FAMILY

Tomorrow we celebrate Family Day!

Family Day was first held in Canada in the province of Alberta in 1990. It is supposed to reflect the values of family and home that were important to the pioneers who founded Alberta, and give workers the opportunity to spend more time with their families. Family Day was introduced in Saskatchewan in 2007 and in Ontario in 2008. One of the reasons for introducing Family Day was that there was a long period when there were no holidays from New Year's Day until Good Friday

I started to think though - what does the word Family mean?

First thought is my immediate family - my parents, my siblings. Family refers to my husband and my children.

One of the definitions in the dictionary for family is “Two or more people who share goals and values, have long-term commitments to one another.”

I think we would agree then that the person who is sitting next to you in this room and shares communion with you according to that definition is Family– we are brothers and sisters in Christ.

I think we would even agree that the people who come to your small group and pray for you and encourage you is your Family.

I often refer to these groups as my “church family”.

But lets go even further.

Another definition of family is: a group of persons with common ancestry, deriving from a common stock” We believe that everyone was created by God, we are his “children” and we are all his children because we have the common ancestry. Doesn’t that make us, at least in some sense, ‘family’?

And when you think of things that way: Family could be the nurse that holds your hand to comfort you when you are scared and afraid. It could be your coworker that you work side by side with or the store clerk who goes out of their way to help you find that perfect gift. What about the stranger who opens the door for you at the mall or the lady that helps you up after you have slipped in the snow? What about your 300 “Friends” on Facebook? Aren’t they all family too? What about the person that goes to the Friendship Inn or The Bridge for a meal and a warm place to stay, the homeless man you pass everyday on the way to work, the guy that asks you for money with alcohol on his breath, the crabby bus driver, the rude and inpatient waitress, your next door neighbor?

If we are all God’s children shouldn’t we treat each person we meet as if they were our family and if we did, would it change how we react to them, think of them, how we talk to them, our level of compassion, mercy, forgiveness we have for them, would it make us stop and wonder what their story is? Would it change how we pray for them and how we serve them?

And in doing so how would it change you?

So I challenge everyone to really go out and celebrate Family Day: Think of each person you meet as family and see what happens.