We Are Family

While having breakfast with a friend from church this morning, the conversation turned to the importance of family. We have an elderly neighbor who has just been placed into a local nursing home because of some very serious health problems and she has absolutely NO family or close friends to help care for her. It is the saddest thing I have ever seen. Someone, whom she only knew distantly, volunteered to be her "power of attorney" and now is trying to sell everything out from under the poor woman. How does one get to be 75-80 years old and have NO one? One way is to have no "church" family--it is obvious our neighbor has never known God. (Tol has begun to study with her.)

As I have pondered her situation over the last week or so, I have thought about how I never expect to be in her position. We were the only ones who showed up at the hospital for the life threatening surgery she had a few weeks ago--I always expect to have family present when I have surgery. Tol has taken care of her yard after it had gotten totally out of control--I expect to always have family around who can help me with mine. We are the only ones to have visited her in the nursing home since she went there--I hope I never have to go to one, but if I do, I know I will have family checking in on me. My neighbor has NO family--I have a very large family within the church and there will always be those in my spiritual family to care for me. How I thank God for this glorious family.

God has promised us an eternal reward if we are faithful to Him, but we also have many rich blessings here on this earth if we are faithful to Him and probably the greatest earthly blessing from being a Christian is our "church family".

Dana Burk