We Are Family

To continue on with my thought from my last post, I would like to dig deeper on the idea that there are a multitude of reflections to be found in the connection of relationships. My trip to Spain was a nice break from the everyday, but for me, it also unravelled some much needed understanding of what family is. 

My family in Canada is small and disconnected. This has contributed to much of my own disconnection within myself. I have always felt a need for a deeper connection to people than what it was, but I never really understood why. 

I have a longing to be connected with people on a more intimate level. Being in healthcare, and working as a nurse, has helped me a lot to fill that void I have, but I see now that there was still more intimacy that I needed to learn.

In my last post, I talked about the reflection of discovering love through relationships. Since that post, I have been thinking a bit more into this thought. I see that understanding love starts with an individual relationship with God, and then between man and woman, and then between Jew and Gentile.

Now that I have this idea, there is a lot to unwrap within it. For me, it is easy to read a book, but I believe it is better to live it. I believe God wants us to learn by experience.  God is active. He has given us instruction all these years, but we have had a hard time trying to relate to what He is saying and understand what is the purpose of it all. 

There are a lot of complexities within our own individual relationship with trying to know God. All our relationships help us identify to the bigger picture of God. What I have learned mostly from my trip to Spain is that my deep-seated history on my father’s side, along with a small family that I never understood, makes up a part of who I am. I see, with my experience to Spain that although I didn’t know it, I inherently identified to it. I found, I identified with this piece of me that is Spanish, however, my relationship with it has always been superficial. I never really knew it until now, by actually going to places, learning the history and spending time with my family and the people.

The bigger point that I would like to make is that I see now how important family is. It is the part of us that we must also know in order to understand a bigger part of ourselves because family is intimate. It teaches us who we are through challenges in the diversities, and through the complexities of our own family dynamics. 

Therefore, from our marriages, to our children, with our parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins are differences that through the course of life, we are trying to all get along in them, through the good and bad, for better for worse; family is family.  We are aware that we are family and the importance of respecting one another to keep the integrity of our families together, and, thereby, understanding the love that we have for one another despite the challenges life brings. 

It is another way God is teaching us the deeper idea of what love is. It may seem simple to you, but seriously, this just became real to me!

Now, I see that God is even bigger than that original thought because what was even more obvious to me before, is that we are all part of one another, this idea of family and respecting one another should not change with any connection we have. We are all interconnected. Every connection that happens, God has divinely connected us to. There is a reason for it; therefore, we should recognize it and understand the importance to be loving and caring to everyone ~ In the end, we are all One and are all family.