Kindred Folk



Family tree dating back to 1600.

Portrait of our Lord watches over a family photo (circa 1976).



We are eight families flung far and wide across the continent. Logistics turns into years stretched between reunions.  Brought together by no small evidence of God’s will; what follows is the heart’s gratitude for that gift [# 514-519].

I seek the memories of those few days as a child seeks its security blanket. With eyes closed the images replay in my mind in complete five senses detail.

Voices that resonate deep in stored memory are recognized instantly. Their individual timber wash over hearing and heart resulting in the knowledge that I’m among my own, as in, I’m home. 

The faces, a gesture, or a gait of movement originating in one generation repeated in the next; recalls affectionate familiarity. Yes, I know you well.

Hands, though aged since last we touched, are still uniquely marked. One of you has the little finger missing a nail that was caught in a door long, long ago.  Another bears the thumb carrying old wounds of a cold winter day. Our patriarch, his hands are ever the memory of strength

A brother’s child has a silhouette much like my daughter’s.  A grandchild is very much her grandmother’s youthful image.

Every perception triggers genetic energy that calls out to kindred folk. My soul opens, reaches out to absorb the fruit of that energy. It strengthens me; repairs feelings of being fractured from my roots.  These hours are precious in healing properties. I pray that it has been so for each of my dear ones.

It is certain that God our father loves us in the same way that we pour love into our earthly families. He scours our beings for indications that we are His own. He revels in the growing likeness between His nature and our character.  He imparts healing during those precious, prayerful times spent together.

“Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.” ~ 1 John 3:2