I confessed something to her tonight. We were behind shut doors, alone for the first time in who knows how long, giggling friends for a brief moment, and I confessed something. I told her that last night, in the car with three young people I haven't seen in months, I felt such immense love and immense gratification that I began to weep. Small pools of salty tears in the corners of my eyes -- that's it. That's all I confessed.

But it got us thinking and talking of how grateful we are for a family, her natural and my adopted, who loves to be around one another and thrives on the essence of Christ which exudes from one another. It got me to thinking tonight on my way home how grateful I am for a spiritual set of parents who cannot replace my natural parents, but who in part filled in and protected me, encouraged me and rebuked me where my own couldn't because of circumstances and situations. I am so very thankful for my own seven brothers, dear men and boys and a silent grave: males who have forced me to become a woman of femininity through their service of masculinity. But I am equally as grateful for the seven surrogate sisters who force me to be a girl who wears pink and mascara and pretty shoes; the girls who have loved and laughed and became the sisters I never had.

I am so thankful for the head on my shoulder, the hand on the small of my back, a teary eyed glance, and an inside joke. Not because without those things I would be somehow lesser off than I am, but because with those things I am one of the richest in the world.

God knows from whence He works.