Family is a Verb

I don't think I could ever describe "family" as well as Ann Voskamp has done.  Below are excerpts from her 6/16/15 blogpost "when family breaks your heart".  Thank you Ann.  We family. ...Look, I’ve got no clue about why somewhere along the way we forgot that family is worth investing in more than college or retirement funds, no clue why climbing ladders to get ahead of each other became more important than laying down our lives to love each other ... No clue why we’re all expected to be captivated with loud things when the heart beat of the really beautiful things are often found in the stillness and quiet — but hey, listen…. who’s got any clue about what ultimately matters before time runs out here?... Put one foot in front of the other and you can put any mountain behind you.  After a whole lot of one steps in front of the other, day after day, you can turn around and see: Every day that you do the hard things that you don’t want to do — you’re building the family you always wanted to have.  That’s the secret no one ever told me… that changes the essence of everything. ... Parents give, and give, and give more, and still give more than they ever dreamed — and end up getting back more than they ever dreamed.  That’s what family means: People love you & keep on holding on to you especially when you’re not loveable. ... One of the most destructive attitudes in society today is that family is a noun … and not a verb.  Family is a verb. Family is an action.  And we aren’t merely born into families, families are born out of our reaching out and holding on and serving anyways and giving always.  Giving always.  It’s not only the blood in our veins that make us family — it’s the blood and sacrifice in our days that makes us a family. ... My closest kin is my husband — and we don’t share a drop of blood — but we share our souls… by breaking off bits of ourselves and sacrificially giving to each other.  Our sharing and giving and serving has been the making of a family. Mother and Father may grammatically be nouns — but theologically they are verbs. We mother and father and parent, we become by what we do, sit down with the kids to read stories instead of scrolling through Facebook updates, hang out the laundry instead of hang out at resorts, clean out the fridge, bite our tongues and bite the bullet and go the extra mile and we become, playing ball in our bare feet on the lawn with the kids till the sun sinks down. Family is a verb. Family is not just what we are, it’s something that we actively keep on making. With every phone call…with every trip to the grocery store and filling up the minivan with gas, with every filling up of the washing machine, with every putting the other ahead of you, so that you can put regrets behind you. Every time we make time for each other, we make family. ... Forget how hard 10 years of family-ing can be, forget how hard the next 10 years will be and just keep the whole thing simple:  Parenting isn’t overwhelming when we simply understand how to serve in this minute. ... Nothing trumps the love of us. Nothing at all comes close to us all being close.  Nothing means quite what it means to family. To family: a verb.  I want to cup all the kids’ faces, look into their eyes, look into the soul of the whole next generation and say it so they get it: Never buy the lie that it matters how you’re ranked in the eyes of the world—- when what ultimately matters is how you are ranked in the hearts of your people…. and the eyes of God. ... “Why don’t they teach you that at school? Instead of trying to achieve some position, what ultimately matters is the affection of your people.” Life’s not about trying to achieve some position,  it’s about the affection of your people. People over position; affection over achievement. When people restore the truth that family means putting other’s needs before ourselves —  then maybe something truly great in this country would be restored. ... When we do hard things for each other every day, we build the family we’ve been dreaming of for years.  With every action that we take and make our life say: I love you. Love is only real when given and shared. Love breaks and gives away your heart. Every time.  Love keeps the front porch light on and the socks matched and the side door always unlocked and waiting and the mudroom cleared of stray shoes and dinner in the oven — for decades. Because: Love never fails when it’s a verb that keeps acting and doing and giving.  We family each other. And family-ing makes the cake year after year and calls everybody to gather in closer and lights the candles because right here and now is a hallowed sanctuary. This is the grammar of love. This is how we family.  Family is a verb.