Family is all we have

Family is all we have

I was encouraging someone on their quest to rebuild relationships and I typed “at the end of the day, family is all we have.” and as I looked at the words on my screen, I could not hit send. Something is wrong with this statement. I believe it, don’t I?

So, here I am once again; a girl and her keyboard exploring life and what I believe. I am a truth and justice seeker by nature. Some like this about me, some don’t and I am okay with that. Today, I need to dig and uncover this truth; Is family all we got? Is family all that matters?

Loyalty is important to me. From a young age, I learned the destruction of dis-loyalty and decided that being loyal to people, especially your family was a priority. When you live your life like this, family becomes a top value. You sacrifice, put others first, put what is best for the family ahead of your desires because you are loyal. Our family is not with out fault, disagreements or mistakes but at the end of the day when everything settles down the family is still there.

So, why couldn’t I hit send?

As you know, I’m a faith girl. I wouldn’t say I am religious but I have deep faith and I believe Jesus’ greatest command is for us to love, love like he did. (I wrote a piece called Learning to Love if you want to know more of what that means or better yet read the New Testament.)
Maybe, I couldn’t hit send because this may seem to exclude God? God promises to never abandon us. Would I be offending God with the “all we have” part of the statement? Is that why I couldn’t hit send?

Hmmm, I do see God as my Father, as the head of the family. Decisions do not get made with out passing them by God, most ones anyway…maybe more decisions than not is safer to say. To know me is to know that this is deep rooted in me and this person would know this about me. It is safe to say that God is family to me, the top of my family so no, that is not the reason.

So, why couldn’t I hit send?

If I believe that family is needed to thrive in the life and if I believe I can say this without offending God because God is family, in addition it is known that I would never be excluding God, what is it that kept me from sending, “family is all we have”?

I re-read the sentence.

“at the end of the day, family is all we have.”

I read it again and then is comes.

Words trip me up. I am a word person. I read into meaning of words and I am conscious of the words I use.

The word in all this that is holding me up is family.

You see, I hold a different definition of family.

 

The official definition of family is as follows…

family

1. 
a group consisting of parents and children living together in a household.
◦ a group of people related to one another by blood or marriage.”friends and family can provide support”
2. 
all the descendants of a common ancestor.”the house has been owned by the same family for 300 years”

synonyms:
ancestry, parentage, pedigree, genealogy, background, family tree, descent, lineage, bloodline, blood, extraction, stock; More

 

I grew up in a household that blood, lineage nor ancestry alone determined the lines of family. God brought people into our lives to love, to include, to be family. Yes, blood and marriage determine family but this is not it for us. People are brought into our lives for us to love and some of them are brought in to be family— to do life together, the good and the hard, to encourage and help, . My parents and grandparents taught this, their parents taught this. My man and I are teaching this to our children. Family matters and God extends our families. We must celebrate and stand with them in deep waters. Family is more than blood.

I may now be able to type and send this variation, “At the end of the day, family, including God, is all that we have and by family I mean blood family as well as our God family.” Seems a bit wordy, but I feel better about it.