Friends and Family

A couple of week ago Pastor Phillip's sermon was on What Would Jesus Say About Family. I'm not going to rehash his message here, but it did get me to thinking about family.

Ideally, families are a good thing. However, the world has its share of dysfunctional families and there are some just downright bad families, as well. Family doesn't always conjure up positive images. We seldom get to choose family members (other than our spouse). We are just stuck with what life deals us. I am very blessed to belong to a loving family. We are not a perfect family, but we truly do love each other.  Each of our kids has made a good choice for their spouse and I hope that we will all continue to blend well as a loving family.

I grew up in a large, loving family. Again, it wasn't perfect, but I have been blessed. I truly believe that some of the best people I know are members of my own family.
I feel sad for people that have never had a good family life and can understand them wanting to experience it in the way of relating to other groups of people. Maybe it's because I've never felt that need that it seems a little weird to think of a group like church or a club or something like that as family. I'm more likely to think of my church group as a community than as a family.

We pick our friends. We choose where we go to church. We decide who we want to go with to an event or to dinner. I never had those choices when it came to family. My parents never once asked me about how I felt adding to our family.
The only choice I had was in choosing to marry Chris. Even in choosing to have kids, you never really know what you're getting.

In my head, I'm thrilled that there are people that consider me to be their friend (at least I think there are). I think that's an awesome thing.
And I've given great consideration in determining those that I call friends.

I'm not sure how it all sorts out in the end.
Nor am I sure that it really matters. I am blessed with a large family and a few friends. I probably just see things a bit differently than most. I tend to think of family pretty literally.

Just rambling...

John <><