He is, still.

If family is being there for you when you need them most no matter where “there” is, 

if it’s making sacrifices aplenty but insisting that it’s all a joy, 

if it is loving those YOU love, and well

if family is telling you what you need to hear even when it’s hard, 

if it’s wiping noses and giving grace to attitudes 

and turning tantrums into teaching moments and doing 800 loads of laundry 

and sharing a bathroom with endless children...

then scrap the lineage. 

Sharon Mishler is badly-needed, greatly-valued, forever-Ayars FAMILY💕.

That's what I wrote for my FB post today and I'm not saying anything more without tearing up, so done.

Unmerited grace is always what I think of when I hold the family God has given us, and then He reminds me that the very NATURE of grace IS unmerited.

So just GRACE then. I can live with that.

So thankful for this godly woman in our lives, sacrificially helping us navigate the sweetest and the hardest things, over and over again.

Of the 365 days, Sharon's birthday is May 25th, the very day my momma died.

 It reminds me, every year, and so do many of you, that in the darkest moments, He is STILL, somehow, giving gifts. 

Even in the darkest moments, He is still giving gifts. He is still working miracles. He is still redeeming, He is still loving, He is still meeting us, He is still bestowing unmerited grace. He is still our Hope.

SO THEN.

Let us not give up hope, friends.

Don't give up hope for your long lost child, living so far from the Lord that it seems impossible that they would ever come to love Him. Don't give up hope for your broken self, falling into the same traps over and over again, discouraged. Don't give up hope for your imperfect church, don't give up hope for your bitter and broken marriage, don't give up hope for your deeply hurting friends, don't give up hope for all that has been lost. Don't give up hope for your country, God on the Throne.  And don't give up hope for Haiti, nor a one within her. 

Because HOPE, hope, it depends not at all on the situation, nor the object, nor even upon the men and women seeking it.  

Even in the darkest moments, He is still giving gifts. He is still working miracles. He is still redeeming, He is still loving, He is still meeting us, unmerited grace. He is still our Hope.

Sharon is off to Kansas, Matt off to California upon being invited to present one of his written works at the Society for Biblical Literature conference in San Diego, and the kiddos and I are sleeping out around the Christmas tree, keeping an eye out for miracles.