As Marble Church celebrates Family Week, I am reflecting on the idea of family. There are so many configurations of family in our world and in the Bible. I believe that God is able to live in the midst of all of them.
My divorced mother and my maternal grandparents raised me. Now, I live in the midst of an almost “typical” US family: husband, wife and 2.0 children. In addition, I now have significant responsibilities as a caretaking daughter as well as great joy and comfort in relationships with my cousins. It is part of the privilege of being in relationship with our God, who is love and calls us to love, that we dance the wonderful and challenging “dance” that is family.
The following is a prayer that I wrote for my family:
I praise you, God, for our family. Thank you for giving us love, life and each other. These times are so complex and our lives are so busy, God, that I feel like I live in a minute-to-minute quandary.
So, anoint us afresh for a new day. Pour into me, as often as possible, the wisdom of how to be a more loving mother, wife and daughter. Give me the grace to honor my husband and our covenant, love our children more fully and create a family each day shaped and formed in your image. Our family is yours because you made it.
I rededicate us to you today and always. Speak to our hearts, O God. Love, bless, heal and care for my husband, O Lord. Keep your hands upon our sons at all times so that they may be well, safe and protected when we are together or when we are apart. Keep them always in your heart and make them pliable to your Spirit. Make them worshippers, O God. May they never know a day in their lives where they are unaware of your surpassing love for them.
This prayer for my family, I pray in the name of Jesus. Amen. |