The family came into the restaurant just before closing and they were sat in my oldest daughter Sarah’s area to serve. She looked at the clock and said good-bye to getting out on time, put a smile on her face and went out to take their orders. This is her story

I remember the first time, I was at a dinner and was talking with a friend and my daughter Sarah. My friend asked a question that if answered honestly would make me vulnerable…I took the plunge. A few minutes into my answer my friend either didn’t sense the importance of my sharing or needed to say something and began to talk over me. I stopped talking, swallowed my words and focused on my friend. My daughter slid her hand over and squeezed my hand and mouthed the words, “I see you.”

It feels like when you go out deep in the ocean and a huge wave rolls over you and churns you around and around. I had suspected one of my four daughters, Allena, was drawn to girls when she was younger but when we sat across from her on the couch and theory became fact, I felt tossed in the waves.

I live a life full of tension and I don’t want to change it. Pulled one way by grace that covers all of my sins and pulled the other way by judgment, which reminds me my actions make a difference. Like a tightrope walker, at times I find myself leaning more to one side than the other, seeking balance in the midst of imbalance. I keep working at is because my life is best when I balance them both…because I need them both.

Before the girls it was us, choosing each other in the midst of love, immaturity and optimism…in a moment Vicky and John became an us.

It is the first month of the New Year and we are reminded that we can make small changes that will affect our lives in big ways.

I love being a woman! For all the struggles we go through to be taken seriously and embraced as equals by men we have been blessed with something most men can only stand in awe of—words.

Anything worth value at its core is built on relationships. They are what bring depth, joy and sorrow into life and they are most difficult to maintain because they require beautiful endurance.