A Wedding Anniversary Wish: Please Help the Widow and the Orphan

He has no idea I'm doing this.

Starting to notice.

Smile fading rapidly.



Getting annoyed now.



Clearly pissed.



Finally!!!
 Him: Natural smile. Me: Goin into my crazy laugh.



Today Dan and I are celebrating our 8th Wedding Anniversary. HOORAY!  I thought I'd pop in and just say how grateful I am for my wonderful husband.

 This guy is handsome, shares my odd sense of humor (most times), is kind, loving, helpful, smart, and quite handy, I might add. He is always working on some project around the house, whether it's a faucet that needs to be fixed or any one of the nutty little projects I've found on Pinterest. There have been many.
 He's a great cook. He's an amazing husband and an amazing father. He reads to the kids every night, plays with them, teaches them all kinds of cool things like how to use a drill (GAAAHHH!!!!) and by God, he's a terrific drummer too. Yup, that's him drumming on that CD, and on these ones as well. He's very talented but also very humble.
 Sometime I will share the story of how we met.
Today I read a blog post from Simcha Fisher that inspired the heck out of me. Basically it's about this Catholic mom of 11 who is struggling hardcore to raise her kids on her own, because her husband abandoned their family. She's trying to become a nurse in order to support her family, which is pretty hard to do when you have no money, you're being denied child support, and you're dealing with a ton of  really awful drama.
 Also, I'm sure you know that nursing school ain't no joke. It's TOUGH! I have several family members and friends who are nurses. Many of them came thisdamnclose to having a nervous breakdown while going through nursing school.
Well, I saw Kristin's story and it really struck a chord, because guess who just so happened to be a single mother for 11 years before Dan the Man came into her life? Me. And you know what? This story just BURNS. ME. UP.
I have a heart for single moms. It's SO NOT EASY to be a single mother. It feels like you're walking with one leg. You worry about your children all the time...will they have enough? Will they feel loved enough? Will they fit in? Will they grow up to have a healthy outlook on themselves? On life? On God?

It's lonely, and I remember many, many nights when I would fall asleep crying because I felt so alone and so overwhelmed. I had lots of help raising my oldest son, but God made this little thing called "family", and ideally it's suppossed to consist of a mom AND a dad, and when that doesn't happen, there is brokenness and pain.

So please...please...please go help this lady, if you can. Let me tell you..she is WAY more overwhelmed than I ever was. She has ELEVEN children. Beautiful children. Anything you can send her way, I'm sure she'd appreciate. Scripture instructs us to "visit the widow and the orphan in their distress". As the Body of Christ, this is our duty.

Kristin, please pass on my apologies to your kids for the horrible drawings and extra long necks, but I had just finished a large glass of wine. I needed the drink in order to calm down after I read your story.

I thank God for my husband and men like him that try their best to step in and be a dad to kids who never really had one. My husband adopted Joey when we were first married. We've had alot of struggles in our family, because it's not easy trying to make that transition from single parent family to two parent family and then adding more children.
My family is far from perfect. But our oldest son has someone whom he can call "dad", and he knows he's loved by him. There has never been one time where Joey refused to call Dan "dad".
 I thank God for sending me a husband who's alot like St Joseph. Maybe someday, this beautiful family will have their own St Joseph. God knows they deserve it.
In the meantime, what can we do to help  the widow and the orphan in their distress?