Family is favored relationship.

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I recently followed my husband from Colorado to Oregon in order to be closer to his family. I felt God’s hand on it, and I asked God why we were being sent there. “I will heal your heart in its family part,” God said. Thus, I anticipated integrating into my husband’s family and seeing it as my own.

What Family Isn’t

When we arrived into town, we asked two of my husband’s relatives to give us a place to stay. Our trailer was being repossessed due to our inability to pay and we imagined it would be a swift process. (Apparently, it’s not, but we didn’t know that then.) His relatives invited us in and let us stay with them for two weeks without any conditions. It was very generous of them, but then, their demands came: demands we weren’t willing to meet because they went against God’s guidance for who we were to become in this season. As a result, we accepted their ultimatum and left their house one day before their deadline.

I walked away knowing one thing: those people were not my family.

We found a place to live near another one of his relatives. My husband had high hopes that this would enable a closer relationship between our kids. We invited them over to our house, asked them for help, and offered help to them when we saw they had need. Although they were quick to help us, they repeatedly said no to our offers of help. When I probed as to why, I was told that our parenting style was “sometimes alarming” and that they felt no connection to me. It hurt, and it was disappointing, but it also cleared up much of the expectations.

I blessed my husband and my kid in their pursuit of relationship with his relatives, but also expressed what had become evident in my heart: those people were not my family.

Over the months, we invited my husband’s aunts, uncles, and cousins over to our house to share a meal with us. Despite speaking as if this was welcome before, only one out of five accepted. The others made the same excuses wrapped in the same pleasantries that so many Americans tend to do. (You know the deal: “We should totally get together some time” followed by a “Sorry, I’m just sooo busy right now.” Yeah, right…)

It was a joy for us to have the one who accepted come over with their whole family. We later dropped by their house to check in on them, which they appreciated. When we had questions and needed their expertise, they made themselves available. They didn’t accept every offer we made or meet every request, but they communicated their desire to try again in a different way.

As I reflect on them, I know I could be open to them becoming part of my family.

Consulting with God

I went to God in prayer. “I thought you brought me here to heal my family wounds by giving me a family. Instead, I am mostly experiencing rejection from the same people who say they are my family. In fact, despite being Christians, they are not much different from my own extremely-unchristian family. God, what are you doing here?” I asked in frustration and tears. “Do they see your value? Do they treat you well? Are they any better than your close friends?” God asked. “A resounding no,” I replied. “Then, why do you bother with them?” God followed, “when you have friends-like-family who love you better?”

I didn’t have an answer. I still don’t. I guess I was doing it because I’m supposed to. Perhaps I was pursuing my husband’s relatives because I left my own family for the same reasons. It seemed my inner child was still longing for a family that my adult self no longer needs.

I realized I was wasting my time.

What Family Is

It took me three months of meditating on “family” to understand how to really define it. After all, how does someone know if they’re in a familial relationship (storge love in the Greek Bible) with someone else if they don’t know what they’re looking for?

Today, I boil familial love down to five attributes:

1. Intimacy. Family members meet together with greater intimacy than with their friends (more frequently, closer to their home) despite inconveniences (like living far from one another)
2. Vulnerability. Family members share more vulnerabilities with one another than they would their friends
3. Assistance. Family members help one another in ways they wouldn’t help their friends
4. Acceptance. Family members accept one another without the demands to conform that friends and strangers place upon them
5. Unity. Family members place the highest value upon building and maintaining a healthy relationship with one another, despite experiencing disagreements and conflicts

In short, family is favored relationship.

Who is Family

When I looked at my list of attributes, it became clear to me that I had several friends who were much more like family than the people who were supposed to be my family by cultural definitions. These friends-like-family accepted me as I am, and placed no demands upon me to conform to their ideas of how I should live my life. They regularly sought to meet with me over the phone, despite living far away, and spent as much time with me as we both wanted. They helped me when I was crying, angry, hopeless, tired, or broke, and they received my help when they were the same, thereby acknowledging their vulnerabilities to me. And they didn’t break relationship when we had a disagreement, but sought to repair the relationship no matter how uncomfortable managing conflict seemed to be.

I reached out to these friends and let them know I saw them as a brother or sister, and that I intended to invest more into our relationship this year because I valued their presence. They all replied with delight, and we set on our calendars the next time we would meet on the phone together.

When I went back to God, I felt his pleasure. “It is wise to draw your circles now,” God said. “One day, you will have more to give. In that day, you will be sure who is for you because of you, and not because of what they can get from you.”

As I close this blog, I realize that it is the same with God. God calls many to be a part of his family, but only a few choose it. Of those, only a few follow him as servants. Of those, only a few get to know him and become his children. Of those, only a few mature and become his friends.

But that last line is for another blog.