When I was young and single, people would tell me that when you marry, you don’t just marry the man but you marry his family as well. I didn’t believe it. I saw marriage as a pact between two individual people only. And I was wrong. Fortunately for me, marrying Dave meant that I inherited three amazing sisters-in-law: Dorothy, Deb and Donna. I’m sure there was a period of “trying out” before they accepted me as kin, but I never really felt it. Instead I felt instant acceptance and welcome by them, and in the 33.5 years of our marriage they have become not only sisters but friends. Even my own sister from birth, Rhonda, loves Dave’s sisters and enjoys traveling with them.
Memorial Day was first set aside to remember fallen soldiers, but along the way it also became a time to decorate the graves of all our deceased loved ones and a time to picnic with family or launch the summer season with friends. A time to savor our relationships and remember those whose love has shaped us. At our house, Memorial Day will be the sibling reunion when Dave’s sisters gather in KC for a weekend of Olympic coffee drinking, visiting, long walks, and leisurely dinners.
The Bible is filled with stories of families. Sometimes those families experience dramatic heartache and bitter betrayal. Joseph’s brothers sell him and leave him in a ditch as dead. Ruth and her mother-in-law Naomi, both widowed young, flee their home to find food and a fresh start with extended family. Weeping and angry, Mary and Martha seek out Jesus to raise their brother Lazarus from the dead. Jesus reshapes the definition of family, saying that whoever does the will of God is his brother and sister. Repeatedly the narrative of God’s saving presence plays out in ordinary human relationships.
None of us really chooses our family. And most families are flawed and strained in one way or another. But God gives us the chance to reveal to one another that “love is patient and kind, never arrogant or rude . . . “ (I Corinthians). When we look back over those who have shaped us with goodness and grace, we do not revel in their careers, their accomplishments, or their status; rather, we savor and celebrate how well they loved us.
Grace and Peace,
Carla
