Ordinary Days

   As I sat by the lake today, I pondered about how my family's life is build around ordinary days. How those are the kind of days where close knit bonds and family ties are forged.  Sarah, being too young to go gallivanting around the lake in a canoe, sat with me on the docks while my husband and other children paddled around the lake.  There is so much talk of quality time vs quantity time.  I don't like to think of family time in terms of quality or quantity, though both those qualities are needed.  I like to think of time spent together in terms of giving the best we have in us to each other.  
   Does it always work out that way?  Unfortunately, no, but at least we have some kind of goal to aim towards.  It's in those ordinary moment that we deepen our love for each other.  Those moments where we're huddled together on the couch as I read a book aloud.  The times we're all outside playing catch.  Laughing around our fire pit while we toast marshmallows.  Watching the hummingbirds flit back and forth fighting over the feeders hanging on our deck.  It's in those simple everyday moments that we connect in a lasting way.
   Just being together isn't enough.  It's being in communion with each other that matters.  Focused bits of quality time aren't enough if that's all you give.  That give and take, that giving of oneself to the other.  Can you imagine how powerful that is?  I'm not always good at being an example of this.  I rarely fill my cup back up so it can overflow to others.  That is something I need to get better at doing.
   I must never forget that it is in those every day, ordinary moments, that my love is shining the most to the ones I love.  “Do not think that love in order to be genuine has to be extraordinary. What we need is to love without getting tired. Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies.” Mother Teresa