Fragile Families, and Why You Should Fight for Those You Love

My suitcase held a strange comfort as it lay open on my bedroom floor.  I wasn’t going anywhere…But something about a filled case brought peace and comfort…

Luggage waiting made me feel like I had an option of not staying…Even though I was morally obligated, and staying.

A little girl lay curled up in an outlined drawing of her parent; not breathing, surrounded by no real comfort…

But sometimes little girls just need their mamas…even if they are not there.

She found her place, up near her heart, where infants are created, and souls forever reside…

Yet, this child never knew her parent. Her mom just a chalk outline someone had drawn across the floor.

And in this world mothers are running, detached, non-existent, or have just left their homes altogether.

Children becoming abandoned by moms more than dads statistics say.  Discontentment worming its way into the hearts of developing nations…like our first mother Eve, who disobeyed, listening to the serpents in hopes to get her way.

And even unto this day, the lies fill us saying, “this work is too hard”, “marriage is too strenuous”, “family is more difficult than taking your suitcase and running”…

So, we leave our perceptions of family. We flea from the pressures of Pinterest perfect parenting. We hide in the lies that we are weak, useless, not enough, or somehow insignificant or replace-able…

All the while, we live in a society increasingly starving for Mothers.

They call, late at night during days when their hearts feel like they are going to explode from the pressures I remember well. Aching with hollow abandonment, saying, “No one can save me now”, “No one would ever love me after they have heard my story”.

I remember echoing that same pain when I was their age.

And though the urge to flee has dissipated….I take their calls, hear their stories, relating to the pressures of being a young woman, in a world that has little or simply no regard for family…

And why is it the world wants to remold, redefine, and re-create family? Why are we surrounded by the lie that people just don’t need each other?

Every society from the beginning of time has valued family, children…the more they had, the bigger the blessing.  But, in the last twenty years, somehow we sit here with our suitcases open….thinking their is an easier way to wholeness….

Replacing humble servant-hood with confusion and escapism….

We have devalued mothers, like we have de-humanized unborn children, taking “family” and twisting it to look like we want…instead of molding our worlds into God’s image.

Have we forgotten, we were not made for us, but for God and others…most specifically our families?

As I write this, just know, there are some of you that wonder, “Is it worth it?”, “Is this daily battle to maintain what we have even going to make a difference in years to come?”

And I can assure all of you questioning…family is always worth the sacrifice and commitment.

Family is God’s design to multiply and bless us.  Generations beckoning us to go on, keep holding on for those looking for stability and hope.

And I admit…there is a brewing storm coming against the entity of family…but God whispers, “What you invest in now, will have visible rewards”….

So, let’s carry on.  Let’s put away a few more toys, tenderly talk to those we love, wait for His redemption to be seen and made known in our families.

For you will see your world blossom if you just don’t give up.

I put away my suitcase. It’s luring strangely has drawn silent.

We walk trails with my kids ages twenty-one to two, journeying up the hills, around the bend, opening up to this grassy cliff that screams His wonderful praises.

And it is as if, there on the cliff of expectancy, I had forgotten the dark trails, the rocky roads, the times wondering if maybe we should turn back….wondering if this long, windy journey, just wasn’t worth it.

But now, I hold His hand, the one I have wrestled through marriage with.  I hear their laughter and thank God for the years we purposefully invested in them. And the entire journey was worth it.

Beauty radiating now from our once fragile marriage and parenting.

And I encourage you friends…don’t give up on your family.  Don’t give up on your spouse.  Don’t give up on your children.

The world needs you.  We all need examples of the work of God’s hand; represented in the image of our perfect and wonderfully flawed families.

Yes, we can feel weak, we can want to give up, we can think we might not be able to go on…

But bruised reeds are never broken.  It is at our wits end where grace blows in and carries us when we seem helpless.  It is His beauty from imperfections, His testimony the world needs…

So, will you join me today in not giving up on family?  Family being one of the greatest example American needs right now.

Holding on…trusting the trail will open up, shining beauty in open spaces….

Even if the trail now seems bendy and the blessing is not yet seen.