How important is family?

Here's how it went down.

Someone I know stated that our children have moved away from P.A. What exactly is keeping us from moving away now, to live anywhere else but here - kids gone, no house to tie us down, husband retired.

Why indeed.

I answered by saying that Prince Albert is our home. We like it here. We don't like the poverty, the oppression, the drugs and prostitution. We don't like the way people use their excessive amounts of money to "buy" into anything they wish, politically speaking, of course. You know how small town politics can be.....but every city has places it can improve upon.

But we like being close to the beautiful north country - the lakes, the beaches, the great fishing. We like the fact that everything is close at hand in our city - within a 10 minute drive. Our children may not be here, but it's our home. It's been my home for 60 years!

I neglected to mention to the person asking the question that another major reason we stay here is that our family.....our church family, is here. This is where we receive life from God......through this family. We're an integral part of it, this church family. We, as a church, are a "regular" family in every sense of the word. We get on one another's nerves, we criticize each other, we judge one another and we sometimes say things that hurt. But at the end of the day, we ask for forgiveness, say we're sorry and go on living out our lives as the Body of Christ. Just like any family would do.......well, usually......

Yes, we fail each other. We fail what we are supposed to be, what Jesus said we should be. But it's not too late to change that. We can revisit again the motives we have of following Christ. Perhaps they need changing, to coincide with what Christ was actually telling us.

Husband and I spoke of this at lunch today. Jesus came to heal the sick, give sight to the blind, to forgive sinners. He told us to look after the widows and orphans, to feed the hungry and visit those in prison. He told us to love our neighbors as much as we love ourselves....and a whole whack of other stuff too.

What is a Christian anyway? Have we misrepresented that word?

Oh, man. I need to rethink what being a Christ-follower really is........