"I love you"

"A flaming I love you"
CC BY Nicholas. Source: Flickr

I was at a family birthday this week, and my departure was typical of every time I leave: we kept talking after coat and shoes were on... everyone hugged... and everyone said "I love you."

It may seem like a simple thing, but for me it's a powerful reality.

This is my 'chosen family' - I don't share DNA with them, but we choose to journey together as though we do. And that means the world to me. We've been through good times and bad, laughter and tears, and many, many prayers. It's a combination of the ordinary and the extraordinary.

It's what a family should be. And I never take it for granted.

So today was a day of eating cupcakes and washing dishes, of joyously unwrapping gifts and piñatas refusing to break, of making plans for next time and of saying "I love you."

It's family.

And it transcends beyond our normal definitions of family: whether our biological grouping, or our chosen groupings, or our churches. To be family is to be included and wanted throughout the ordinary.

So our family of God, our church, should be just that: ordinary. Ordinary people, ordinary experiences, ordinary opportunities to love.

And in that ordinary, to find the extraordinary reality of God.

And then to appreciate it - and the ones who helped us see it - by declaring boldly that we recognise the love we're involved in.

May we all have the courage to see and say how much we love our beloved in the family of God.