We aren’t perfect. Actually, we are far from it. We are so far from it that I couldn’t fly an airplane to it and get there this year. We are flawed individuals living in a flawed family with a flawed guinea pig. It’s not pretty. It’s loud, it’s colorful, it’s down right crazy and sometimes even a bit scary. But that’s our family. We aren’t sitting down and enjoying the crazy show, we’re constantly working and being molded and shaken and fired and sculpted into better individuals and a better family. Do we have a long way to go? H-E-double hockey sticks YES. Are we working our way towards being a more God glorifying family? With every fiber in our being.

My family is on a journey. A long journey. A journey of self-discovery, of enlightenment, of health, of activity, of learning, of growing. It’s a massive journey that makes us daily trip and fall flat on our noses. We have bruises and bumps and scrapes and we’re black and blue. It’s not pretty. But it’s real. It’s ugly and dirty and beautiful and glorious and real.

There are days where I just don’t want to eat healthy. There are days when the kids don’t want to eat healthy. There are even more days when Brandon doesn’t want to eat healthy. But we keep going.

There are days that we forget to read our bible. There are days we run past story time and just want to go to bed. There are days we feel distant from God because of our lack of seeking Him. But we keep going.

There are days when I can’t drag myself out of bed to get to the gym or the track. There are waaay too many days that Brandon can’t drag his behind out of bed to get to his gym that is literally 2 minutes down the street. There are days when the kids would love to stay in front of the t.v. all day. But we keep going.

There are days I could rip Brandon’s eyeballs out and feed them to the pig. There are days that Brandon would like to cover my mouth with masking tape and throw me in a closet. Probably. There are days where it all seems fake and wrong and we just want to go back to bed and wake up on the other side. There are many days that the kids argue and injure each other and have a miserable day. But we keep going.

Why do we keep going? Because there are days that we start off in God’s word. There are days that we end in God’s word. There are days that we know no matter our circumstances we are redeemed by a holy God and nothing can touch that. There are days that we commit to fueling our bodies with delicious, wholesome foods that make us feel great. There are days that we strengthen our bodies at the gym and love the feeling of being healthy and strong, ready to take on life’s challenges. There are days that we live with each other in grace and love and patience and forgiveness. And we keep going.

We keep going with the hope and prayer that we will have more good days than not. That we will learn from our mistakes and grow in wisdom and understanding. That God will strengthen ourselves, our relationships, our marriage, and our family. In the meantime we keep working. We keep working hard. We know we will fall, and we know that we will help each other get back up. That’s what families do.

I am proud of my family. However extremely and utterly flawed we are, however many times we will screw up, our one desire is to live lives pleasing to the Lord, to glorify God in all we do. Yes, we are going to fail. (Did you read the top?) But we keep going. We get stronger, and we keep going.

So, if you came here looking for the Leave it to Beaver family you came to the wrong place. Because here, we do real. We fall, we get back up. We deal with disappointments, we get back up. People come into our lives, people leave our lives, we get back up. We are a different sort of family with different sorts of ways of doing what we do. We are real. Not perfect. Real.

Welcome to the family.