If Families Were Foods

If families were foods, mine would be a sloppy joe sandwich. A little bit weird, crazy, and messy, but still fun. With seven kids, we’re comparable in size to the Waltons, but definitely lacking their quaintness. Think Full House meets Curious George and you’ll find not my family, but maybe something vaguely similar. As kids we definitely kept my mom on her toes, and I’m sure if she had made a batch of cookies for every time we did or said something awkward, embarrassing, hilarious, or just plain weird, Betty Crocker would have run out of town with her pants down at her ankles (that is, if Betty wears pants). 

Like that time we were at church and, during the invocation, the unthinkable happened—someone let one loose, and it must have smelled pretty rank because my brother, honest toe-head that he is, whispered (loudly) to my mom, “Mommy, what’s that smell?”

“Shhh! Be quiet,” She whispered back, desperately hoping no one had heard his inquiry about the deadly fog filling the air. 

“But it smells really bad!” He hoarsed back. Leave it to the toddler to say it like it is. No doubt the angels were covering their noses as well.

Or there was that time our family attended a wedding and my sister decided to play NewYork Fashion Week commentator. During the reception, she asked my mom if she “liked the fat lady’s hair-do.” My mom thought if she ignored my sister no one would notice this mortifying faux pas that was worthy of societal excommunication, so she didn’t say anything.

As Murphy’s Law would have it though, my sister figured my mom had legitimately not heard her, so she spoke up with blood-curdling clarity from what seem to be the lungs of Scottish bagpipe player, “Mom, I said, ‘Do you like the fat lady’s hair-do?’” My mom’s face was probably as red as a freshly painted firetruck in a tomato patch. She also probably thought of calling the mortician. Yes, hello, Mr. Gravedigger? I know we said we’d meet up in seventy years, but I think I’m ready—like, now.

Yup, sloppy joes.

In the line up of the seven, I am number five. And, as one of last beans in the burrito, I definitely got my share of teasing from my older siblings, though admittedly I brought most of it upon myself. 

When we were young, my little sister and I shared a massive bedroom just down the hall from my parents. It might not have actually boasted that much square footage, but in my seven-year-old mind, it was huge. It also had a closet, and inside the closet was a crawlspace my mom used as a storage unit. I enjoyed rifling through the boxes and looking at the old baby clothes and toys. But what I didn’t like was turning on the lights. You see, the crawlspace was long and skinny, with an orphan lightbulb at each end and a sea of ombre darkness in between. It was so black, I’m sure all the villains of Disney would have had tea parties there if they’d known it existed. 

One of my older sisters must have known this fear of the crawlspace was my achilles heels (one of many). So she pulled me aside one day, looked into my brown eyes that seemed to take up most of my face, and told me in guttural, troll-like tones that my crawlspace was the gateway to hell. Cue the horror film soundtrack. I don’t think I actually fully believed her, but I do remember that I went downstairs and informed my parents, who were visiting with friends from church, of this theological inaccuracy. But all I gained from my whistle blowing was laughter from the adults. Oh well.

Sloppy joes are also messy, and when you have nine people living under one roof, things are bound to get a little crazy. But my parents could always count on me to come up with innovative ways to stay organized. I remember one time my sister and I were having fun in our room and we’d pulled out nearly all the toys we owned, strewing them across the floor like they were the leaves of autumn. As fate would have it, my dad came through our door during this Toys R Us fest and saw our mess of childish wonder; he was less than thrilled. After surveying the wreckage, he said something about how he couldn’t even walk in our room and then left.

So—ingenious problem solver that I am—I decided I would fix the issue by parting the waters and pushing my toys to each side of the room, thus creating a path so that you could actually walk through my room. 

After implementing my strategy with the enthusiasm that comes from knowing you have a brilliant idea, I pulled my father by the hand back into my room, like a tug boat towing a steamer to the open ocean. “Look, Dad. Now you can walk,” I explained, as thought it were the greatest thing to happen since sliced bread. You’d think I was Moses and had just parted the Red Sea. The only problem was that Dad didn’t mirror my enthusiasm for this new method of organization. Thus my promising career as the future host of Hoarders took off with about the same success as the time I tried to use a grocery bag as a parachute. Fail. 

I could probably go on for a while with different stories about how my sister gave my mom a cup of oil to drink as a joke when she was pregnant or how I used to put my jeans on with my legs folded in half and walk around like they had been amputated (no offense to any double amputees) or the time I put my brother in a cardboard barrel and rolled him down a hill or the time my sister got chased around the house by our demon-possessed rooster. But this is a blog post, not a book. I just wanted to give you a tiny peek into some of our memories. We’re definitely not a cucumber finger sandwich family, a filet mignon family, or even gluten-free Nutella and pumpkin spice cheesecake family. Our crazy definitely shows and we haven’t managed to tuck it back in. 

But as I’ve grown older, I see that every family has its own messiness, even God’s family. Just peruse a few pages of Scripture and you see the sloppiness spilling off the pages. Between Abraham and Lot, David and Basheba, Peter and Judas, things get a little hairy, and the authors of the Bible don’t gloss over this stuff in any way. A soap opera this is not. It’s the real deal. 

But what I love is that through all this messy sin stuff, God’s faithfulness shines through big time, veneering each story of selfishness and disobedience, rebellion and pride—things much worse than the silly childish antics I’ve described. Sometimes I get bogged down when I look at myself or others and see selfish motives, impure thoughts, and unkind words popping up all over the place, like pimples on a teenager’s face as my brother-in-law would say. We’re so far from where we’re supposed to be. But when I look at what God was able to do through the brittle, stony hearts that fill each page of the Bible, I’m encouraged. Because if He can do that in them, He can do it in me. He can do it in us. He can do it in this church. As you enjoy the Sabbath, I encourage you to rest in this glorious hope of redemption through God’s faithfulness.

Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful, who also will do it. —1 Thessalonians 5:23, 24 NKJV