The Cook Clan, to which I belong, is a clan that is blessed with women.
Of my mother’s eleven siblings, nine of them are sisters.
So I grew up in a world dominated by aunts (although they managed to bring not a few men into the fold as in-laws.)
Some of my earliest childhood memories are of taking romps with a whole passel of aunts, attending the wedding of one aunt or the other, picking up an aunt from her university classes.
My aunts are all smart, brilliant even. The Cook girls were almost universally valedictorians of their class. Most of them went to the University on academic scholarships.
The Cook Clan, Christmas 1984
But it isn’t their brains or even the fond memories of childhood play that make me declare that I have the greatest aunts in the world.
It’s Facebook that has convinced me that my aunts are the best.
My aunts read my Facebook stati, the links I post, the blog posts that get automatically transferred as notes. And they comment with wisdom and humor.
I linked to an article about an amusing medical condition. An aunt commented her LOL–and then later privately messaged me. “I’ve been thinking about that article a little more and realized that your younger cousins can see it as well. It’s pretty graphic, and I’m not sure their parents want to have to explain those things.” She was absolutely right–and I never would have thought of it. I removed the link and, thanks to her wisdom, spared my younger cousins from seeing something inappropriate.
I spill my heart, share some of the difficulties I’ve been experiencing–and an aunt comments just to say “I feel you.” When I demonstrate inappropriate thinking, an aunt steps in to lovingly rebuke me, encouraging me to be compassionate towards myself. When I comment on her stati, an aunt responds with an affirmation “Bekah, maybe you should stay in school and get that PhD. I can see you being a professor.”
I mention the “fertility charm” I received as a gift, stating that I won’t be wearing it as I’m lacking certain prerequisites. An aunt comments to say that there are more ways to be fertile than just having babies. “And I would say Rebekah you are very full of fruit, in the Godly way!”
What a blessing to have aunts who are full of wisdom and encouragement–and who are willing to share it so freely.
Some of my aunts in their traditional kitchen cabal,
discussing some important issue of the day
Thanksgiving 2009
“…the older women likewise, that they be reverent in behavior, not slanderers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things–that they admonish the young women to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, homemakers, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be blasphemed.”
Titus 2:3-5
I am so grateful to have such wonderful aunts, who fear God and seek to follow His ways–and who encourage me to do the same.
What a beautiful post!