Portrait of a Brother
I’m home now. My freshman year at Covenant College has come to a close, and I’m enjoying time with my beautiful family again. And I was thinking of what I could write, I decided I wanted to take the opportunity to tell you about my family… one at a time. Perhaps I won’t cover all of them this week or even this summer. But my family is a huge part of who I was, who I am, and who I will be in the future. I guess you could say that by telling you about them, I will be telling you about me.
Jonathan Herbert Codington. He’s the third boy in the family, and number six in a family of nine. He was born on October 21, 1993 in a small town in the south-west of France. At the time, we were missionaries there. My parents had only just gone to the mission field a year earlier… Johnny was the first one of us born outside the US (and the only one who ever had a green French passport — something he was and still is always quick to show us if we ever forget he’s “special”).
Johnny was the only brother I ever shared a room with. For the first seven or eight years that we lived in England (1995-2005), we shared a room together… we played together, we argued together, we disliked each other (at times - that’s what brothers do, right?), we loved each other (i did anyway… spoken in the most humble of voices :), we made forts together, we shot bow-and-arrows together, and we watched movies together.
Johnny is now experiencing the first few months of being a teenager. He’s the oldest boy at home - I passed down that role to him when I left for Covenant almost a year ago. He’s homeschooled, along with the rest of my brothers and sisters.. and he does his weekly responsibilities around the house, in addition to the lawn business he recently started on his own initiative. He’s a scrawny (but strong), blond-haired, blue-eyed boy… I guess you could say that the Dutch genes from my mom come out mostly in him.
More importantly, he’s my brother. I don’t mean (and I wouldn’t go so far as to say) that that is the most important or defining aspect of his life - that he gets to have me as a brother (I mean, he’s lucky and everything, but uh… just kidding). We’re like any other brothers. We still argue, we still beat each other over the head verbally, and we’re both still part of this baker’s dozen God has put us in. But I guess you could say that I am realizing more that Johnny is the younger version of me… and who I was five years ago. Of all my brothers, he’s the one who I will have the biggest impact on - I’m realizing more and more that I have the beautiful opportunity to be a Christ-like example to him. It’s not every day that you’re given that chance…
Johnny is one of many in my family… and if you’re reading this, bro - you’re allowed to feel special that I chose to write about you first. Love you, man.
Published on 13 May 2007 at 12:27 pm.
1 Comment.
Filed under Family.
Hey, Phil. I had the opportunity to know your brother Wim and sister Julie. It is refreshing to see people who take the time to observe and articulate what they love about those closest around them, namely their family. Keep it up.
Sarah Funke on 16 May 2007 at 11:51 am.