“The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other’s life.” (Richard Bach)

On September 25, 1999, with great joy, Pam and I—with our sons beside us—entered into a covenant with each other and in doing so, gave birth to a family. Now 20 years old, that family continues to blossom and thrive.

We didn’t get here by luck or without a great deal of pain through the years. We got here because we kept our vows—our pledge to unconditionally love each other and each other’s sons who would become as our own. Because we kept our promises to always love, support and seek the very best for each other and our children. Because we upheld our covenant to stand by each other—in sickness and health, through pain and joy, in the difficult times and the best of times too. We stay here because our children, too, hold fast to the covenant that made them brothers. Now grown men, they live out these covenants with us—two of their parents; with the women they have entered into covenants with; within the families they are creating. Our family endures all these years later because of love—a selfless, diligent, unwavering love that forgives, empowers, and endures.

The kind of love that never, ever fails.

You see, family is no more limited to those with whom you share DNA than a covenant is restricted by a government’s sanction of it.

A family is bound together with love.

It flourishes in an environment of Grace and respect.

It is strengthened through trials, burnished with laughter, deepened amid fellowship.

And, if it is true, it emerges as the very embodiment of the hopes you prayed would be realized when your vows spoke it into existence.

This day will always remain one of the most special and important markers of my own life. I am who I am today because of the love this family holds for me. And we all of us are finding our way—still growing, still learning, still loving one another, ever expanding the boundaries of the family formed that day.

How very grateful I am for such love.

Previous:
The Star of my Heart