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Above-Laughing till I cried
Below-Momma Cain Toasting her Oldest Son

Bubba’s Youth being Buried

Below-Bubba in his glittery Homecoming Sash

Below-
Sammi and Johnna

Above: Sammi Cain- The Love of Bubba’s life and an old/new
friend I have grown to cherish as a homeschool co heart and teller of tales
from a shared long distance past.

Below:
Our Sweet Bubba Cain 22 years after our first encounter
When he was still the oldest kid in the crowd and I was in
9th and 10th grade.

I have some old friends…not old in age (maybe), but old in years known….22 years to be exact in this case. We are now spending time together….at 40th birthday parties. We laughed until we cried, we told old stories and a bunch of women with grown up bodies….stretch marks, tummies that are not as flat as years before, and a confidence that is more different than ever, danced until we were sore (which was a lot sooner than when we were 16 years old). We were all wrapping up by midnight instead of getting ready to leave for the after party.
It was all just as it should be.
I am grateful for my old friends, they knew me in my freshman year when I was gawky and in trouble.
My old friends knew me when my story was young and yes, painful.
They didn’t know the pain then, but these friends were my people, I found something in them and now I have the rare opportunity of saying thanks.
Thank you old friends for being the crowd that wasn’t what most thought of us, but instead kind long movies, late Saturday nights full of laughter, tears through the breakups, hope through our young marriages, giggles till we cried at 40th birthdays.
Thanks for being the kids that I got in trouble with, found hope in and now fuss about my kids to.
I didn’t know that I missed you, until you found me, I didn’t know that I needed you until you showed up and NOW is really the best times of our growing up together ever.

>YES! I sit SQUARELY in the seat of a perfect life.
The children fight, I have late readers, a tired husband, a checkbook in the red, a dirty house, a very sick mother, a past with a badly dressed reputation, some old addictions, bad choices, angry voices, too much therapy, a once bad marriage (sometimes tough marriage)….but life is perfect, my life is perfect. I am embracing all of that. It makes me who I am. There is no sarcasm in my saying my life is perfect….one would understand if you really knew what it could of been.
It could have been lonely, illegitimate children, still a woman of bad reputation, drug use, depression….constant loss.
Everyday, however I gain….hope perspective, love, encouragement.
Everyday I see grace, God’s and other’s for me, a sweet husband, growing children that I am learning to parent and love better, my mom is a surprise joy to every morning in my home, our home, it is a perfect life.
I do not stand ashamed at this or wondering if it is okay to say it, but instead thankful…
God has and will redeemed the years the locust stole….He has, He is, He will continue to.
This is our story…..good, bad, in different, it is my perfect story.
I am Cinderella, in a messy house, with lots of messy kids, with a life that doesn’t always line up to the story books, but it is my story, and I LOVE it and embrace it and wouldn’t trade it.
Find perfection in your life today, you are loved with an Everlasting PERFECT love.
It doesn’t matter if your house or husband or wife or children or car or checkbook or, or, or, or…..anything feels perfect…WE ALL are loved with a PERFECT love and that is where I find identity, hope and breath, every breath that I think I can’t take next can be taken in that thought.
Stand in that Christmas Light, that Perfect Life, HIS Perfect Love in YOU, ME….your messy family and Stand don’t Sit in that
Christmas LIFE and Light.