World's Smallest Cross

Every so often it happens. Someone makes a comment about the size of our family and sometimes, it can be met with grace and charity, other times with a flip comment or two and the conversation either dies or moves on.   At one point, a friend who knows me well and was present when another person who was new to the school was going on and on about my family's size, gave me a look like, "You going to put up with this?"  Yes, because his wife was listening to my answer, which meant there was  a possibility of being a better witness through less snark. 

"Do you see all these people?" I asked the couple as I gestured to everyone who was at the event, people milling about bustling through everywhere.   "I know them.  Some of them for years.  I know that there are some here who are enduring their husbands being stationed overseas in Iraq.  I know that some of them lost their jobs or had to get new ones that were less secure.  I know a woman here who is a widow and another who has just finished a year recovering from a painful divorce.  Some of the people here have lost children or care for their parents who can't care for themselves.  This is a real place with real people and as far as I can tell, I have the easiest cross of them all.  I just have to love these ten people in my life well."  Now that doesn't mean loving them or loving them well is always easy; only that from what I can know, it is the easiest cross around and I know I wouldn't want to trade my cross for anyone else's.