The Importance of Our Family

By Gaby Smith

I love my family. Most of my traveling goes toward visiting family members. We are all spread out across various states and countries. My husband and I both have siblings in military families, so there’s a lot of moving around.

The times that we treasure the most are visiting with our grandparents. We realize how fortunate we both are to still have grandparents alive. Although a few of ours have made it to heaven, we do our absolute best to take a few weekends a year to spend with them.

The wisdom, stories and love we receive from them is something we can’t ever get back. This is something we try to instill in our child when visiting his grandparents – family is the most important thing. This is time we will never get back.

My husband and I spent a whole weekend doing home projects and emptying out boxes with his parents. It was hot and muggy. At the end of the day, we all sat around the fire and thought, “We’ll never get this time back. Praise God for family.”

We would rather be with family in the blazing heat, emptying boxes and cleaning out sheds than not being around family at all.

This is true with our children. When we instill the purpose of good family bonds at an early age, they will grow to see how important it is to continue this tradition with their own families.

My grandfather always said, “I don’t want any gifts from you at Christmas. What I want is to spend time with you.” To this I replied, “I’m there.”