magic.

There are those moments in our unpredictable lives that don’t make sense…And then there are those moments when life just seems clear. When the stars are aligned and all is exactly as it should be...

Exhibit A: McCormick Family Reunion. Leesburg, Virginia. A celebration of Grandpa and Grandma’s sixty years of marriage. And, it was magic...It had been so many years since we've all been together and it was everything I'd hoped it be...chatting late into the night with cousins and Uncle Mark...falling asleep so excited to wake up to the sound of my aunts' laughter...sitting jammied around the breakfast table long into the morning with hands wrapped around lukewarm cups of coffee and never wanting to leave...dancing with my 81 year old Grandma with all my cousins - because all she wanted was to dance with her grandkids…singing the doxology before dinner and later, hymns with Grandpa around the piano for what could be the last time…seeing tears run down the faces of my cousins while brushing away my own…oh, it was good…so, so good.

There was chaos…with air mattresses and make-shift beds everywhere you looked. Lost flip flops, empty toilet paper rolls, and lots of spills. “Nothing was tidy, but everything was perfect,” my cousin’s wife Maddie said.

And it was perfect….a sweet reminder of where I came from, who I am, and who I want to be…a reminder to embrace and celebrate my life with all its imperfections, believing that, like my weekend, it is exactly as it should be.