Also Love in Small Ways

     I'm having a nice long weekend with my parents at our place in Swan Quarter N.C.  If my husband can't leave work, my parents are always ready to go even at last minute.  It's so great to get away .  It's not much but it's somewhere quiet and remote.  
     Down time, boy we take it for granted people!  Work-work-work, go-go-go!!!  How is it that we drive ourselves into the ground so easily and so often?  OK I totally understand that we must earn a living, but really, how often do we take advantage of our "spare" time and do something with purpose?  That includes myself.  Oh we put it off because we just can't peel ourselves away from life, or we allow a relative or spouse to dictate the decision, or we think we can't afford even a little weekend or night trip.  Shame, shame.  Honestly, we can do better than that!!  We have to stop being so selfish.  What will we have to look back on?  What do we have to look back on now?  Creating memories and living life so that we fully enjoy it is also what God designed us to do. Besides the fact that getting away together is the best kind of love you can have as a family.
     For me, spending some of my spare time with my parents is important.  Heck it's the right thing to do.  Why?  Well, because it wasn't easy raising ME.... THE most rebellious of three, and the youngest and only girl.  My two older brothers had their own ruckus in the spotlight too but I think I beat them by far at being the worst child.  So enough about me.  My parents have been married now approaching 53 years.  We NEVER went one summer without a vacation of some kind.  It didn't have to be elaborate but we always went somewhere that taught us a little something about history.  As young adults, our parents have been there for all three of us for whatever we needed, whether tons of babysitting, or borrowing money in a pinch, to making trips to deliver a car, or letting us come live back at home, etc, etc.  Times like that, they often did not give us a choice, they just did it for us.  Then come the grandkids and they would babysit and take them on trips.  Now days, anything we might ask of them, they would do or give, but we don't ask.  We just try to do for them and enjoy being with them.  I'm lucky to have the family I do.  My two older brothers are good to mom and pop too.  They are good to me!  We see each other but we also talk to each other regularly.  
     So my question for you.  Do you spend time with your parents or grandparents or other family or friends who have so graciously loved you and adored you?  I know it's hard to be involved with every single family member and I'm not saying make a marathon of it.  I'm talking about the close people in your lives who deserve your love and attention because they've been there for you unconditionally.  Grandparents for example.  Some may exhale loudly with, "but they get on my nerves saying this or that."  They may irritate you with their quirky ways.  Well guess what?  I am sure that you get on someones nerves too.  Don't we all.  So get over it and pay back a little love where it's deserved.  Don't be such an ungrateful and selfish dope.  Those special people need you to love them in the simplest ways.  Drop by unexpectedly to visit for a bit, or take them a milkshake, or just call them and tell them you love them and were thinking of them.  One day they will not be here and you will regret it, and then you shall not speak the words of pity!  When the day comes, in all of your sorrow, cry for the loss of that loved one indeed but do not complain of your failure to make time for them in your life.  Love your parents, love your grandparents, love your brother or sister, your neighbor.  Attention to details isn't always about spending an entire week with them, or calling every single day, or visiting for hours on end.  It's about the unexpected and consistent moments of sharing and bonding.  Whether it is once a week or once a month or even once a year if it must be.  Just go. Just call. Just be there. Just L-O-V-E!