Our Family

Our Family

I recently added an updated photo of the Guire family to my blog. It took me hours of fidgeting (in my seat because I am technologically challenged). Sizing. Re-sizing.  Fading. Unfading. Loading. Unloading.

Our family photo makes the idea of a banner photo a joke. We are not a a banner. We are a life size poster.

After haggling with myself, the computer and begging God for help, I rested. I decided to leave it big, bold and colorful, taking up half my blog page because that’s how we are.

Big. Bold. Blessed. Beautiful. 

And, we are not a soap opera, tv drama or a reality show.

We are a family that God personally knit together through marriage, birth, adoption, marriage and birth again.

Our Family Photo circa 2011 minus Jerry and me

Building families is a lifetime commitment. Just ask God.  When God called Abram to be the father of many nations (Gen. 17:4), He made a covenant with Abram. He promised descendants that number the stars. That family photo would take up more than the banner on a blog. God kept His promise. Abraham, after a name change, had a son, Isaac.  There is more to the story, the Ishmael saga, a son through adultery.  That made for some messy family photos. First, we have the lovely family photo of Sarah, Abraham and baby Isaac with Ishmael photo-bombing in the background.  But wait. Read on.  

“Abraham took another wife, and her name was Keturah.

And she bore him Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak, and Shuah.” -Genesis 24: 1,2

The next family photo is crowded with a new wife (Sarah has gone on to glory) and a handful of new children. A man almost one hundred years old has a son. That’s a miracle. That man became the father of  many nations. He had a quiver full of children in his old age. His descendants number the stars. Wow!  

Mother, Father, Sister, Brother, don’t discount what your family is. What it can be. What an influence you are in your own home. Right now, you are planting seeds that God can water. If you are broken through divorce or adultery, God can restore. If you are childless, He can give you an Abraham sized miracle. He can grow your family. He may open your womb or open your heart to adoption. He may call you to raise spiritual children on plain in Africa or a crowded run down street in your own home town.

Your family photo may have all the colors of the rainbow.

Your family photo should grow.

Trust God to do the growing.

Start with what God has given you.

What has He set before you?

Long before my over-sized family photo, it was just Jerry and me.

We started with a covenant.

We had dreams and visions.

Those became a family.