Family

Just been pondering some things since the message at church last night. Bob has begun a series in Colossians on Wednesday nights called "Complete in Christ". It is a series of lessons that delves into alot of doctrine and good meat for grounded Christians but also eases in the milk of the Word for new babes in Christ. My life's verse is in Colossians. ...1:10. Anyhow, 2:2 speaks of "being knit together in love. " Something struck me about that phrase last night and that it was possibly a good topic to blog about. It is speaking of those who are connected to Christ because of salvation. I had planned to blog about that and wrote the verse down so i wouldn't forget. I will address that part later in this post but today on the four hour drive to my daughter's house, I was pondering over how I wanted to approach the subject in my blog and all of a sudden my cousins came to mind. Memories flooded my thoughts. So, I started considering my family and extended family and how the verse can apply to them. 

See, my very first and best friends growing up were my cousins! ---on both sides of my family. Actually, I had sort of a strange family compared to most. My mom's family and my dad's family all knew each other growing up. After my mom and dad were married, our families often mingled. Several parties and get togethers had both sides present and getting along. I had three cousins start kindergarten with me and go all the way to graduation at the same school. I had another cousin on my mom's side also do that but in a different school. So four of us girls graduated high school the same year. We spent lots of time together and at one anothers' homes. But even those who were older and younger spent time together. We just were very close. We all played hard together and fought hard too. One thing is for certain though, my family members may fight amongst themselves, but if an outsider runs their mouth or causes harm we have each other's backs and WE WILL TAKE THAT PERSON'S HEAD OFF! I tell people that I may look like a small, sweet Christian lady who only wears skirts but when I get riled I make Rambo look like Little Mary Sunshine. Mostly that only comes out when protecting my family. I don't see my cousins often anymore but I have absolutely no doubt if I was in need that i could make a phone call and they would be there for me. I also am very certain that if someone were to harm me that they would show up ready for retaliation. I'm so confident in this that I have more than once told someone who was being somewhat threatening towards me that "if you do anything to hurt me, my family will come out of the wood work and hunt you down like a dog on a coon and the depths of hell won't keep you from them so you best think long and hard about it"! 

Our hearts are knit together in love. ---Because we are family. Because we were taught and shown the value of family. Because we've been through the ups and downs of life together.  Because we have a connection and memories and laughter and tears and that binds us. 

It is amazing to me how many families out there don't share this.  There is disfunctional chaos and fighting and not speaking and trying to harm one another within their own family. I don't understand this really but I've seen it. 

Now, church family should be the same way. Even if there is disagreement or arguing, when push comes to shove or an outsider tries to do harm, we should have each other's backs. BECAUSE we are family....knit together in love by Jesus Christ. We have that common bond. We work together in the church, we serve together, we sing, praise, pray, study God's Word and learn together. We laugh and cry together too. The Bible says to share one another's burdens and joys. 

Things in common do bond people together. What do you think support groups are all about?! Tragedies bond people. Illnesses bond. Even happy times bond people. Why can't this country have one another's backs as a whole? We are so divided. How about the common bond of United States of America? For a short time we united after 9-11. ---because the outsiders and enemies came in and attacked. Tragedy struck. Suddenly we needed to bond and huddle together and mourn and regroup and circle the wagons and be on the defensive first and then the offensive to make sure it never happened again. Now, that bond seems broken and we are self-destructing from within. More and more division lines are being drawn. You know that a kingdom divided against itself cannot stand. How about the HUMAN race instead of all the different ones being named. By the way, muslim is not a race it's a religion! How about LIFE! All this figthing amongst ourselves to the point we are at, makes us weak to our enemies. It seems it is not like the family unit I know....that even though there is fighting among us, outsiders still better beware cuz we will still fight against you for the whole. No. Everyone is too worried about their individual rights and their causes and their wants. It just keeps up the separation and fighting and unity matters not at all. I wonder what God will need to do next. Will He bring another whole country tragedy or maybe He will just allow the USA to self destruct on the course it's on. 

I'm here to say ALL lives matter. All murder is a hate crime. I have blood family. I have church family and I also have American family. If an outsider wants to harm....I'm going to fight for them. Figuring out who the outsiders and enemies are is becoming increasingly harder but I still think you have your family's back. 

I hope this post made some sense.