Just the Girls

     There was a four-year period in my life where it was just us girls. My mother and my two sisters who are 8 and 5 years older than me.  I remember some of these years. Somethings with fondness, others I would rather that I could cast in the sea to never remember again.
     I love my mother and my sisters. I really didn’t have a horrible childhood. I just had some crapy things happen that I never dealt with.  For the most part I was a happy child and found joy and laughter amidst sorrow and strife.
     Actually, I didn’t have sisters - I just had three moms!  My mother was busy working or going to school after my father’s death.  In the times when she was absence, mothering became the responsibility of my sisters.  I never knew were the lines were.  When were we just sisters playing? When were they in authority and I had to listen and obey?  I got the belt coming from three different directions - and I didn’t take it standing silently that’s for sure. The more I kicked and screamed, the more I got. Oh if I had only learned at an early age to stand silent!
    There were benefits to having three moms though. I never had to worry if someone was looking out for me or protecting me. I never felt scared or unsafe.  If I fell and got hurt (or had my big toenail ripped off in a post office door and then again in the riding lawnmower) I had more than one pair of hands tending to my needs.
     My prayer has become that as I am standing silent before the LORD He would flood my thoughts with the good memories. That I would dwell on  “...whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable...” Phil. 4:8  That I would have those wonderful childhood memories of sisterhood.