Family

Dear Friends in Christ -

It happened again today. Someone referred to St. Paul's as a family. There's a part of me that rejoices over that description of the congregation, and there's always a part of me that's hesitant to embrace that description.

I grew up with the campy '70s song "I'm so glad I'm a part of the family of God." After the first verse, the song goes on to say, "You will notice we say 'Brother' and 'Sister' 'round here, because we're a family and folks are so dear." In my experience with the church, though, it's not all so warm and fuzzy and glow-y as that. Some of us (including my own impatient, occasionally surly, nit-picky self) aren't very "dear" sometimes. And though we strive to be caring and to treat everyone well, we sometimes don't.

Though we know that our biological families are imperfect, we hope that our church family will fill some of the holes and needs that our "natural" family has long failed to address. Sometimes our church family manages to do a great job of this. Sometimes we fail miserably. Mostly, we muddle along doing our best, which is usually good enough to really sustain and encourage most folks and to dash the hopes of a few others.

Today I found myself saying, "Yes, we St. Paul's is a family - and a good one." We're not perfect, I thought, but I don't need to add the qualifier. This is a REALLY wonderful community of faith. We strive to accept each other as we are. We offer what we have. We fail miserably sometimes, but God' grace helps us tell the truth and apologize and try, try again.

In these Spring days between Mother's Day and Father's Day, I'm painfully aware of how far I live from my biological family. And I'm sooooo thankful to belong to a church where I am accepted for who I am and offered opportunities to extend love to others. That's family. And that's good. Not perfect. But VERY good.

Faithfully one of the family,
Janet+