hours of real work work done in the morning. > > … and then God filled my brain, unexpectedly, in the afternoon with the thoughts HE wanted me to have – and HE filled my mind with actions and connections and LOVE. Not my mind anymore is it? – it’s HIS…. sigh… a new normal i will try to remember this always…I am God’s instrument…tune him in not out… God…sigh…. > > So my beloved cousin Mike died on Saturday, he was mid 50’s… i learned via Facebook (of all places), someone posted on his wall RIP. i said “wait what??”, I messaged that person and was trying to balance my fear with my disbelief – turns out Mike dropped dead instantly in a bank from a nearly 100% blockage from heart disease – with complications from diabetes and not taking care of himself – which very few of us do…. Heart disease and diabetes and stroke are our Irish destinies – our whole family struggles… > > My flood of emotions – sorrow and questions – we hadn’t talked in years – couldn’t get a hold of him – but we loved each other – all my cousins – we love each other even if we don’t connect… we are connected by Grace and by our family tree. > > Well, God filled me with sorrow first but then with so much action. He chose ME to start spreading the news – I have the connections to the whole family – I had to get the word out, as my mother’s generation would have – it is now my generation’s job… I spent the whole afternoon and into the evening on the phone, only to look up at 7:30, when the people locking up work said “it’s time to go”… I spent the whole afternoon on the phone and email and texting with my cousins – there are 23 of us third generation Irish. My cousin Mike was an only child – the first one to pass of our first cousin generation. We stem from 6 brothers and their amazing 6 wives (my father being the youngest) – the number of children are 23 AND then of course the marriages and children and grandchildren of our cousins – we have exploded across the US and are spreading family love and spiritness everywhere. Yes, we are a family of Leprechauns if there ever was!!!. So God filled my mind with memories and the love of my cousins – the best family gift ever! > > If people ask where i draw my strength – that is an easy easy answer – i draw it from my family – and there is an overflow of strength… > > Oh, I just made the biggest epiphany about my church family…not lightbulb in your in your brain epiphany but fireworks going off epiphany… > > My church family, I love them so much in the agape way… but I just realized they are not my brothers and sisters in Christ they are my cousins in Christ!!!! Agape love is so reflected in the love of cousins. Just because I don’t know them all yet, and they come from different backgrounds (and I want to know them all more), doesn’t mean I don’t already love them. Our ancestors would tell us to love them even if we don’t know then. > > Cousins. Some are distant and some are close. Some are lost. Some are found. Some are blind. Some can see. > > Some of our cousins need to have a God connection made… maybe we are their connection… maybe they’ll find their own connection. Maybe we just need to remind them and us that we are all connected. > > My mother’s family cousins in Europe… I am so longing to see them… I will see them next week. I will embrace them. I was the one that made the connection between the Old World and the New World. God gave me the gifts to make this connection. And, I so feel like the connection of my father’s Irish cousins to our recent ancestral homeland. > > God gave me a ministry of connection. A ministry of encouragement someone said… of friendliness…but, NO it is a MINISTRY OF CONNECTIONS. I will make the connections. I will write about connections. I will connect to my words and thoughts and I will connect my people to their God and all that is good. > > Blood relative cousins ….Blood Christ cousins… > > Life is good. > God is good. > God, thanks for my cousins. All of them. > God, thanks for connecting me to you. > I believe in connections. > AMEN!