If I never said thank you...

I saw a picture of myself today. Not in a creepy narcissistic way that I was stalking my own photographic journey, but because I am irresponsible and still haven't given the pictures back to my mom that I borrowed for the slideshow at my wedding. (yes that was two years ago...don't judge me).

Four years old, buck teeth (one of them black because I was really invested in taking the hillbilly look all the way). Sadly, I probably still have sunglasses that look like bug eyes. You're jealous, admit it. As you can see I was super classy, but that isn't what is important about this photo. What matters is my face. My smile. The calm assurance that lies behind that face. Behind that face is a heart beating with the confidence of the love it gets to soak up everyday. Simple, maybe, to you. Simple because you may assume every four year old should look this happy (and stylish).

But to me, it is everything. To me it is evidence of the overwhelming ache of love I feel in my soul for two people who have forever changed my life.

If I never said thank you, Mema and Pap, then I am crazy.

My childhood is not full of memories of anger, broken

families, fear, or betrayal. It is full of walks on a campground full of some of the most kind people I have ever known. It is full of summer nights catching lightning bugs and swinging on a playground. It is full of winters on a frozen lake, dinners full of every relative that means anything to me, cinnamon toast triangles and Mary Poppins on the record player. It is me working in the general store, riding my bike to borrow some eggs, and bedtime stories.

It is me coming to learn about who my God is.

There are no two people in this world who could ever outrank you on my list of awesomeness (maybe Jesus and Jared...). There is, very possibly, no one I have learned more from about who God is. About what a real family looks like. About

what love really, truly, in our souls, can do. About what it truly looks like to live in perfect love.

So, if I never said thank you, all I can do is say there aren't any words I can come up with.

You both are the reason I believe in marriage. You are the reason I strive to love my husband as unconditionally as possible, to invest in him as my teammate and trust him with all of my being. You are the reason I hope Jared and I can still hold hands when we are 72.

I know who God is because of you. My whole being is wrapped up in His story, His heart, and the desire to do everything in lieu of showing His people that there is a God that loves them and pursues them like crazy. You gave that to me...

I want to have kids because of the children you raised. I want to lead and love and instruct as you did. I want to watch my children become exactly who God made them to be, and, if I am lucky, watch them start families of their own and make me a grandparent.

And if I am lucky, my grandkids will think I am half the person you are. If I am lucky, they will have stories to tell of how much I sacrificed to make their lives as beautiful as I could. They will tell people about how much Jared and I loved God before, in, and through everything else. And it is then that I will know that I have succeed. It is then that I will know I have become, like you, exactly the kind of person God made us all to be.

So, if I never said thank you, I am not sure what else to say.

Mema and Pap, I love you. Thank you...