I attended a family reunion a couple of weeks back. It was great.

I saw cousins that I have not seen in years, and others I have seen only at funerals. To be able to visit around the table some place other than the funeral home was a great thing.

Have I told you about my family? There are lots of us. Mom had nine brothers and sisters. Granny had 29 grandchildren. No, that’s not a misprint.

Needless to say, she didn’t give all of us bicycles for Christmas.

Granny lived in a mobile home on my parents’ property. Because of that I saw my cousins often when they would come to visit her.

We had some great times. I lived on a small farm of about 10 acres, with a creek running through it. At various times we had a horse and then I got a small dirt bike. There were so many places to explore, and it was always better together.

But some of my fondest memories were made on the dirt basketball court. Six of us played high school basketball, and six others were athletes.

To say that we were competitive doesn’t even begin to explain it. We didn’t treat each other with much brotherly love.

I don’t remember any fistfights, but the battles for loose balls resulted in lots of skinned knees and elbows, and even the occasional loose tooth.

At the end of the day, though, we were family. We loved each other, and woe be unto anyone to threaten one of us. We had each other’s backs.

Someone joked that we should find a court and play again soon. But then we started adding up the artificial knees, and once that number reached double figures we decided that talking about the games made more sense.

I’m grateful to God that he created the family. He made it for our benefit. And more than that, I am thankful he has invited us to be a part of his family.

Let’s be careful to thank him for all he has done for us.