Chardon United Methodist Church

When we forget, May comes like a string tied around our finger to remind us : family is the cradle of life.  It is where life comes to be and is nurtured; it is where passages toward maturity - like birth, baptism, confirmation, and graduation - are marked and celebrated.  Family is God’s gift that holds us together in the present, links us with our past, and is our anchor in a future which is always tugging at us, always pulling us forward into unknown places.

In this place where our lives are cradled together in Christ, we celebrate the gift of family throughout May and June.  Whether it be Christian marriage, the Festival of the Christian Home (aka “Mother’s Day”), Confirmation on Pentecost (May 31), or “Senior Recognition Day” (June 7), each special occasion becomes a ‘family’ day, a day on which we can all remember that we can all be ‘family’ - even a Christian one at that!  - - whether or not we are mothers, fathers, confirmands, or graduates.

How?  Let an old native-American love song teach us : “Peace that shines warm and bright, hope’s everlasting light, life to live full and free, love meant for you and me … in our time … in our time.”

It has been and is ‘in our time.’  God’s love, the source of all peace, hope, life, and freedom is what has birthed us and created us to be family together in this time, in the church and in the home.  The challenge is to make sure our love in our own families - in the church and in the home - is in our time.  Then family is not a thing remembered, marked on a calendar, but it becomes a gift created in the power of love, a real festival of celebration every day, every week and month, every moment through God’s grace.

Grace and peace,  Henry