For the last couple of weeks, we’ve had the pleasure of a visit from cousin Jan. Our two families-of-origin began in the same Chicago neighborhood, but when Jan’s family moved to California, a 2000 mile gap separated us. The distance between Chicago and Los Angeles, however, didn’t pull us apart. Our four parents enthusiastically pursued time together, no small feat during the fifties and sixties. “Regular” people didn’t use airplanes without a good reason, like a wedding or funeral, but our folks decided togetherness was reason enough.

My first train ride was to California. First plane ride, too. As we visited repeatedly, our cousins’ west coast friends became our friends and vice versa. When we got older, our parents swapped children for chunks of time, which served to cement relationships further. We viewed our cousins almost as siblings, and I remember feeling great joy when Mom said, “If anything happens to Dad and me, Aunt Joyce and Uncle Edward will be your parents.”

During three college summers I lived with these cousins, adopting California as my second home and landing my first real job there (i.e. one that produced a W-2), waitressing in a small diner… with my cousin.

We’ve always labeled Jan “the easiest guest on the planet,” because she fits in so well with what’s already going on. She’s eager to join in and also work with and for us, no task too tough or distasteful.

I’ll be forever grateful she was willing to organize my 388 blog posts with dates, titles, Scriptures and summaries… on a beautiful grid, no less! Although we’ve been keeping her busy, she maintains a spirit of good cheer, finding something positive in every situation.

In chatting about our lifelong cousinly relationship, asking each other what makes it so good, Jan said, “It’s a comfort to realize you’ve known me since I was born. We have history, and when we’re together, I can just be me. I know we’ll love each other no matter what.” That goes both ways.

What a blessing for someone to be fully known and still genuinely loved. Not everyone is blessed to have cousins who remain this close through decades of time. They might come from small families without any cousins at all, but once we become God’s children, we all have a giant set of relatives. Never mind that his family has no cousins in it. Instead it’s all about siblings, and amazingly, siblings of Jesus himself. That makes us “sisters in Christ” or “brothers in the Lord.”

Once we are in God’s family through Jesus, we have family history with him, too, since what he did on the cross drew us in. He fully knows us yet will always love us.

And when each of us is with the Lord, we can “just be me.”

”The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ.” (Romans 8:16-17a)