Who Belongs to Your Family?

Carlina White was just three weeks old when she was abducted from a hospital in Harlem. Her parents took her to the hospital because they were concerned about her high fever. They were met by a very concerned nurse and assured that everything would be fine. However, the nurse and the baby disappeared. That was twenty-three years ago.

Having grown up as Nejdra Nance, the young woman became suspicious about her identity when she was about sixteen years old and realized she looked nothing like her mother. She was finally told a story about her birth mother being unable to raise her because of a serious drug problem. However, the true story has finally come out after more than two decades. Ann Pettway, the nurse who kidnapped and raised the baby, has been arrested by the FBI and Carlina has been reunited with her birth family.

The more you read and think about this story, the bigger mess it becomes. I don’t know how this young woman can keep from having some kind of identity crisis. Who will she relate to as her mother? The woman who gave birth or the woman who raised her? Remember, the woman who raised her also kidnapped and held her hostage away from her family for twenty-three years. What about her father? Her birth father is no longer around having been divorced from her birth mother. What about siblings, aunts, uncles, grandparents – all those other familial relationship we often experience. Who really belongs to Carlina White’s family?

In many ways, her experience is not unlike the everyday lives of folks all around us. It is very common for people to have multiple sets of parents created by divorce and remarriage or adoption. Some children live in two different homes with a set of siblings in each home. Extended families can include relatives from a variety of relationships. If you are going to map out a family tree, be prepared to have multiple branches shooting off in numerous directions.

On the same day that I read the story of Carlina White in the New York Times, I went to my parents’ house for a short visit. While there, they gave me a quilt they recently discovered tucked away in an old cedar chest. Although they were not sure how they came to have possession of the quilt, it was obvious where it came from. In the center square of the quilt was my great grandfather’s name along with the words "Macedonia Baptist Church" and the date 1906. Carefully stitched onto the quilt were dozens of other names, obviously members of the church in the early 1900’s. My great grandfather was the pastor of this little rural church located near Bolivar, Missouri.

I have a rich heritage of faith. My great grandfather was a preacher, my grandfather was a deacon, and my father is a preacher. One branch of my family tree runs through Billy Sunday the great American revivalist. I have been surrounded, nurtured, raised, and taught by a family of faith. This heritage has been a tremendous benefit to every aspect of my life and I am not hesitant to give credit to those who have blazed the trail of faith before me. I am who I am because of my family, all of my current and ancestral family.

Family is important! We not only receive our genetic makeup from our family, but also our values and opportunities. Each of us must still choose what to do with our situation, but it is obvious that some have great advantages because of their family. Again, I will say, family is important.

This should help us understand one of the great opportunities facing the church. People need family, perhaps more today than ever before, and as the church, we have the opportunity to be that family for them. Churches are strongest when they are built on relationships – with Christ and one another.

Last week I met with a leadership group of a local church and the discussion moved toward understanding why folks attend this particular church. We went around the room and asked each one why they continued to come to this church. The answer was the same – it was because of relationships. This was true for senior adult, longtime members of the church to young adults who were relatively new to the congregation. The thing that held them together was relationships.

It is possible to attract a crowd week after week by putting on a good show and providing entertaining distractions. However, in order to build a church, we must develop relationships. I have a family tree that is filled with strong branches of men and women who loved and served Jesus Christ. More importantly, I have a spiritual family tree made up of men and women over the centuries who have loved and served Jesus, and they continue to nurture my faith. I am so grateful that I have both of these family trees.

It is true that many folks like Carlina White have a very disjointed, dysfunctional family tree. Let us pray that they can be grated into a more important family, the one that claims Jesus as head of the household. Let us do more than pray, let us make the effort to establish the relationships that can attract them to this spiritual family. That is a crucial work of the church

 

Comments

[Tim B]

Well said.