The Funny Thing About Spiritual Family is.....

You know, while I was at Milestone, I was constantly hearing about "spiritual family." We were constantly talking about the concept and were even told how our destinies were tied up with our "spiritual family." It was clearly a BIG concept.

And, coming from a disjointed family, I bought into it completely.

It really struck me, however, how the same people who were preaching "spiritual family" right and left at us had a strange reaction to our leaving.

They would say strange things like, "Well, you just need to forgive and move on." This seemed to be the repeated theme.

The general idea seemed to be, "Come on, Cathy, when are you going to 'get over' all of this?"

And it just occurred to me yesterday that you wouldn't dare ask this question of someone who had been booted out of their natural family.

Indeed, we wouldn't really expect anyone to "get over" something like that.

And that's when I realized that no matter how much talk goes on about spiritual family, it's a bunch of hooey. And the leadership knows that. Those are just words to rally people around the camp fire and get them all riled up about growing the church. They don't mean anything. They don't carry any real weight or substance. They're just a facade... an illusion.

You see, I believed that this was my spiritual family - but they didn't. Not really.

My true spiritual family are those who stand beside me, go to bat for me, fight for me, support me, hold my hand, cry with me, and in general believe what I say and take issue with those who have hurt me.

And I can just about count those people on one hand. And I praise God for them. They are jewels and treasures and shining stars in my life. Thank God for REAL spiritual family!