Z is for Zaengle.

As much as I loved my retreat at Laity Lodge, I love even more coming home. I am blessed with a family.

We’ve been looking through old pictures here.  The photographs are needed for slide shows at milestone events. A wedding. A high school graduation.

Sometimes those years feel like a blur. We worked so hard. With so little sleep. It wasn’t always fun, but it was always good.

Here we are with four children. I ran out of hands at two. That’s why God invented backpacks and strollers.Five children. We would go to Myrtle Beach, driving through the night so the kids could sleep and not complain about the drive. It meant that Bud and I started every vacation exhausted. But it was always worth it.Six children. Five boys and one little girl. Family pictures were nearly impossible because of all the squirming.Eight children. Two girls at the end (shown here in the middle) to help even the score. Although it’s still not even. And I don’t believe in keeping score.I don’t ever want to take for granted this community of Zaengles.

But I also love that, in Isaiah, God addresses both the childless woman (Isaiah 55:1) and the eunuch (Isaiah 56:3-5), essentially the childless man. He promises them blessing beyond family.

Family is a rich blessing, but it’s not the only blessing. Blessings come in all shapes and sizes.

I’ve considered it a blessing to reach the end of this challenge — the A-to-Z Blogging Challenge.

Mark Twain said, “Humor is mankind’s greatest blessing.”

Thoreau said, “An early morning walk is a blessing for the whole day.”

Joseph Addison said, “A contented mind is the greatest blessing that man can enjoy in this world.”

Euripides said, “Man has no blessing like a prudent friend.”

Walt Kelly said, “Every burden is a blessing.”

But then, Lou Gehrig — my favorite baseball player ever, in the greatest baseball speech ever, said, “When you have a father and a mother who work all their lives so you can have an education and build your body – it’s a blessing.”

Which brings me back to family – MY greatest blessing.

What’s yours?