During our lives we consider families to be anyone who is blood relation to be our family. But what is a family? It may be friends that we have known since our grade school or high school years. We share our celebrations and our sorrows with them. Our health concerns. Our spiritual and material longings. Children. Grandchildren. Caring for each other in big and small ways. 
“For this reason, I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name…” Ephesians 3:14-15
We have blood relations who grow older and change decades. We look through old pictures and laugh at hairstyles and glasses that date us in decades of change and life. 
We visit with people we knew as children. We were friends with their children and we all live in different states. Our parent’s have friends our age that we do not know. 
We share meals in new enchanting locations by rivers that flow as old as time: the Wabash and White rivers in Indiana and Illinois. 
We support each other in our endeavors. We go to hear gospel and clap along with cousins- by- marriage in a gospel quartet the Conquerors.
We connect together in families – even when we are not a traditional family. What makes a family? Shared memories and making new ones together with people – blood relations or not.
Happy Thanksgiving! Make some memories!