Girls

I don't know how many of you readers have children, or to that fact, girls. I don't know why but girls are much more work then boys, not that they are more deserving or more in need of attention, they are just more work. They are, whether they want to be or not, higher maintenance. They wait for your undivided attention, which means 'put down your stuff and look me in the eyes', where boys can multi-task and work with you while talking - for the most part. Girls seem to hold onto your skirt and boys, after a while, tend to stand in front of you almost protecting. I have two girls, that are mine, and one that has become part of our family. And, I'm not sure why exactly, but my two girls long to be around Lee and I, and that has trickled over to Lizzie, our other girl. When Lizzie first came to our home, she spent most of her time upstairs or down here with Kaleb, but never just downstairs with us. That changed slowly over the past months, and with Kaleb, Jennifer, and Sydney's example, Lizzie has started to become one of our family.
This morning, I was struggling with a word from God, anything that woudl be comforting in this time of grief and fear. What was funny is out of nowhere, and after looking for anything in God's word, Jennifer came downstairs and the word "girls" came to my mind. So I looked up the word at crosswalk.com, and while there were a lot of references, one name kept coming to mind - Ruth. I read Ruth several, several months ago, but her name kept coming to mind, so I looked up her name and this jumped out at me : Ruth 1:15 - 17 : "Look" said Naomi "you're sister-in-law is going back to her people to her gods. Go with her." But Ruth replied "Do not urge me to leave you or turn back from you. Where you go I will go where you stay I will stay. Your people are my people, your God is my God. Where you die I will die and be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you from me." If you don't know Ruth's story, she was Naomi's daughter in law, and Naomi lost her husband and all of her sons in a matter of a very short time. When Naomi left the home she was in with her husband, she went home to her homeland, and Ruth went with her, took care of her, loved her, worked for her and did not leave her. Naomi did not have any daughters but this daughter in law stepped into the position of Naomi's child, became the one child that Naomi did not bear but nonetheless Ruth stepped into that position.
Lizzie has stepped into very big shoes, Kaleb's shoes. Kaleb was Sydney's at home teacher for this time before EOGs and last night Lizzie took that position. Lizzie has become Jennifer's friend and confident. She has become a child that I did not bear, that we did not raise, that was not a fulltime family member until January 2010. Just like Ruth, Lizzie without saying has become our daughter in more ways than one.
I don't know how many of you have children that are not yours but I can only say that if there are children or a child in your home that was not born of your home take them in like they are yours. Don't allow them to forget or remove themselves completely from their biological parents (unless of course it is completely warranted), but make them part of your life and I'm betting that in the near future you will, in one way or another, hear Ruth's words. These words are also words that God wants us to remember, we should live in His presence and not want to leave Him. In every way, when I was looking for comfort, God gave me something more, He gave me girls, He gave me Him.