Family: Blood, Water, Wine.

Family is a bigger, more complex concept than I've given it credit for. 

Not so long ago, I looked into the eyes of a person and heard the words "you're my family" echo from his mouth. Well. We all know how that ended. When things DID end, I found out just how thin that water ran, and I had my blood - my parents - to come back to.

But this year, I've seen blood tested as well. I walked with my dad into a house in New Jersey filled with people that supposedly, I am related to. But it's strange to look at cousins that you've barely spoken to and know nothing about and think - we are family. To hold a new baby that shares so many things with me - grandparents, aunts and uncles, a heritage - and feel so oddly disconnected from her life. 

I've been reading a book that, in one of the chapters, has questions to delve into to get you thinking about your life in the context of your family. It asks questions like "what are some of the stories your family tells at reunions?" 

We don't have reunions. In fact, my own immediate family is quite distant from both clusters of relatives. My mother's family lives across an ocean, and there are conflicts and rifts that keep us all from gathering in one room even when we are there. My father's family live on the same side of the pond us as, but there's a deep history of rivalry and distrust that keeps, at least for me, a sizable emotional distance between most of those relatives and myself. 

I think it is very, very odd the amount of weight we give "family". As if it's some redeeming concept that overlooks all issues and keeps people together, somehow, no matter what. But that's obviously not how I've seen it work! Perhaps I'm just disappointed in the amount of brokenness I've watched within every household I've observed. It seems that the concept of "blood" has very little meaning as I watch rivalries between brothers, bitterness between mother and daughter, siblings who don't know each other at all. 

As I'm finding my place in the world, I'm wrestling extremely deeply with the idea of which people I can truly trust...

There's blood, water, and then - there are those people in my life who are like wine. People who bring richness in their friendships, comfort to me in my hard times, and something exciting and filling just by their company. They've proven themselves over time - relationships aging into something even stronger. Water, over time, may sour. Even blood, it seems, may dry up and disappear like dust. I'm searching for people in my life who, by the miracle of Christ's love, are people that, YES - are broken and have the capacity to hurt me - but, when Christ is present, are people I can share my heart and trust with in the knowledge that we, together, are becoming something thicker, richer, and lasting.

But these are all thoughts, which we all know are fickle and untrustworthy. I can think one thing one minute and one thing the next. Intellectual blog posts are all well and good, but this is something I will continue to wrestle with and wonder about long after I've hit the "post" button.