It’s been a physically and emotionally exhausting couple of days.
I have just returned home from my dad’s funeral.
With some raw emotions coupled with seeing some Swanson cousin’s I haven’t seen in several years, and add to that Linda is gone to a TEA teacher thing until Friday leaving me home alone, I feel a little nostalgic and lonesome.
Then again, I’m never alone.
I have my Bible, my coworkers, and my Facebook family.
The Fb’ers have been very supportive over the past week.
There have been so many kind, sympathetic words, thoughts, and prayers given.
However Facebook can only go so far in comfort.
You need real people to hug, hold on to, laugh with, and cry with.
I was very blessed to have just such a family in the Crosby/Highlands area, from both my dad’s side and my mom’s side.
Distance and time separates all of us; personal family responsibility, work, school, church, and many other things keep us from seeing each other very often or even keeping in touch.
Family is also important to God.
You can read in Gen 24:2-4 that Abraham said to the oldest servant of his house, who ruled over all that he had, “Please, put your hand under my thigh, and I will make you swear by the LORD, the God of heaven and the God of the earth, that you will not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I dwell; but you shall go to my country and to my family, and take a wife for my son Isaac.”
Abraham wanted to keep his family pure from the influence of the Canaanites.
While I’m not going to encourage anyone to marry a cousin, I do encourage you to be in the family of God and to surround yourself with other family-of-God members; if you are planning on marrying someday, find a Christian and live as God would have you to live.
There has been no greater comfort to me than that which comes from my Christian family.