Barry and his sister, Michelle, at ages 5 and 8 respectively (6 years before the story below).
I am 10 or 11 years old, the only one at home when I hear my teenage sister come through the front door. I am immediately inspired to hide in the clothes hamper. She thinks she is alone in the house. When she pauses to look in the mirror directly opposite my hiding place, I spring out. To this day, I cannot explain what would make me do such a thing, nor why I find her flailing-arms, wide-eyed, gape-jawed terror so funny. But I am confident that when she reads the proverb, “…a brother is born for adversity”, she takes it to mean that I was born to bring her adversity.
God has put us in a family. “So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God….” Some believers remind themselves of it with an occasional familial prefix: Brother So-and-so, Sister What-not. But the evidence lies in more than a title.
The full Proverb is: “A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.” The rare but true friend is the one like practically every sibling—that is, one to be counted on even in the worst of times. Last week I watched my powerful, independent, intelligent father gently provide the most menial but necessary hygienic care for his facility-bound brother. To this day, were I ever to need anything from my sister, I know she would drop everything to respond.
Believers may create adversity for one another, may disappoint, frustrate, fail—just like I and every other little brother have done. But we are still part of the family—by our rebirth and his resurrection. And we can still drop everything else to be a faithful sibling when adversity arrives.
To a week grateful to our Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, for bringing us together into his.