Part of the Family

Tonight as I get ready to sleep, I am filled with an emotion that is difficult to describe. It's one that I am familiar with, one that I have felt so many times since Mothers Day 2012. Something like Contentment, Peace, and Longing all rolled into one. Love like I could never have imagined filling my heart and spilling out. Love being poured into me.

And no, I don't mean romantic love.

Familial love.

From a family that didn't know me from Eve four years ago.

I know that is only the power of God that has allowed their hearts to be so open and accepting of the small, quiet little girl who got attached to their wife and mother quite by accident.

See, it would be one thing if they were my family legally, or guardians. But I go home every night to another house, another home, another family. A biological family. And while I love them very much, my non-biological family means so much to me because they have accepted me as an unofficial part of the family.

Tonight, I needed help. I needed to talk to Cheryl about boy trouble. I was bursting because I had needed to talk to her, seek advice, for over a week, but schedules had just prevented a time to get together and talk in person. So I was invited over to their house. They boys went to get food, and had it there already when Cheryl and I got home. They have a "prayer circle" that they do before every meal, and I almost started crying as I listened to John pray because it meant a lot to me.

We didn't do much. We talked about the boy drama I was dealing with, we worked on syncing recordings with music for a sketch, and we just talked. Laughed.

It seemed that for every minute passing, three ticked by on the clock. I was not ready to leave when the clock struck ten. But I had to be home; my bed, my siblings, my dad.

Cheryl and I walked outside and talked for several minutes, hugged for several minutes.

The blessing that God has given me through her and through her family is one that I will never be able to fully explain or even understand. But for once in my life, I don't need to. I don't want to. I just want to be, to enjoy.

I miss my mom. I miss that I don't get to go to her with boy trouble when he's texting me late at night and I don't know what to say. I miss that I can't be like "mom help, he won't leave me alone!" at any time of day. I find myself wishing that I could talk to her, wondering what she would say about the whole situation (or what she would say to the situation)

But then I go to Cheryl's. And yes, I will always wish for my mother, taking these problems to Cheryl is ne'er second choice or second best. Because she is the one that God placed in my life at this time, to be the "mother" figure to a young girl who was so lost. And I am thankful beyond words that she opened her heart to let me in, even if it was quite by accident in that dim hallway those months and years ago.