A Family of Two

"So when are you going to start a family?"

"What do you mean?...We already did; over 9 years ago, actually!"

It really is a harmless question, and not one to which we really take offense. But it's a question based on the false pretense that a family begins with children. But in fact, if we travel back to remember the first family unit, we should acknowledge that it existed before either Cain or Abel were born to Adam and Eve. God set Adam in the garden and He gave him a wife. Once God had created Eve, He had created the first family unit.

Society - even our religious society subset - has defined for us what the family is. A simple web search of "the definition of a family" pulls the following result: "a group consisting of parents and children living together in a household." But I would argue from Genesis that a family is, at its foundation, the marriage of a man and a woman. Of course a family can easily be defined as more than this; but it should never be defined as less than this.

It is the marriage relationship that creates a family. As the husband, I am the head of my household; my family. Were God never to grant to me and Paige children, I am still the head of my home and the spiritual leader of my family of two. Just as God held Adam responsible for the sins of his family - his wife and himself (as well as all of his descendants) - there will come a day when I too will be held accountable before God for how I led my family, even if that is just me and my wife.

Maybe it's semantics. I'm okay with admitting that. But words have meaning, and especially in the context of a couple struggling with infertility, the idea of a "family" begins - and sometimes even ends - with only two.

Food for thought.

~David