A Perfect Family?

The end of a wonderful and exhausting week!  I got a really interesting email from a friend saying it had been great to hear about my perfect family gathering.  Oooops, I hope I didn’t say that!  Family is a wonderful, complex, mysterious, and ever moving target!  I suspect my family is no different than every one else’s.   The only difference is they are “my” family, and for each of us that makes all the difference.  This morning as we gathered for our last big family breakfast a number of things happened that altered my view of family!  Before I share those things, let me say that families are made up of human beings and as a group (the human race), we are pretty diverse and different people!

I think it is normal to have things we love about others and things we don’t.  That doesn’t make anyone good or bad, it just means we have to work harder in relationships, because of the differences.  I’m certain if you asked Sherelene if that is true,  she could give you a long laundry list of things about me that can be, or are, down right challenging!

Before everyone parted this morning we had our traditional prayer in a circle where we asked God to bless and protect each family especially those that would be traveling.  I asked God to help each of us look for the good in one another.  After the prayer Abigail, my youngest grand daughter insisted in a loud voice “family hug!”  The little ones like to get in the center of the circle as we all do a big bear hug and squeeze them in the middle,  it always produces squeals of joy!   Lesson One; the  joy of being loved and knowing you have a place in the world.  Abigail knows she has a loving mother and father, brother and this whole collection of cousins, aunts and uncles, and grand parents that love her, she can’t keep from showing it!   We need to embrace the love of those that are our family.

There were some tears shed all around as it hit home that our week was over.  Our family only gets together as a group once a year.  Scott and Diane live in St. Augustine, Florida so getting them with the rest of the family, is difficult with so much distance, between us.  My grand son Cade gets pretty shaken up when the cars are about to pull out, and he taught me the greatest lesson of the week. Lesson Two:  No relationship is worth much if we don’t pour our hearts into it.  If we try to protect ourselves, or our turf. If we allow ourselves to be too self absorbed, we simply miss the joy of pure love for others.  Cade demonstrated that when he shed a tear about his cousins going home.  Lesson Three:  Life is about others not our selves.  This is a really tough one, it’s hard to let go of self, but if we are going to enjoy life, and family, we have to loosen the grip on our needs, wants, desires, and fears.  Trust me it is worth it!

It’s easy to get wrapped up in our own interests, but it is a wall that keeps us from experiencing the joy of unconditional, non judgmental love.  Lesson Four; Children love from the heart, not the head, it might be time for me to learn to do the same…….

Blessings,

the pilgrim