When I think of a parent's love I cannot fail to think of gardening. To me it is a most direct example of how one being can influence the survival of another. To plant, cultivate, fertilize, feed, water, prune and train the growth of plants is a direct expression of God's relationship with us. Some plants can take off on their own and survive with very little human intervention in an ideal environment, but how often does a seed fall into its ideal environment? There is always a lack of some essential nutrient or a scarcity of water from time to time; there are always other plants that compete with it for space, nutriment, light and air; and there are always outside forces such as animals, humans, fire, and machinery that threaten to crush out its life, whether by accident, necessity or simple malice. The loving care of a gardener can make a world of difference to the life of a plant. So it is with the loving care of a parent for a child. A human child, even more than a plant, depends for its very survival upon the adults that surround it. To be sure, any alert adult can provide for the needs of any child, but to have the best result that care must be given with love, and not just the indifferent compassion of a professional caregiver but the personal love of a parent. Any child can tell the difference. Children need to know that their parents have their welfare at the center of their universe. A parent is the center of the universe for a child, and the child is the center of the parent's universe as well. They are two bodies orbiting each other in perpetual symbiosis. They feed each other's needs in a never-ending cycle of love.

That is the ideal environment, the ideal relationship. By design or circumstance sometimes this relationship is disrupted. Sometimes relationships outside of the bounds of blood and birth are formed that have the potential to be equally as fulfilling. This is up to the participants. Not every family relationship on this Earth plane is formed by blood and birth. I believe this is by design. You and your family chose each other. You are learning from each other and teaching each other and forming bonds of love that transcend blood and birth. What a beautiful expression of God's truth! Lots of people limit themselves to their birth families, suspicious of outsiders and reluctant to share their love with others. Those that can break out of the mold of society's expectations and limits can forge new and marvelous bonds of love and interdependence with people outside their natural family unit on the basis of true Christlike love. After all we are all one family, since we are all One, part and parcel of the Source that engendered us. God bless you and your chosen family as you negotiate this life-journey together.