Last week, I attended the wedding reception of my cousin’s daughter. As we chatted with the bride and groom, the groom asked if we were close as cousins.
Memories tumbled through my mind. I could see us all lined up on the couch with stoic faces while my cousin played the stand up comic and even a twitch of the lips tossed you out of the game. We spent days at the golf course for tournaments, practicing, putting for money to buy lunch in the cafe, looking for golf balls to sell to the pro shop for the same purpose and lining up in rows with “pickers” to pick up the balls on the range and dump them back into the bin near the clubhouse.
We sold lemonade and then rode our bikes to the Sprouse-Ritz to buy candy bars with the money. We gathered for holidays, Sunday dinners and at Thanksgiving, after the traditional “Turkey Bowl” football game and eating delicious food, we expressed gratitude for hours. I recalled waking up with my cousin’s feet in my face while we all slept in the same hotel room one Christmas Eve. There were hours in the car together, singing, playing the alphabet game, looking for Kawasaki motorcycles and slugbugs and finding ways to best endure the 4-60 air conditioning (four windows down at 60 mph). As adults, we do not see each other as much as we once did but the memories of love and laughter are imprinted on my heart. Yes, we are close.
The Lord knows us as well, “Before I formed thee…I knew thee; and before thou camest forth….I sanctified thee.” (Jeremiah 1:5). Someday, we will all be “taken home to that God who gave [us] life.” (Alma 40:11) and we will understand more clearly how well we know Him and He knows us. For now we don’t see Him as much as we used to but the memory of His love and the joy we experienced with Him is imprinted on our hearts. He is close to us.
Love this Rebekah! Yes, we are close.