Family

FRI., JAN. 4, 1985, 1:50 PM
FARM, STUDY

Your Christmas journey has been completed, and though it was not as visit-filled and leisurely as it might have been you did have some good interactions with family. Family is an indirect creation of Mine, and an important part of the human earth experience. Hear, o son, as I talk of family on this snow-covered day.

Your first obvious family is that group into which you were born. For you it was a rather small, but there was much interrelating, and so it can be called a “good” family experience. You were not bound by your family. It allowed you to have wings, and you moved away from it comfortably and appropriately. It could not give you much preparation for your life tasks and style now, but it gave you a fine general start toward a life of adapting.

The next family experience was that into which you married. That was a larger and somewhat different experience, some of it discomforting and some very pleasant and love-provoking. Soon, of course, came your own family of children, with the many and varied experiences that came with being a husband and father. It was a true challenge for you, one that left you wiser even though only moderately satisfied. You could have done better, but you also could have done a lot worse. You are now into the next generation of your own family, and that is a nice experience, so far.

You have been part of a church congregation for most of your life, and this is a form of family. Like unto the family into which you are born… and that into which you marry… and that which you help create, you shall not like all members of the church family equally, but you shall share worship, learning, and fellowship experiences, and this sharing is a characteristic of family. Continue to participate in as many of your church’s activities as possible. Appreciate the family experience as it happens.

Another experience that has been yours to savor in the past few years is the feeling of family toward students you have taught and that have become colleagues/professionals and also friends. When your Saluki group gets together you certainly are one of the “parents”, and there is mutual admiration. This surely can be called a family experience, for you have shared in learning and now are part of the same profession. As the note from Barbara tells you, the influences you have had are many, but mostly not in your awareness.

The most significant form of family, from My perspective, however, is the relationships among those who have somewhat spiritual likeness (in growth and maturity), who are on the same path toward Me, or who are able to appreciate likeness in those on somewhat different paths. This family cuts across all of the others and draws its members from all. Remember when I, as Jesus, was told that My mother and siblings waited for Me, outside, and I replied that those who are in relationship to Me and do My will are My family. My disciples were more family to Me, in truly important terms, than those who were blood-related. On the cross I told (you) John to take My mother as his. So, the strongest family is that based in similar faith in and relationship to Me.