FAMILY

Well, it has certainly been awhile since I've posted!  The fall decor from 2012 is still up on my blog!  Looks like I need to do some "tidying up" and refresh things!  :)  I will get around to that when I can!  The Christmas season came and went, and although it was a very fruitful time for blogging, the business of it all just kept me from doing so.  Maybe life will slow down enough again soon, and I can get back into the swing of posting.  I do enjoy blogging, and putting my heart and thoughts on "paper." 

One of my homeschool mom friends who is in charge of the yearbook at our cover school, read my blog and asked me to write a short piece on FAMILY, and how our families compare/prepare us to be a part of God's family, in that we all have different roles, etc.  This was a theme based on 1 Corinthians 12:12-27.  You can read this passage of scripture below.

“Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many.

Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body.

The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable,   and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other.  If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.  Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.”


I asked the Lord to give me the words to say in this article for the yearbook, and here is what I came up with.  Maybe it will be a small reminder for you on the importance of FAMILY...not just our biological or adopted families, but the family of God.  The Lord has blessed my family with a church family who seems to understand and has a desire to carry out this passage well.  They are not a perfect Church body, for no Church is, but they have a love for the Lord, one another, and the lost like I have never witnessed before.  May the Lord continue to bless their efforts as we seek to fulfill the Great Commission by being the hands and feet...and ears and eyes...of Jesus.


"What is a family?  It is a group, who may or may not all be blood relatives, but that live, learn, grow, serve together, and more!  Not everyone in a family enjoys the same activities, books, or movies.  While we may enjoy some of the same things, no two people are alike.  Not everyone is the same height and weight, nor do they all have the same hair and eye color.  God made each one of us uniquely different.  Not everyone has the same responsibilities in a family.  We all play different roles to help our family function well. 

Our families are very similar to the family of God.  We have one thing in common as believers, as stated in 1 Corinthians 12:12-14:  we are all a part of the body of Christ.   “Whether Jews or Gentiles…we were all given one Spirit to drink.  Even so the body is not made up of one part, but of many.”  It goes on to say that we all play a different role in the body of believers.  We are not all “ears, feet, or hands.”  We all have different spiritual gifts and talents.  As verse 17 says, if the whole body were an ear, how would we have a sense of smell?  Each of us have different gifts and talents that the Lord has given us, because if we were all the same, we wouldn’t be able to effectively minister and serve in all the different ways that we are able to. 

We can learn a lot from our families and apply it to the family of God…we are not all the same, but we each play an important role to make it a functional, thriving family of God.  We must each strive to carry out our role with excellence as unto the Lord, just as we do with our families at home.  Not only will that help us be a healthy body, but it is most glorifying to God when His people work together for His name’s sake, each one using the gifts and talents He has given us to help further His kingdom."