The scene was a familiar one: An extended family gathered in a 
public park to celebrate a birthday. The event included food, games and cake. And in this case, there was the one-year-old who got more frosting on her face than in her mouth. You can see it because you have a dozen or more images like this on file in your own memory bank.
But there was something different about this gathering. A couple that I did not recognize joined us. Who was this? Perhaps friends of other family members?
As my nephew, Rich, talked with them off to the side my brother leaned in and asked, "You know who she is, don't you?" He was referring to the blonde middle aged woman. "No," I said, "I have no clue." And so he continued to tell the story.
"Her name is Nancy Holland and sometime during the past couple of years she was eating in the same restaurant as Rich when she had a heart attack. She collapsed immediately and as everyone waited for EMTs to rush to their aid she began to turn blue. They were losing her right there and no one stepped forward to help. But Rich did because he had been trained in CPR. And from what the medical people say he saved her life and she has no brain damage."
And there she was, at the birthday party for Rich's one-year-old daughter, holding her in her arms. She was there not as an acquaintance, but as family. Their destinies are now linked together in unbreakable ways.
Sometimes water is thicker than blood; there are shared experiences and moments and time that join us together with invisible cords of love. We now belong to one another. And it helps us understand what the apostle Paul meant when he said that we are like branches grafted into the one vine. We who once may have been outside are now inside because a powerful experience has adopted us in. Our life was at stake and we were saved. And now we hold the baby, treasuring the mystery of life, time, grace and love.
