Theme: Thanksgiving Week
November 23, 2021 (Tuesday)
Robert Frost wrote a sad little tale called, “The Death of the Hired Man,” in which he includes a description of “home.” “Home,” he wrote, “is where when you go there they have to take you in.”
But what is “family? In many legal contexts family denotes “individuals related by blood, marriage, or adoption,” but in others the definition may be somewhat broader, encompassing groups of individuals not related by these things.
When we offer thanks to God for family we may include anyone upon whom we are dependent and who may also be dependent upon us. Or, more probably we are thinking of the love we have for one another. A sad truth is that there are groups of people who are kin to each other but who do not love each other. And conversely, there are groups of people who are not kinfolks but they love each other as if they are. If that describes your situation, you probably think of your people as your family. You may describe their relationship to you as “just like family,” or you may think of them as genuine family members. The awesome truth is that “family” is a deep and difficult subject.
O.K., I don’t think most of us need others to identify our family. We know who they are. We may be related by blood or not. The point is, we need to be thankful for them. More importantly, we need to love them, and we need them to love us.
What about difficult family members? Does the Lord expect us to love them as much as other devoted members of our family? Well, I believe that Jesus’ teachings about loving our enemies applies to kinfolks as well as strangers. When we thank God for our families, we need to include every family member.
I have chosen “God Give Us Christian Homes” as hymn for this blog. B.B. McKinney (1886-1952), well-known leader in Christian music among Christians in general and Baptists in particular, wrote this hymn, which has been published in 12 hymnals.
