I have proof of God's love in so many ways, but one of the greatest came in the form of 4 brothers. I was the only girl.
We grew up in a family full of secrets. From the outside we were an all american family. Dad
worked 2-3 jobs a week to provide for us, mom worked full time too. We visited family regularly, had big holiday meals, my brothers were active in scouting, school sports, church choir and sunday school. Mom baked cupcakes for PTA and dad made as many games as he could.
I was the odd ball in the family - prefering to be alone. I didn't understand "saftey in numbers" then. I knew I was different and I knew everyone else knew it too. But as bad as things got and as cut off as I felt, I always had my brothers. I even shared a room with them for the first few years of life. They were my first playmates, and my first protectors. I will never know how many fights were because of me, but the Stuart boys were tough, and hard to beat, and kids learned not to cross them early on.
They were the first ones to protect me with laughter too. They introduced me to the 3 Stooges and Abbot and Costello. They did their own slap stick, tickled, wrestled, poked, and of course the finger as close as possible while chanting "I'm not touching you!"...wait that one was me. We hung out at the play ground and they pushed me on the swings or would share the teeter-totter with me. We played with cars in the sandbox and they tried very hard to teach me to swing a bat - but i honestly was the worse, so I was regulated to the cheering section. Thank goodness - an opportunity to use my big mouth and not get into too much trouble!
