Family IS Cool

As I sit here, exhausted, waiting for Patrick to get home from work, I am missing the company that was always to be found when I lived at home. Not that I would trade being married (because I wouldn't!), but my family has something special that can be difficult to find, even in Christian circles. My family is like a brick wall.

We are all a little different, but we are very much alike. While we are all fitted into different places, we are a part of the same structure. Connecting us is cement. I don't mean the "we're stuck together whether we like it or not" kind of cement, I mean the "one for all and all for one" kind of loving cement. It's pretty neat.

My mother, sister, and I are pretty much like one brain in three bodies . . . living in separate towns and homes . . . but like one. There have been times when I have been on the phone with my dad and have heard my mom and sister saying the exact same things at the exact same time as I. Weird, right?

And my two youngest sisters think that they have the same kind of thing going with each other. "Jinx! Jinx! Jinx . . . jinx . . . jinx . . . haha! JINX!" can be heard coming from them on a daily basis as they each try to guess what the other is going to say before she says it so that one of them can shout, "JINX!!!" It's not quite the same thing, but it's a start.

People have tried to divide our family before . . . and it didn't work. It only made us stronger. I pray that we will always remain that way.

In the Bible, it is pretty clear that God finds family units to be very important. God covanented . . . with families (for you and your children). He saved . . . families (Noah's ark, anyone?). And He created . . . families (like Adam and Eve). So it seems to me that there should be a strong emphasis on families in our daily lives.

Too often I see families pulled in a million different directions and spending way too little time being families. Family time should be a priority. The family that _______ together (you fill in the blank), stays together.

When I was growing up, I was so not in the cool crowd. Neither was my sister. Whether it was the way that we dressed (it screamed: home schooled!) or what exactly I don't know, but I do know that the cell phones we didn't have at fifteen and thirteen weren't exacting ringing off the hooks. Instead of changing ourselves to become people who we were not, we had fun being ourselves with our family. We did just about everything together. Sometimes this was cool, other times it was not. Looking back, those days, though difficult, were amazing because they knit me and my family very close together. Technically, we are still NOT cool . . . but we have the coolest family. Other than my husband, my best friends are my family. I wouldn't have it any other way.