Jacob has endured and persevered through a lot of junk in 16 years: divorce, remarriage, trying to find his place in a family of eight kids, custody fights, just to name a few. It isn't to minimize these absolutely life-changing situations, but I truly believe he wouldn't be who he is, if he didn't at least try to put a positive spin on things. Because he did. I watched him do it.
There have been plenty of times in the past few months especially, that I have told Mike that Jacob is a much bigger and better person than I am because he is willing to risk getting hurt again, in order to step out and see whether or not a situation is worth walking into again. Sometimes in awe of him, his attitude and his level of maturity, I would think, "Are you kidding me? You are going to wade back into that mess after what happened before?" I'm not so sure I would have; too much risk, too much that has happened. And yet, God commands us to forgive 70x7 and there's Jacob reminding me of that fact with his willingness to try. Again. 70x7. Just like Jesus told us to do.
Of all of my kids, he is the one most like Mike in all of the good ways:
He has a heart for others.
He likes to help.
He is very giving.
When situations get tough, Jacob tries to figure out where the good parts are and clings to that as hope that things will improve.
Up until fairly recently, Jacob lived with us full time. It was really fun to have him around all of the time. Under the guise of trying to teach the boys how to manage things on their own, I started having Jacob and Richard cook with me. Sometimes it was just because I was tired of doing it myself, but for the most part it was because I wanted them to be able to fix something more than hot dogs and ramen noodles when they move to their own places.
The thing about cooking is the same phenomenon that allows a kid who doesn't talk much to reveal much about themselves while driving in the car. Cars and kitchens require some measure of concentration on the task at hand and by nature of what you doing, there can be little to no eye contact with your companion. With the pressure of that out of the way, kids ask and tell lots of stuff they wouldn't if you were sitting across the table from them.
I learned a lot and got asked a lot over the mixing of meatloaf, mashed potatoes and brownies and I'm not talking about recipes. Sometimes conversations were lighthearted and fun and other times, I know the weight of growing up, of trying to balance what we know to be true and how we sometimes act at odds to those truths, were heavily on his mind.
We have had conversations ranging from the possibility of doing a half marathon at Disney, to divorce, to STDs, to reminiscing about the family vacation at Disney, Tennessee and the boat trip.
Technically, Jacob isn't mine. If you do a DNA analysis on us, we won't match. However, if you do a blood analysis on us, we are both covered under the blood of Christ and that makes him mine and that makes me happy!
Jacob isn't here full time anymore and I miss having him here. The way he looks at life is inspiring. He definitely looks at the glass as half full, but maybe more importantly, he's just grateful for having the glass in the first place.
All kids are miracles, blessings, gifts from God. However, I also believe that every now and then one of them stands out because of their circumstances and shows us just how amazing God really is. When I look at Jacob, I KNOW God's hand will continue to be in it all. Pretty cool!
Happy 16th birthday, Jacob!
I love you!
Here's one of my favorite pictures of Jacob. It was taken while we were in Florida in 2009.
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