A Prayer for My Family
As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.
— Joshua 24:15
A family is not a simple thing, no matter what the photographs suggest. The photographs show everybody smiling on the same day, in the same direction, in clean clothes. They don't show the phone calls that almost didn't happen, or the one who isn't in the frame because they couldn't make it, or chose not to. They don't show the distance that grew up between two people who used to be close, or the conversation nobody wants to have, or the love that's still there underneath all of it — stubborn, quiet, refusing to go away. A family is all of that. And praying for them means praying for the whole complicated truth of them, not the Christmas-card version.
Lord, you know my family. You know us better than we know each other.
You know the ones who are close and the ones who've drifted. The ones who are hurting and won't say so. The ones carrying more than they should. The ones I worry about at three in the morning and the ones I should worry about but don't because they've learned to hide it.
Hold them. All of them. The ones under my roof and the ones beyond it.
Where there is distance, close it — or give us the grace to love across it.
Where there is silence, let it not be the last word.
Where there is hurt, begin the healing — even if it starts so small nobody notices but you.
Keep us. Keep us together, or keep us kind when togetherness isn't possible right now.
Amen.
Joshua said it as a declaration — as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. I've always loved the confidence of it. But what I love more is that he said it to a room full of people who were about to scatter in twelve different directions and make twelve different choices, some of them good and some of them disastrous. He said it knowing full well that the house would not stay neat. Families don't. But the declaration stands: this is what we aim for, even when we miss. And the praying is part of the aiming.
For the family you carry in your heart — near and far. Ruby writes a short devotional every morning for the same kind of love and worry. You can subscribe — it's free, or stay a while and read more of her writing.
Ruby has written about family many mornings. These might be close to where you are: