Your REAL Family

 

I really learned something this week. Maybe you could say I relearned it. Or learned it better. Deeper, more profoundly. 

We went to a funeral for a Pastor up near North Bay on the Hwy 11 side. I never knew him or met him, but Sharon knew him and his wife very well. As a matter of fact, many years ago, during the time he was Pastor of an Eganville church, when he'd be out making his rounds, he'd drop in at Sharon's house and she'd make him a lunch, then he'd have a nap on her couch where he was for once peacefully out of reach. So he was very, very much at home there. 

The same couldn't be said for everywhere.

As much as Sharon and her first husband Richard, welcomed him at their home, there were other people from the very same church that didn't welcome him or his wife. At all. In fact, there was one such person that made Pastors feel so unwelcome and unworthy, that he proudly branded himself as "The Pastor Axer". When I first heard that term chills ran up and down my spine. There is only one place such a WICKED, evil pride can come from. 

Thankfully, the Pastor and his wife managed to shield their children from the evil that manifested itself in that church, and they lived the best lives that children of the clergy can. 

After being thoroughly chafed and scarred by that church, they moved to a little town out in the boonies to pastor a church there. The exact same spirit found them there and again socially thrashed and rejected them. 

Most people would have had enough by that point and left the clergy and found an occupation in the secular world. Not them. They had hearts for the Lord and evangelism, so they moved on to another church. 

There they found their Home. 

The evil spirit missing from their next church up North, they settled in. And they stayed. They mentored countless children. They mentored many other Pastors. Their work blossomed and matured and a great harvest was made through them. And then the time of his harvest and eternal rest and reward at the ripe old age of 90 came upon him. 

The weather forecast for the area was bad. Snow squalls and limited visibility. Sharon didn't want to go herself in that. I didn't blame her. There was no ride up there available. I took the day off and drove her. You sometimes only get one chance to do the right thing, and a funeral is definitely one of them.

Up until we got there, I had no idea how much of a right thing it was. 

There was a pretty, slim lady of about my age there, with a very well-presented husband. Sharon had to use the washroom pretty bad after our long drive. As we walked past this couple while I was leading her to where I found the washroom, Sharon uncharacteristically stopped and turned around and just stood there. 

I didn't know what was going on.

Standing there and with a loving smile, she quietly said to the lady, "Don't you know me?" We all change over time. Sharon's hair is now short and gray, not long and brunette. 

At the sound of Sharon's voice a flashing look of recognition lit up the lady's face and she threw herself on Sharon, wrapping about her in a tight bear hug and hung on. She didn't say a word. She just hung on and hung on and hung on. Clung to her like a drowning person to a lifebuoy. Like Saranwrap. I never saw such an obviously heartfelt hug. She didn't want to let go. She just hung on tight. 

A little awkwardly, I said to her husband, "That looks like an important hug..." 

I didn't know the half of it.

She was the daughter of the Pastor. She knew how Sharon and her husband took care of her parents while they were in Eganville. She didn't know when she was a teenager what her parents went through there, but other people filled her in after adulthood. That Sharon mentored her as an adolescent and cared for her Dad and made him feel so welcome and comfortable when others definitely didn't made her eternally grateful. She remembered the bonds; the good ties that warmly bind. And never let go.

It was SO worthwhile going there, as awful as the weather and road conditions were. I saw the most warm, heartfelt hug of love and gratitude of my life in that modest church in the cold Northland that day.

Family is not necessarily what you are born into. It is who adopts you as their own, without conditions. And that kind of family never fails. It endures. It is as important today as it was 40 years ago. It can be rekindled in an instant, like no time has ever passed. And, if they know the Lord, it is indeed Eternal.