Happy Birthday to my Brother!

I have to gush, not only do I have the best brother ever but I mailed his birthday present on time and God willing I will remember to call him today!

My brother and I did not grow up together all of our life. Our parents separated more than they were together and divorced while we were young and went on to re-marry others. My brother and I sometimes lived together with the same parent and sometimes lived with the other parent and not each other. That sounds really confusing - and to be honest as kids it was very confusing. Sometimes I was his mother, sometimes I wanted to act like his mother, sometimes he wanted me to NOT act like his mother and just be his sister, sometimes he just wanted a friend. I am so glad to have him because he understands me in a way no one else ever can. He understands my history, he lived my history with me. Sometimes I forget dates or details or block out whole paragraphs of my life story and he is always there to help me remember, even when remembering sometimes hurts.

I am supposed to be the older sibling (okay, okay I am older technically) but a lot of times he is the wiser sibling. He is able to see inside me and knows what I am feeling and he has the words to pull me up and into new places. I remember one time I was bemoaning my weight gain from having 4 kids (believe me I loved the Bradley method of childbirth telling me 'if your body craves it, eat it' I don't think they really meant the gallons of ben and jerrys I inhaled!). My brother came over to where I was staring at myself in a mirror trying to poke by post baby belly to make it appear smaller and my outfit cuter and he put his hand over mine to still my poking at myself. He looked at me in the mirror and said something to the effect that I was a miracle bearer, I created life in that belly, I carried four human beings into this world through the gift of that belly and as my body stretched I glowed. He told me to honor my body and all the work it had done for me and for my kids. He gave me such a gift that day. No longer do I look at my body and wish away the marks of childbirth and being a miracle bearer. Do I wish to lose a few pounds, of course, only the treadmill is going to burn the ice cream calories, not just thinking about it. But I no longer look at my body and wish for it to be anyway different than it is today. Because who I am today is enough. He taught me that.

I was scared to share with him my call to ordained ministry, had no clue what he would think. We were raised Roman Catholic before the divorce and through our grandparents after the divorce. We have family history with our ancestors in the Mormon Church who then became Lutherans and I believe he was re-baptized Southern Baptist at some point in high school and here I am wanting to be a Deacon in the Episcopal Church. I will save my explorations into the Jewish faith and interest in Buddha for another day. I finally just blurted it out one day on the phone, no preamble, no explanation just a blurting. I was doing a sermon I believe the upcoming weekend and public speaking is my biggest fear. I was sharing with him my fear and how could I share the Word in church - and he said "of course you can". He was so calm and so sure and telling me all the ways my life has led to this point and how God was going to help me do what He wanted me to do. I prayed with his "of course" in my heart and mind for many, many weeks after. Embracing his acceptance of me, just me, who I am, where I am and how I am. He always has and I pray he always will.

So while today I thank God for the gift of my brother I know the true gift is how amazing and wise and steadfast he is. He is a wonderful husband, amazing father, faithful friend, exemplary employee and manager, in his spare time fun golfer and a student once again. He is the heart of my heart, how blessed am I to share this journey through life with him.



My blessed brother you are His Beloved!
We are works in progress and I see the Beautiful Art in You!

(an aside - as I wrote this two Mormons came and knocked on my door to share Christ with me and I didn't mention that our parents reconciled with one another and re-married each other about 11 years ago)