Broken Families

Hi there,

It's a sad fact today that many families fall apart. Maybe some of you reading this came from a 'broken' family, where there was a divorce situation or something else awful happened. I know that I'm blessed to have grown up in a home where both my parents remained married, together and love each other. Yet it's getting more and more unusual these days to find people like me who grew up in nuclear families.

As a prospective teacher (I'm currently looking for a job), I know that a bunch of the students I'll end up teaching will have single parents, or unhappy home lives. That's a big issue that kids bring into the classroom because they suffer from a lack of stability and security. If those ingredients are not present at home among the people who are supposed to love and do their utmost to care for them, than it effects them as a person.

We have to reach out in love to everyone, being examples of God's love to others. God can work through us to restore the brokenness inside of others that can stem from an unhappy upbringing. There is always hope.

We all know how there are cycles of abusive, where if a son see's his father abusing his mother, he may in turn abuse his wife or girlfriend. Well, there are cycles of divorce too. Kids learn what they live. They learn from their parents. If growing up all you see is fighting, poor communication, unforgiveness and relationships that end, then whether you realize it or not, these experiences leave an impact. Maybe they taught you how to deal with relationships in a negative fashion because that's all you knew. So one day when you get married, and it turns tough, you may not know how to reach out and forgive, or break down the walls to really deal with an issue; instead, you may just give up, believe the person doesn't love you anymore and walk away because it's just not worth it.

And on and on, the negative relationship patterns continue. I know I've mentioned this before in my blog on dating, how multiple dating relationships are really just like practicing for divorce later. They're definitely not teaching consistency. So you can kind of tell how a person will be in their future relationships, based on how everything starts for them.

Now let's put God into the picture. After all, I'm finding it pretty bleak so far. Without God it is extremely difficult, maybe nearly impossible, to break this cycle, to come from a broken or abusive home, and have a life long happy marriage without carrying the past around. Often scars of the childhood, leads to sins in adult life as a way to cope (alcoholism, homosexuality, pornography, etc..). Yet God can change all this.

If this was your past, or maybe a friend's past, you can be confident that God can break off every lasting impact of a negative situation and restore you. Maybe you know this experience first hand or know someone who's gone through it. They're amazing stories really. God heals the wounds that divorce leaves, the feelings of abandonment that occur. He restores people who've had a rough upbringing, to have a relationally blessed future. That's what God does. He's the ultimate fixer. We just need to pray and break these things of evil off our lives in Jesus' name, giving all authority over our lives to God. We are children of God after all, and as such, we can walk around with a restored life and relationships.

I guess this is really important to me because I'd like people to have hope that just because something is broken doesn't mean it can't be fixed. It may not happen overnight, and it may take awhile to deal with all the issues, but God's power and grace is more than enough to do the job. And there is responsibility on our part too, since it's a thing of faith and constant belief in God that will carry us through.