A Family Story – We Family

Greetings Dear Reader,

When I was still teaching one of the students whose life was vastly improved by getting a new career referred to the collective body of staff and students as his family.  He would look a people and simply say “We family.”

There is something so enriching to the spirit when we realize that someone thinks of us as family.  It is also devastating when those same people decide you are no longer family.   A friend is going through this now and I can see the pain it inflicts. 

The idea of family needs to be permanent.  The Romans had a law that if you adopted someone it could not be revoked.  It is the idea or permanent belonging that we need.  It is that touchstone of assured connection that sustains us in the journey.

I believe that is why God represents himself as the Father; our Father.  It is why he sent the Son.  It is why followers are adopted as sons.  It is a family that the Father redeems for his own. 

It saddens me greatly that we see loyalty to family as something transitory.  We reject those we have promised to keep as part of our clan. We dismiss those we have taken in as family when things become hard.  We are family and the revocation of that is a pain that never fades.

We are all connected.  When the Father brings all things back to good we will realize this.  Until then I must love and forgive and keep following.  I must do so even when those who have called me family reject me.  I must do so even when they sit with me in pain over others rejecting them.  It is what family does and “We Family.”

Wishing you joy in the journey,

Aramis Thorn

Mat 13:52 So Jesus said to them, "That is why every writer who has become a disciple of Christ’s rule of the universe is like a home owner. He liberally hands out new and old things from his great treasure store.”

(͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)