Family Trees

My mom loves genealogy. Researching my ancestors, finding how certain people connect in the familial lines, becoming reacquainted with family with whom we have lost touch...it's my mom's passion. Just get her talking about it.

*She'll tell you about the coal mining descendants we have (chalk that up to our Pennsylvania heritage)
*She will talk about the relative who seems to just disappear from records

And should a death certificate she requested come in the mail, Mom will get all excited. No joke =)

Family trees are a part of me, a part of all of us. We become a part of one when we are born. Then, when we marry, we become a part of another yet we make our own new one at the same time. There is that saying "you can choose your friends but you can't choose your family." Well, it is accurate. Our genealogy can be filled with all sorts of people (like apparently on my dad's side we have a member of the Mob.....but that's a story for another time.). It's these people with whom we share DNA. (That is why I am so petite; it runs in the family =P)

But today, it is Jesus's family tree that stood out to me.
It does every time I read Matthew chapter 1. It's easy to believe and assume that Jesus's family tree has saints and perfect people in it. After all, He is the Savior of the world; He deserves perfection. Yet I read it. I don't see perfection.
*Tamar--who slept with her father-in-law
*Rahab--a prostitute
*Ruth--a Moabite
*Bathsheba--slept with King David while her husband was away at war
*Mary--a teenager whom God called to be an unwed mother, the mother of Jesus

These women are not perfect
In fact, they are messed up. Their lives are not perfect; their scenarios are not ideal. But God still used them anyway. He called them anyway. If one of them was not a part of his heritage, the family tree would be altered. And I believe the impact of an important lesson would be lost.

God takes broken people and uses them mightily for His glory. He can make beauty from ashes. He can change even the most broken of individuals. The Lord does not care so much about where we have been....but rather, where we want to be.

The same is true of me
I am a sinful human being. I might not be a prostitute or commit other such sins. But I make my own mistakes. Mistakes that are just as deadly and wrong. I doubt His power , His ability to make things come to pass. I struggle with jealousy. I don't always use my words in a way that builds people up. I fail every day.

I'm not worthy to have been chosen by the Lord as His daughter. I do not deserve the blessings He bestows time and again upon His children. I deserve ruin....yet instead, Christ has redeemed me. He has given me a lineage to be proud of. I am HIS.

My family tree is not one of perfection either. My grandparents and great grandparents have all made their own share of mistakes. But that is okay. It makes me who I am.

It is a part of my story

It is with a thankful heart that I head into Advent season. I serve a God who has some "black sheep in the family"--who ordained that His SON come to the humblest of people. But that is the beauty of the story. All can be used.....

Thanks be to God for His redeeming grace. Who does not leave us where we are. Soli Deo Gloria!