"Are you my mother forever?"

My nine-year-old is about as comedically eccentric as you can get. His entire verbal life, he has spouted random humor that leaves us in stitches. His timing is impeccable, his insight sharp. Today the random question was (not out of frustration but with a mischievous eye-twinkle) "Are you my mother forever?" When I assured him I was, he opined, "DARN it!" My oldest son, 22 and the foreshadower of this one's comedic life, responded, "Yeah, like your adult teeth." Little son was dramatically tragic in reaction. Families are imperfect. I was recently praying for someone who said, "My family's not normal." I assured that person that in 20 years of working in the fields of psychiatry and social services, I had yet to find one that was. We are flawed, and there is none perfect but our Redeemer. Yet God is all about families, to whatever degree we are imperfect. Families were His idea! As we walk through the weave of relationships down here in our homes and extended families, we learn about our own faults and vulnerabilities even as we, hopefully, learn to bear gracefully with those of the others with whom we share our most intimate selves. Sometimes we are good, sometimes we are bad, and sometimes we are ugly. We learn about unconditional love (sometimes from its occasional presence among us, and perhaps often from its absence) and the only One who loves us perfectly ALL the time. I figure that is part of His idea. Sometimes families break and fall apart. Sometimes they are mended; sometimes they morph into new families--yet she who was our mother, or sister or cousin--or he who is our father, or brother or uncle, will always be marked as that in our lives. We need family. We need people to whom we can safely bare all, who we know will be our mother/father/sister/brother/etc forever, even in the ugly. Family can be an instrument to remind us of our desperate need for connection, ultimately with the One who is truly the only constant as He brings us from this life into eternity. I am so thankful for my own family...and no, we are not "normal" or "perfect". We have much flawed about us. I am thankful for what I learn about myself, about them, about my Lord as I walk through this life with them. I am thankful that through good, bad, and ugly times, we belong to each other forever.