A living room full of answered prayers

We celebrated July 4th with two of Tom’s best friends. He grew up with these guys, and they’re all married with kids now. Nothing much has changed except they don’t play nearly as much GoldenEye on Nintendo 64 as they did back in middle school.

Between the three couples there are seven kids under the age of five; two 4 1/2-year olds, a 3 1/2-year old, two almost two-year olds, an 18-month old, and a one-month old.

We gathered at the childhood home of one of the guys. I don’t get to see his mom too often, but every time I do I’m amazed at her energy and enthusiasm. It triples whenever she’s around kids. She spent all her time reading books, getting snacks, playing Legos, collecting bugs, and always had the next activity on the tip of her tongue.

Like all visits with this crowd, our time was entirely too short. We were chasing naps, so we left in a rush and said hurried goodbyes. We kept thanking our hostess, thank you for lunch, thank you for playing with our kids, thank you for letting them tear your house apart…

But she shrugged us off because “I prayed for this for years!” she said. “I prayed that my son would have good, Christian friends, that they would have Godly wives, and that one day they would have families of their own. Today is an answer to prayer.”