April 22, 2017

Greetings My Friend, It was a short sentence but it spoke volumes to my heart, I needed to know this deep in my soul "He chose our heritage for us the pride of Jacob whom he loves." I grew up in a small family with hardly any aunts and uncles or cousins and for some reason I longed for a large family to be in. I barely knew my Dad's parents and I never met his brother Frank and Lola his wife or my 2 cousins, it was what it was. One year Grandma C gave me copies of pictures from her life as a child, I hung them up on a wall and stared at them realizing that I was part of a group of people that reached back into history and continued into the present. When I went through my divorce I worried that my history was broken and my mark would be gone unnoticed. So reading that God chose me and gave me a heritage well that was heart warming, as I thought about this I could feel this heritage going way back into history. I loved it feeling my heritage all the way back into time. I am part of the family of God and I have been learning how to live in the family of God for years and one day this family will live in harmony forever. Now though we learn the lessons we need to live in this giant family. One time we went on a cruise with our remarried ministry family at church and on the cruise I met a young lady who warmed up to me when she found I was a Christian. She barely spoke English but she felt safe to be around our group because of our Christian relationship with Jesus. Then there was the time we went on a mission trip to Honduras to help with an orphanage and I was amazed at how our Christian heritage helped us overcome the language barrier, we learned from them and they learned from us as we worked at the common goal of building the orphanage. The youngsters loved the games we came up with to play as we taught about the love of Jesus. I remembered making puppets from socks from my childhood and shared this craft with the children. Instead the children walked around wearing the socks, it was fun watching them walk around with one sock on some with the eyes and mouths put on for the puppet. I also find when I meet other people in the faith that we understand and automatically love reaching out to each other, it feels nice. God wants all of us to choose to be in His family, I love that too. Just as my Dad left home at 14 never to never live with his parents again man chose to leave God's presence and continue to refuse to follow His ways. God lets us have free choice so we choose to follow His ways or go off on our own. I felt I wanted to live on my own for years only to wake up one day and discover that living in the family of God is what my desire has always been. When I first returned to the safety of God's loving embrace I worried about being chastised forever, only to learn that God has forgiven my sins as far as from the east to the west....they never meet. I don't have to know how to live His ways up front, God will teach us. He understands that we are on a journey and is patient enough to teach us all the things we need to learn. I no longer think much about being in a small family, I have a huge family to be loved by and to love back. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet