What a Marvelous Mystery When We Realize How God Orchestrated Our Family!
Some of us are really happy with the genetic “lottery” that gave us our family, but others are not so pleased about their family connections or lack thereof. Whether you are happy or sad or somewhere between regarding your family, this July 4th season may find you gathering with family and friends. I have a question for you: If you are not happily connected to your family, how long has that been going on?
Is your generation the first one that experienced the breach or unhealthy connection? Is there anything you could do about it now? Does a truce need to be reached or some loving care applied to old wounds?
By the way, I truly hope you have deep, intimate, happy relationships up and down your family tree for generations back and many to come. The reason I am addressing this is simply because I was “too chicken” to approach strained relationships back when I realized the strain was there. With the passing of years and even decades, I now see how many broken relationships were salvaged even to the point of a “happy ending”, though we aren’t ending yet.
Know what the ultimate answer to the “turn around” was? It was prayer. Now that I think about it, three key family relationships turned eventually, and they turned on prayer. God intervened in ways I was unable or sometime unwilling to do. In one situation in my extended family a family member thought me too judgmental when I tried to help them see that they were making some unwise choices. I was truly trying to be loving because I was fearful of their choices, but eventuallyI quit talking about it and simply prayed – often- as the Lord brought the situation to my mind. God healed the situation without my help and the relationship was restored. I had done what I thought was the right thing to do, but realizing I was getting nowhere, I stopped talking about the situation except to the Lord Jesus. He heard and healed us.
In another situation I had misunderstood a motive and caused the breach in the relationship. Once again, after discovering that they would have none of my reasons, I decided to stop and pray. For years I prayed until a breakthrough happened and to this day the relationship is good and getting better.
The third situation dealt with our marriage. I truly was ill-equipped for marriage as a 20-something. Then after 20 years of a good marriage , I wanted an abundant one and didn’t know how. After a desperate prayer on the way home from work, stopped on the side of the road crying and praying, I got the message, “Go home and trust Me.” I did go home, after an earnest prayer where I was willing to submit to God’s will instead of trying to change my spouse. God changed me. My prayers, actually our prayers, were answered and are still being answered today; and that was 28 years ago when that desperate prayer was voiced to God.
So all I am saying is, “Since you are stuck with family because of genetics and family trees, why don’t we pray, obey God by trying to speak truth in love or simply quietly trust Him. God will use us (you and me) to make it better, to bridge gaps, to heal old wounds, and to see a new legacy handed down from us to the future beaches on our family tree? What do YOU say?