1:36 p.m. Today's project was to call my little sister Dona on her birthday and see what's she's been up to and get an update on my nieces and nephews and their families. They all live in San Diego, with the exception of Brady, who is working on a career as a screenwriter in Hollywood.
By writing "little" sister, I can clarify between my actual sister in the flesh and my millions of Christian sisters around the world and here in town! I had sent Dona an e-card from Dayspring Christian cards, a very nice one with music, but I accidentally hit "send" instead of scrolling down to select the date to send it! Nothing wrong with sending a greeting a day or two early, but two weeks? Kind of rude and thoughtless to my way of thinking! So I wanted to call and give her a "fresh" greeting!
Dona and I have only seen each other during college breaks, and then on vacations when I would have her kids up here to visit, or have Heather spend the week with her age-match, Karissa; holidays; or visits with our mom and dad who were watching our two oldest sons, Sean and Chance, since 1969, when I went off to UCLA and became a sorority girl, living and working in Westwood. I came home quite a bit at first, but by the end of the first quarter, I had settled in with tons of new friends. Dona didn't graduate from Redlands High until 1972, choosing to attend San Diego State. By that time, I had left UCLA, despite being on the academic Dean's List repeatedly, for the "hippie" lifestyle in Colorado! Oh, the peyote and pot-laced "back to the earth" movement of the 70's, spawned from the original Haight-Ashbury flower children of 1960's San Francisco! What wasted years, and even fatal choices so many made.
But as the hippie movement faded, I believe the emptiness the young people felt led to their acceptance of Jesus Christ as Savior in such huge numbers that the Jesus Movement was born. I did not return to California until 1976, now married and with a son of my own. After that marriage ended and I finished my college degree in 1978, I went to work in the business world, outwardly little the worse for wear, but inwardly feeling the emptiness of the unsaved. Yet it would be two more years before this godless sinner went up to an altar call, accepted Christ. I never looked back! Steve and I met, married, and began a family which would increase by four siblings for Sean; all five are born-again believers.
Meanwhile, my sister had been struggling as a single mother while finishing her A.A., and then her B.A. on her own, with real determination. She married and divorced, and now had four children.Today she is single, quite contentedly so, and has a career as a social worker. Her four children have professed Christ as well. Dona has a ball with her grandkids, as I do with mine.
Jesus asked in Mark 3:33, " 'Who is My mother, or My brothers?' and he looked around in a circle of those who sat about Him, and said, 'Here are My mother and My brothers! For whoever does the will of God is My brother and My sister and My mother.' "
Was Jesus dissing family relationships? Of course not! We love our siblings and parents, and miss them terribly when they move or pass away. But Jesus is making a statement of an even closer relationship than blood ties: the relationship we have with Him, when we are born again and indwelt by the Holy Spirit. He lives within His people,in the hearts, souls and minds of Christians! "There is a friend who sticks closer than a brother," Proverbs 18:24 says.
That Friend is Jesus ! Come to Him today for a love such as you have never known. Only then will you be able to truly love your physical family with the love they need--the love of God!
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