Good Heritage and Great Promise

“There is nothing in this world quite the same as reminding yourself where your place in life is through a big family reunion where everyone gets along. Experiencing first hand the Christian heritage I've been given provides a place to belong, and an inner sense of peace in a chaotic world.”
A friend of mine said this recently on Facebook. He had just attended a family reunion and was expressing in words what I’m sure many who were there felt. I know much of his family and would concur that his experience was genuine and his comments heartfelt.
As a family, we feel much the same way. We try to get together annually, if possible, and seem to always enjoy each other’s company, catching up on the latest, and seeing the nieces, nephews, and others grow and develop as we siblings age. We cherish the memories of past reunions and know that there are but a limited number of reunions in our future.
I want to expand a bit on the Christian heritage part of his comment. Although families who are not religious or do not share a Christian heritage that stresses love can and do have good families, good reunions, and good relationships, it seems that the fact of that heritage and training makes the likelihood of such relationships more plausible and more frequent. We know that we are a forgiven people and that God has overlooked, so to speak, our shortcomings and has made us His adopted children. As such we tend to forgive the faults of others as we work and interact with them. We overlook, as it were, things that might cause no end of rift in another family.
Christians also believe that there will come a Day unlike no other, when we all as the family of God will be together in a wonderful, loving, and everlasting present tense, experiencing for eternity the same sense of belonging and inner peace (which passes all understanding). A taste of that happens in the here and now in venues like family reunions, gatherings of Christians to worship, fellowship or celebrate, and other ways and means. But those events and feelings, however great, are temporary and soon fade.
Christians look (or should look) toward that day, however, when there will be no temporary, no fading, and no imperfection.