What is a family?

This summer I have been thinking a lot about family. What does family mean? How do different families interact? How has my family affected who I am today? What do I want my family to be like someday? How should God's family interact?

It all started with this road trip. A road trip? Like with the whole family in the back seat playing irritating car games? No. I think my thesis about families might be a little different if that were my framework. Instead, the family motif comes into play through the hospitality of many friends along the way from California to Maine. I stayed with so many different families, but the incredible love that I felt in each of them was amazing to me. I really enjoyed experiencing the vastly different ways in which different families ran their lives, ate dinner, and interacted with one another.

• In Scottsdale, we joined a family in a rousing and competitive game of Scrabble with lots of laughter all around.

• In Wichita, the nuclear family that had consisted of a wife, husband, 2 dogs, 2 cats, and 2 ponies, had been slowly reduced to a woman with 1 dog and 2 cats, and a lot of brokenness and love left in her heart.

• In St. Louis, two incredibly intelligent and beautiful little kids with so much energy bursting from them in every direction ran in circles around their loving parents, and they all won our hearts with their sincerity, generosity of spirit, and affection.

• In Indianapolis, we witnessed a brother cry over the prospect of his older sister going to live in Jerusalem, and the thought that his parents would go to visit her and would be in danger as well.

• In Cincinnati we encountered my friend Ellen's family. There are five children, all of whom are only a few years apart. Though three of them are in college now, at least in the summer, they all live together in a modest house that seems to be shouting with love. The entire time we were there, nothing but smiles and laughter and singing ran through the house. We were made to feel entirely part of the family in our time there, and when I talked to my friend Ellen about how amazing her family is, she simply said, "See why I knew I had to move back home for a little while after I graduated? I know that this is too wonderful to just leave behind."