When Shadrach first came to our home, he was a stranger. It wasn’t long however before he was family.  He calls my parents grandma and grandpa and my kids call him brother.  Shad came from a large, extended family but in most places here in the US, the extended family is almost extinct.  We are independent and mobile causing us to live painfully isolated from each other.  I am so thankful that I have always lived close to most of my family.  I have known 3 generations of grandmothers and benefited from their history and wisdom.  My children have traveled away from Indiana but they have always come back home.  I have to believe that this is because they have strong family ties here.  We have a legacy of stories that we love to share whenever we are together as a whole for a meal or a holiday.  Shadrach has become a part of this family history.

Radical hospitality, in the best possible sense, leads us to become family with each other.  I wrote about this in a previous post as it relates to the strangers God puts in our path but it also relates to those we know best in our own churches.  We are called to be “The Body of Christ” but instead we are disjointed parts trying to function all on our own.  We were never meant to be this way.  We are wired to be in community helping each other in our daily struggles like an extended family.  For this to happen though we have to be open and honest with each other.  We have to let down our facade and be vulnerable.  However, there is a sense in most of our churches that we have to act as if we have everything together even when we are falling apart.  We can’t help each other if we can’t admit that we need it.

How do we go about changing this reality?  I think we have to consciously reach out to each other and allow others to reach out to us.  Reaching out to others who have no biologic family or have family far away from them is important and necessary.  To do this though, we have to be willing to be responsible and accountable to each other.  This is tough.  It requires that we may be asked to be there for someone else even when it is uncomfortable or inconvenient. My husband Tim is so good at this.  I envy him in this because it is an area I struggle with.

A year ago in October, Ryan, the son of good friends of ours was in a terrible auto accident.  He had a traumatic brain injury (TBI) and has been in rehab since.  He has made tremendous strides but it has been slow.  We are celebrating that he passed his swallow test so now he can eat and hopefully get rid of his feeding tube soon.  What seems like a minor thing like swallowing is a major thing after a TBI.  Our friends and their son are true heroes for their courage and perseverance.

Tim has made it his habit to visit Ryan every week.  He will read to him, plays “Angry Birds” with him and generally just chooses to be there with him.  He jokes with Ryan that they will take a baseball bat to the machine that pumps in his tube feedings.  It beeps incessantly and drives him crazy.  Ryan has several faithful visitors.  They are acting as extended family for Ryan and his mom and dad.  They are being the “Body of Christ.”

This kind of family is what we all need and long for if we are honest.  It adds a dimension of belonging that you don’t get anywhere else.  Sometimes my real family and my extended church family can drive me crazy because none of us are perfect.  But isn’t that really the point?  We aren’t perfect.  We need each other.  I wouldn’t give up these  wonderful, sometimes exasperating relationships for anything.