A Blended Family

Mixed marriages

The annual Thanksgiving Eve service at my church will be starting soon. I’m volunteering in the Children’s Department. Most of the kids are attending the service with their parents, but the pastor wanted to offer birth-to-fifth-grade child-care for those who prefer it.

As a retired teacher, I miss being around these young ones. I don’t even know most of the children in my own church. That’s why I’m here. To get a dose of kid-time and maybe build some new relationships (as well as lending a helping hand, of course).

The first two people walk up to the sign-in desk. White mother. Asian child, nine years old, named Molly. The last name sounds Chinese. Cool. A mixed marriage. In these days of racial division and strife, mixed marriages remind me that peace can prevail, at least within one family.

The next group arrives. White mother. Eight-year-old African-American girl named Connie. Two-year-old blond girl named Cherry. Another interracial family. This is what the church should be. A place where people with different skin colors can have intimate relationships.

Confusion

We’re meeting in the gym so the children can have some play time before we start more structured activities. With a bouncy ball and plenty of space, the kids spontaneously begin a game, making up the rules as they go along. The older children adapt to the limited skills of the younger ones when their turns come up. I smile at the close connection between Connie and Cherry, as they talk and laugh and hug each other, even in the middle of the game.

Eventually, Molly looks at them with a puzzled expression, seeing their special relationship. She asks how they know each other. “We’re sisters!” they both exclaim with pride and joy (and another hug).

“But. . . but. . .,” Molly stammers, glancing back and forth at the two of them, then looking around as if it should be obvious to everyone that they couldn’t possibly have the same parents. No response from anyone else. A close scrutiny of their name tags, then a triumphant expression. “But you have different last names!”

All three girls look puzzled now. Connie and Cherry honestly don’t understand what the problem is. I hesitate for a minute, allowing the girls a chance to sort it out among themselves. But they remain silent, so I ask, “You have the same mother but different fathers, right?” They nod. The game begins again.

Heaven and the first Thanksgiving

I love this living illustration of the holiday we’ll be celebrating tomorrow. As we chow down on our turkey and stuffing and sweet potatoes and pumpkin pie, the most basic reason for our rejoicing tends to get lost—the coming together of two different races, with two very different sets of life experiences, to share a meal in peace and harmony.

My thoughts also turn to heaven. I smile as I realize that in the next world no one will see two girls who look so different on the outside and wonder how they could possibly belong to the same family. It will be more like those two girls themselves—unable to understand why anyone would question their relationship.

The blood of all the races and ethnic groups will be blended together in one Father and His children. We’ll be so intimately united that we’ll understand each other perfectly and love each other perfectly. Nothing as superficial as skin color, and nothing as deep as vastly different life experiences, will ever separate us again.

And yet we’ll each retain our own unique identity. When Jesus was confronted with the question of life after death, His response was that God is the God of the living, not the dead, specifically naming Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Matthew 22:32). He implied that the three of them are still living their own individual yet transformed lives in another realm.

Revelation 7:9 says, “After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb.” It sounds like there will still be some distinguishable differences among members of different nations, tribes, peoples, and languages even in heaven. I’m not sure exactly what that will look like, but the Bible is full of hints that we’ll each retain our own unique identity there, in perfect harmony with a wide variety of equally unique brothers and sisters.

We don’t handle our differences very well in this life. I need to remember to pray more often, “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” in regard to race relations in my country. But sometimes, such as when I look at these two families within my church or when I see children of mixed ethnic and racial backgrounds playing together happily, I get a glimpse of the life to come, with its perfect blend of unity and diversity. The same glimpse that was clearly visible on that first Thanksgiving.