Categories: uncategorized
Date: 18 January 2011 17:13:49
The title starts at the end and what I'm going to focus on today. But first a couple of pints on theother readings for yesterday and today.
Gen 34:1 - 37:36 is more family stories. There is the rape victim whose attacker gets a vigilante type visit by the brothers who have tricked said attacker and his town into getting circumcised...painful and various other stuff which says parenting and family relationships aren't easy.
Matt12:46 - 13:35 It's Jackanory time with Jesus and the disciples are left saying WTF. From this it shows that family relationships aren't limited by blood they also include relationships with our Christian brothers and sisters.
Psalm 10:1 - 18 is a cry of dispair where the oppressed, fatherless and afflicted get heard in the end.
Lots of stuff on family and relationships here which I want to pick up on.
I have a daughter, Third Party. Today she went into hospital to have her tonsils out. She went into an adult ward, now she is 16 and I began to get feelings of her leaving the nest. I was expecting to do the whole waiting thing but was effectively shooed off. She is no longer, in one sense, my "little girl". Looking over her life and my life with her aswell as my "new family" I can see how the stuff I've been reading works and how God works in the mist of it. I want to outline this to you.
1) Family life is often dysfunctional and people make decisions which aren't that wonderful. It is this situation which left Third Party not fatherless, but having limited contact with her dad, (his choice not mine). This dysfunctionality was true throughout the OT just as it is now. Interesting if you have a look at the Wiki definition of a dysfunctional family and overlay it onto the stories from Genesis.
2) Even if family life is dysfunctional in some form a strong family can be wonderful and highly supportive in its own way. This has been my own experience, as well as being the one the bible outlines.
3) Family relationships revolve around looking out for people who we are linked to whether we wish to be or not and allowing ourselves to be looked out for by them. This is what Christian Community is like.
At the moment with Third Party going into hospital I am a bit...well....emotional is probably the best word. I miss my church family in Herne Bay and my blood family in Suffok, (particularly my gran and mum who have passed away). Yet I have a new family too. TOH is my family and so by extension are her parents...something I am trying to get my head around.
Also the church up here are my family too. Now they may not be a "family church" in the same way HBBC are but they are still my family. I may not be getting the wrap around care I got in the Bay, but I am getting something equally important...the skills of adult living. That may sound daft but my family here are good at making sure I stand on my own two feet a bit more. Yet, they are still helping. I am off to visit Third Party in a minute and am getting a lift from one of the lads from church. Similarly another member of the Christian family- from another denomination- jumped in to help after a FB panic last night and has offered to be Third Party's emergancy contact in Durham whilst I have to nip of to work and stuff. I am getting my "family support" from other believers. This support reflects traditional understandings of family which are wider than our current nuclear family model.
4) God and the church are there for the little people and those who feel they are struggling because of a lack of family. This is what Psalm 10 in part has been about. As you've probably gathered at the moment I feel v. single mumish - although I know I do have all this family and support. Looking back I can see how God has been there in a very special way providing for us when we've needed it.
This may not have been the most coherent post ever, as you've probably guessed my mind is elsewhere. But I hope I've got across that in the mist of all the theological stuff and wondering about whether God is perfect or just as f**ked up as man I have identified that he and the church are there for us as family. He has a special love for messed up families and those who have been messed up by them.