An extendable family

We go through the week, a family of four.
Then the flip happens—we now have six.

We wonder at our family identity. Who belongs here? How do we process when there is constant change.

We look ahead to the future and there isn’t an end in sight of the back and forth.

Homeschooling days ahead of us, overnight visits here instead of there.

We will take trips—sometimes four, sometimes six.

We feel a bit of a need to find ourselves amidst it, but do we really
We both grew up in families that extended.

For him, there was nearly always someone living in the spare room—a family in the basement. They extended to include them, not knowing for how long.

For me it was the same.

The brother from Germany who visits us often.
The single mother and her daughter that are as close to blood related as possible to this day.
The missionary daughter from Romania who shared my room for several summers.

We often found ourselves puzzled.
This is our family. But also this is our family. Which number was the more accurate? We still don’t know.

And perhaps that’s what every Christian family ought to look like.

This core group, with the ability to extend.

I still recall the conversation my mom once shared with me. How she asked the two German siblings that had spent many months in our home, what finally convinced them to give their lives to Jesus.

“What was it that had such an impact?”

Their reply?
“It was the tone of voice your husband used when talking with you. It was the prayer before each meal. It was the small daily moments of living the Gospel way.”

We best transform the world when we live willing to add extensions to our home and family.
Regardless of the mess they may bring.

Not just occasional visitors, but welcoming in those who have no other hope outside of someone adopting them in.

Not just for dinner on Friday night, but for every moment of the day—close enough to see the genuine version.

And sure, you will be burned, and others will laugh, and you risk reputation and mockery by those closest to you at times.

When the drug user runs away and leaves you with her two children and the mangy cat they called their own.

When there is no beauty in the ending and you are left questioning yourself.

But wouldn’t we all rather be left saying that we tried, instead of living too scared, too worried about the mess.

And I’m left to believe, my family's identity is the same as my own—fully His. And that isn’t dependent on the number.

I’m understanding more and more that a family is perhaps his favorite tool for reaching the lost.

It’s through a surrendered family that He perhaps best can welcome others into His great adopted family of souls that were all once lost and without a hope.

So we will live back and forth.
We will learn to extend whenever the opportunity is there.

When others ask how many, we will scratch our heads and wonder a bit at the right answer to a simple question.

We will live obedient to what we know we are called to and leave the results to the One who is all-knowing and never makes mistakes.