Today’s scripture: Acts 7:28 (NRSV) (The Message) (KJV) What might God be saying to me?
My thoughts (Melody Merida):
I grew up in a wonderful family. I loved my parents who did their very best for my three siblings and me. My sister and I were close, and I tolerated my two brothers (like most sisters do). We lived an average, uber-religious, white, middle-class life in a small town.
Yet, despite all of this, I often felt like an outsider. Something was different about me, but I didn’t know what. I remember times when I would participate in activities with my family, yet I still had the feeling that I was watching it from the outside, not really connected to them in any way.
Once my siblings and I got older, went away to school, got jobs, and began our own independent lives, I started to become more of myself — the self I was created to be. It was during those young adult years in my early twenties that I realized why I had felt so different from the rest of my fundamentalist family members. When I came to terms with my sexuality, I remember feeling relieved that I had finally figured out why I had that nagging feeling that I didn’t fit with the rest of my family.
Years later, after having come out to my family to their extreme disappointment, I was having a conversation with my sister wherein she was telling me how she was not looking forward to becoming the black sheep of the family with her recent filing for divorce. I looked at her and said, “Elizabeth, your divorce will never trump me being gay. You could have two or three divorces, and I’ll still always be the black sheep of the family.” She laughed and confessed that, of course, I was right. It was funny to both of us at the time, but the reality of that conversation really isn’t funny.
But fortunately for me, I was able to make a family of my own where no one will ever need to think of themselves as the outsider. The life that I’ve been so blessed to build with my wife and our son provides all three of us with the comforting knowledge that we are all in this life together, come hell or high water; we belong to each other.
Just the other day my son asked me if all families have a mommy and a momma. I told him that there are lots of different types of families: some with two daddies, some with a mom and a dad, some with just a mom or just a dad. I asked him how it felt knowing that some families did not have a mommy and a momma and he said, “Sad.” I asked him why it made him sad, and he said, “All families want a mommy and a momma.” In other words, he was so happy in his little family that he thought all kids should be so lucky. I told him that all families should have a Brody so they could be as lucky as mommy and momma. And Brody responded, “No, I am only in this family with mommy and momma.” Ah, what a feeling of belonging!
I know, without a doubt, that I am so blessed to have this family of belonging. But I don’t just get it from my family of choice. I already had it with God. The older I’ve gotten, the more sure I have become of my place in the family of God. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt like an outsider in God’s family. In fact, the more I think about my place with God, the more I feel like Brody feels about his two moms: sad that not everyone is aware of belonging with God.
For every one of us who has felt like an outsider, like the black sheep of the family, like we didn’t belong, God has always been calling us, hoping that we realize that we are a part of the divine family of choice. We all belong to that family; God is the one in whom we live and move and have our being.
Thought for the day: Today, I am so thankful for both my family of origin, in all its complications and complexities, and for my family of choice. May none of us ever feel like the outsider again!
We encourage you to include a time of prayer with this reading. If you need a place to get started, consider the suggestions on the How to Pray page.