Thanks to the Lord

I am thankful tonight! It has been a very busy and exhausting weekend but the activities were wonderful and many brought back great memories from our earlier life.

Friday our daughter invited us to have dinner with her and the family at a new Mexican restaurant. The food was medium but we hardly noticed because the fellowship was so good. Our grand kids are growing and developing into sharp conversationalists and great at table games. Both are essentials for the Sweeten clan.

Once when Julia was first married she came home from college and we had a family council. After taking a family quiz about the dynamics of the Sweeten family life we had a very interesting discussion. It revealed such things as the "Family Personality" and what we as a family found important. There was a lot of agreement that "Communication, especially listening" was central to our family life. Communication is still important to our kids who are passing it on down to their children and they have both married people who strongly value open communication and caring for one another.

A part of good communication is playing games and having fun. For almost 45 years my mother-in-law hazel and I have played Pinochle as partners against Karen and her sister Toni. When Tim and Julia were born we continued the tradition of games and it has taken hold in the grand kids who have their Great Grand Mother Hazel's incredible skill and luck.

If more people were to play together they would also pray together and stay together. Play builds camaraderie, self respect and mutual respect, good sportsmanship and humility. It also teaches children to honor their fathers and mothers, even to the third and fourth generation.

My grand daughter of five was my partner at the electronic game of Wii. She beat all the rest of us fair and square. Lily had us all in tears of laughter because she scored over 220 points when no one else was even close to 200. It was a great night and she was feeling very good about her self despite being the youngest in the bunch.

Inter Generational Games are healing balm to everyone involved. Contemporary families need to grab every opportunity to grow in grace, love and fun.