Three generations of women were all laughing and gabbing in the car. We were headed to a Holiday Open House. Christmas music was on the radio, old family jokes were flying freely, and tons of love filled the car. Looking from the outside, we looked like a richly blessed family who had grown up together without much to complain about.
If you could have dug deeper you would have found that the story was quite different.
First of all, we weren’t all related. Not by blood anyway. Some of us were chosen members of a family built on love.
None of us had grown up with a perfect, loving family. In fact, the word “family” had caused us nothing but pain for years. Family brings up certain connotations, thoughts of peace and love and support. That hadn’t been the case for us.
Some of us had grown up with physical abuse, some came from broken homes, some were victims of emotional abuse, and some had alcohol and drug addicted family members. None of us had come through childhood unscathed.
All of us had spent years trying to fix relationships with people who refused to meet us halfway, who refused to change, and who weren’t capable of creating healthy family bonds. We had kept hope alive long after it was logical to do so. But we were disappointed time and time again. The continual let-downs had left us feeling abandoned and alone, sad and angry.
So, why were we happily taking a family trip to celebrate the Holidays and filling the car with laughter? Because we had chosen and created that family riding in the car.
I used to get so angry when Jesus was told that His mother and brothers were outside and His response was:
“He replied to him, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” Pointing to his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.” Matthew 12:48-50
I was young and did not understand. I wanted to yell, “You get out there and hug your mom!”
Now that decades have passed, I understand His words better. Family is not cut and dried. Family does not necessarily mean those related to us by blood. Family is a much more complicated thing.
We can’t remember who adopted who first, but all of us in the car have celebrated birthdays and holidays together for years. We have inside “family” jokes and we are there to support each other through all the milestones in life, good and bad. In other words, we are family in the best sense of the word.
We did not have perfect role models to show us the way, but we do have a perfect God. And He took a group of imperfect women and taught us how to knit ourselves together to create the family we had always dreamed of.
It has shown us that it is never too late to have the families we wanted as children. It didn’t happen when and how we expected it to, but God has a way of healing wounds in the most creative ways. We learned a lot from our less-than-perfect childhoods and we grew so much wiser because we didn’t get what we wanted, when we wanted it.
As usual, God had a better plan. If we had heard Him in childhood I think He would have said, “Just you wait!”
We couldn’t even have imagined the love that He created for us all these years later. And isn’t that true of most of God’s blessings? We think we know how it “should be” when He has a much better plan.
So, thank you, Father. Thank you for this crazy hodge-podge family of mine. I love them dearly and I wouldn’t trade them for the world.
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