"Precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little and there a little." Isaiah 28:10
"Precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little and there a little." Isaiah 28:10
From the outside it may appear that I lack a family and that ‘family’ is one thing I yearn to have. However, the more I look for evidence of ‘family’ in my life, and the more I practice being grateful for the experiences of ‘family’ that I already have, the more happy and satisfied I feel.
Sometimes I feel sorry for myself as it seems all of my contemporaries are now married and have children. I live alone and do not have any children. The temptation to feel lonely or ‘left on the shelf’ can be very strong. But through my daily work I feel included in God’s family. This is not just an abstract feeling, but I can recognise concrete evidences of this in my life.
The Concise Oxford Dictionary gives the following meanings for the word ‘family’:
1. A set of parents and children or relations.
2. The members of a household.
3. The descendants of a common ancestor.
4. A brotherhood of persons or nations united by political or religious ties.
5. A group ... distinguished by common features.
Every day I pray to ‘Our Father”. This reminds me that everyone I meet every day is part of my family, with God as our common parent. In particular I have a peaceful and safe home with several loving neighbours; I belong to a young and active church, work with children in my job and keep in touch with friends and siblings who have young children. Aren’t all of these expressions of ‘family’?
Mrs Eddy writes in Miscellaneous Writings, “When a hungry heart petitions the divine Father-Mother God for bread, it is not given a stone, - but more grace, obedience and love.” Every time I bump into one of my neighbours or am in touch with a fellow church member, I endeavour to remember that these individuals are ‘descendants of a common ancestor’. Whenever I have a precious interchange with a child while working or visiting a friend, I remember what we both have in common as children of God. We are united as expressions of the one Mind and, as their teacher or aunty, I can recognise their wholeness and completeness, as well as my own.
A source of great learning for me recently has been the book, “The Gentle Art of Blessing”. The author Pierre Pradervand writes, “On meeting people and talking to them, bless them in their health their work, their joy, their relationship to the universe, themselves, and others. Bless them in their abundance and their finances, bless them in every conceivable way, for such blessings not only sow seeds of healing but one day will spring forth as flowers in the waste places of your own life.”
The Pope was quoted as saying to a group of nuns last year, that they should be ‘spiritual mothers’, not barren ‘old maids’. Even if we have no children of our own, we all have much daily work to do in blessing the whole human family.