Family is a verb

Ann Voskamp notes at A Holy Experience that

Every day that you do the hard things that you don’t want to do — you’re building the family you always wanted to have. 


In Ann's case it was

The 13 years straight of diapers. The 21 years of trying to figure out what we were having for dinner. All those boys with their legos and handmade bow and arrows and mud through the house and teasing hard of sisters that drove me stark crazy raving mad. Parents give, and give, and give more, and still give more than they ever dreamed — and end up getting back more than they ever dreamed.

That’s what family means: People love you & keep on holding on to you especially when you’re not loveable. 


One of the most destructive attitudes in society today is that family is a noun … and not a verb.

Family is a verb. Family is an action.

And we aren’t merely born into families, families are born out of our reaching out and holding on and serving anyways and giving always. Giving always.

It’s not only the blood in our veins that make us family — it’s the blood and sacrifice in our days that makes us a family.

My closest kin is my husband — and we don’t share a drop of blood — but we share our souls… by breaking off bits of ourselves and sacrificially giving to each other. Our sharing and giving and serving has been the making of a family.

Mother and Father may grammatically be nouns — but theologically they are verbs.
We mother and father and parent, we become by what we do, sit down with the kids to read stories instead of scrolling through Facebook updates, hang out the laundry instead of hang out at resorts, clean out the fridge, bite our tongues and bite the bullet and go the extra mile and we become, playing ball in our bare feet on the lawn with the kids till the sun sinks down.

Family is a verb. Family is not just what we are, it’s something that we actively keep on making.

With every phone call…. with every trip to the grocery store and filling up the minivan with gas, with every filling up of the washing machine, with every putting the other ahead of you, so that you can put regrets behind you.

Every time we make time for each other, we make family.