Welcome, you belong

As many of you know, I work in one church and have membership in another. Having not grown up in a Brady Bunch environment I have been stunned by the relationships and family I have been given in both church homes truly through the grace of God. The spiritual relationships and deeply profound friendships have given me life in abundance. I hold these people deep in my heart and when one of them hurts, I shatter.

This week we buried our sweet Betty Kinnard, one of the most joy-filled, lovely members of our church family. She was our power-stapler with a group of gals we call the Friday Party Girls who assemble our Sunday bulletin. I have the supreme joy of working with these women for the past ten years. I have heard stories of their lives, their genuine laughter and witnessed great love they have for God and others. Needless to say Betty’s loss hit us all hard.

Feeling devastated with Betty’s loss, I ended up at the door jam of my biggest inspiration and blessing – my son, Chris. With slumped shoulders and a broken spirit I asked him what I should write about this week. It took him a split second to pipe up with: “Ephesians. I consider it the purest book in the Bible.” So Ephesians it was.

In that reading, the whole week took on a different look. St. Paul spoke powerfully to the Ephesians about belonging to the family of God once we believe in Jesus Christ. “Now you are no longer strangers to God and foreigners to heaven, but you are members of God’s very own family, citizens of God’s country, and you belong to God’s household with every other Christian… We who believe are carefully joined together with Christ as parts of a beautiful, constantly growing temple for God. And you also are joined with him and with each other by the Spirit, and are part of this dwelling place of God.” (Ephesians 2:19-20)

This is what is so beautiful about faith and why it matters. In our belief we share in God’s own family, in life’s ups and downs, its joy and great sorrow – all mingled together. St. Paul goes on to say: “Long ago, even before he made the world, God chose us to be his very own, through what Christ would do for us; he decided then to make us holy in his eyes, without a single fault – we who stand before him covered with his love.” (Ephesians 1:9-10)

I realized that I have been covered with God’s love through these spiritual families. In them I have found warmth and worth. I have witnessed how to raise my son. Even though I have done so imperfectly, he knows he is loved. And here is the clincher: “When the time is ripe he will gather us all together from wherever we are – in heaven or on earth – to be with him in Christ, forever.” (Ephesians 1:4) I will see my Betty again, my husband, and be with my son… all of us gathered together in Christ forever, covered safely in his love.