Family

by

Pastor B.J. Knefley

One of the marvels of technology is that you can work while you travel. Today, my wife is driving for a few hours while I work on some things that need my attention. Like others, we are traveling home from the Thanksgiving holiday. We had the opportunity to spend this Thanksgiving with our oldest daughter and her family. Part of our tradition is to go out shopping on Black Friday. This means getting up at 4am so that we can be at the first store by 5am. I drove and my daughter navigated as we went from store to store looking for the bargains that she had picked out earlier.

It’s a peaceful day, and it is snowing lightly. We’ve just passed an area where one could clearly make out the cuttings of beaver, as there were at least eight trees down from their work. I have the luxury of quiet reflection of the past few days since I don’t have to drive yet. One of my grandsons got a welder which he promptly put to use to build a wagon to later pull behind his four-wheeler. It was funny to watch as he and his friend worked for several hours cutting and welding scrap pieces of steel together to make a 4 X 4 wagon. Of course when he got it completed he had to show it off to everyone in his family. Then he loaded it into the back of a pickup to bring it over to his friend’s house to show it to his father.

It saddens me to know that there are many who, although they have a family, are today alone and have no one to share their memories with. This morning as I was preparing to leave, my son-in-law was also preparing to leave for a week long business trip. One of his sons, thinking that he would be leaving very early in the morning, left a note for his father. Another went with him to prepare his truck for departure. I realized in this that part of being a family takes effort. It doesn’t just happen. Maybe that’s the reason that some don’t have family, they’re not willing to invest the time that it takes to be a family. Jesus said that we were to love our neighbors as ourselves, (Mt 22:39), and I guess that includes our family members too. So I guess being a family takes a lot of work. Are you willing to make the investment? Think about it.