Reconnecting With Family

The past few weeks of downtime have shown me something important. When you’ve lived away from family for a long time (we’ve been in the Pacific NW for over 35 years), you do well to spend some of your valuable time reconnecting with Family.

There’s no more important relationship than Family. You may no longer be like you once were, but the shared histories of familial connections keep you young, laughing, crying, and remembering those good ol’ days.

A family is a place where principles are hammered and honed on the anvil of everyday living.
~Charles R. Swindoll

We’ve reconnected with families from both of our backgrounds and suddenly wished for more time to be in contact with everyone. Family reunion, anyone? Let’s do it in the cooler months. I’m still not a friend of heated weather. Bundling up, enjoying a roaring fire, telling stories, learning the extended family names of kids, grands, and greats. You have no idea what you’re missing!

The only rock I know that stays steady, the only institution I know that works, is the Family.
~Lee Iacocca

We’ve learned and shared so much through these past several weeks.

I realize it’s a tough sacrifice at times and even disconcerting, but peel back the layers of connections and find those common themes of “Remember When?” and “I wish we could still do that!”

There was a time when we all gathered at one another’s house and enjoyed a holiday or party. Today we seem to travel across the nation to find out how much we missed by moving away. At some future time of miles and years, you build a “replacement” family with those you cherish as you do those you grew up with.

You don’t have to give birth to someone to have a family.
~Sandra Bullock

If you’ve been away from Family for some time, why don’t you try to reconnect? Childhood memories will unfold, and you will see yourself in the story with others. There’s nothing more precious than the memories I’ve shared this week reconnecting with my Family.

Pray for your family daily, that yours may be in the number of the families who call upon God.
~Christopher Love

We pray for our Family as we leave Texas. Two thousand two hundred miles away is where we call home these days. Kids. In-laws. Grands. We’re headed there. But there is a family of a church I’m missing equally as much. In one of the C-19 free seasons, we’ll sit down, laugh and cry, remember and rejoice, and connections will be more profound.

For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named,
That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory,
to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man;
That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith;
that ye, being rooted and grounded in love,
May be able to comprehend with all saints
what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height;
And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge,
that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.
Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think,
according to the power that worketh in us,
Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end.
Amen.
(Ephesians 3:14-21 KJV)