A Family

A family is a mobile strung together with invisible threads --- delicate, easily broken at first, growing stronger through the years, in danger of being worn thin at times, but strengthened again with special care.

A family --- blended, balanced, growing, changing, never static, moving with a breath of wind --- babies, children, young people, mothers, fathers, grandparents, aunts, uncles --- held in a balanced framework by the invisible threads of love, memories, trust, loyalty, compassion, kindness, in honor preferring each other, depending on each other, looking to each other for help, giving each other help, picking each other up, suffering long with each other's faults, understanding each other more and more, hoping all things, enduring all things, never failing! Continuity!

Thin, invisible threads turning into thin, invisible metal which holds great weights but gives freedom of movement --- a family! Knowing always that if a thread wears thin and sags, there is help to be had from the Expert --- the Father --- "Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named."

--What is a Family?, Edith Schaeffer