The Blessing of Family

I’m flying at 37,000 feet returning to Costa Rica from a weekend in Portland, Oregon to celebrate my birthday. It was an incredibly memorable event. A highlight took place over dinner on Saturday evening with Pam’s three sisters and their husbands.

Pam’s maiden name was Snow. Some of you will recall Dave and Carolyn Snow, my parents-in-law. Dave and Carolyn had four daughters: Deborah, Karen, Pamela and Paula. Deborah married Dave Pascoe. Karen married Tim Schmidt. I married Pam and Paula married Jim Johnson. All four of us couples have been married for several decades.

Saturday evening, we were feted with an extraordinary meal prepared largely by Tim. As a retired physician, Tim has morphed from healing the bodies of the sick to indulging the taste buds of the healthy. The meal was a gourmet’s delight! 

However, the delicious meal was merely hors d’oeuvres to what turned into the main course. It was the first time ever that all four couples sat alone around a table. In past decades invariably there were kids or continents that kept us apart. The night was unprecedented because all eight of us were together and we were alone.

About half way through the meal, the conversation drifted into deep water when Pam asked the men what marrying into the Snow family had meant to them.

Now, in full disclosure, all four husbands are fully aware that there are no perfect families, including the Snow family.

But Saturday evening, especially, we gushed about the profound ways that marrying into the Snow clan transformed us. If you can believe it, some of us even spoke with tears. We were welcomed. We were loved. We were encouraged. We were forgiven. We were folded into something bigger than ourselves that helped to fill in some of the empty spaces in our souls.

I was reminded, again, that families are never perfect. But just because a family may have an occasional wart does not diminish its incalculable value.

Dave, Tim, Jim and I have been supremely blessed. We know it and we thank God for it.

I know your family is not perfect. (Neither is mine.) But I hope one day you will still be able to sit around a table (like I did on Saturday night) and feast on the blessings you have received from your family…and not dwell on the negative.

Life is so much richer when we learn to view life, including our family, as a glass half-full, rather than a glass half-empty. I got a taste of that on Saturday evening. And it was delicious.