Fighting for your family is exhausting.
But fighting for your family is one of the most worthwhile battles that you will ever engage in.
Family is messy. Family is hard and it’s work and it’s strenuous.
But family can also be fun and freeing and comforting.
Family is what you make it and you have to show up to work every single day.
Personally, this is a great, but very hard season of life for me because there is so much transition happening in my immediate family that my brain can barely stand it and I don’t think that my heart has been notified yet, else I probably would have had a heart attack (ok, slight exaggeration).
Everyone’s growing up. Parents are shifting career focus. Siblings are moving out. The youngest is finishing high school. Some are finishing school. Others are about to go to school next year.
And then there’s me with 32 days trying to fully grieve this season of my life before I leave for the World Race and come back to a different family. It scared me to the core that they would resent me for missing such major life events, or even worse that they wouldn't even miss me.
I have to constantly fight off lies from Satan and believe in the truth of God’s Word that He will take care of us all and that His love will hold us together. I have to believe that livelihood of my family does not rely on my own strength because if it were up to me to save my family, we'd all be goners.
***
Sometimes when I hug them, I don’t want to let go. When I give them a kiss, I wish that all the love coursing through my body would jump on them. My heart is to do more, to spend more time with them, to laugh more, to take them on trips and visit them at work, to encourage them on their health journey and support them at their events, but I am one woman and eight people is a lot to love and sometimes, it can feel like I’ll never be able to love them well.
I have an amazingly, beautiful family; there are so many passionate, hard-working people in my family and in our busyness, we can easily overlook each other and that’s where the fight is.
The fight is not an explosive one; it is not loud, harsh words and dramatic gestures, it is a subtle drift into one’s own world. It is a drift toward self-centeredness and false independence and freedom that leaves all us feeling lonely and unnoticed and unappreciated.
I love my family over everything. There is no question. I love them to the core and am like a proud mama everywhere I go, constantly showing their pictures to strangers and friends alike. But I must lay them down. Again. Another year I must lay them down. It was painful laying down my family at the feet of Jesus last year while I was in Michigan and saying, “Lord, I trust you to take care of them” and now God is asking me to do it again.
It’s crazy how I can believe for God to make the blind girl see and the lame man walk, but I find it hard to believe that He can take care of my family without my help.
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But make no mistake, devil. Just because I am on the other side of the world, do not think that I will stop fighting. I will stand on truth and pray diligently that the God of the universe keeps my family close to Him and keeps us close to each other.
Family can stress you out so much if you try to do it all on your own strength, but it’s amazing to see what God can do when you get out of His way. So here’s to fighting for family God’s way.
I’m giving up, so He can rise up.
Have your way, God. Wreck us for your glory and rebuild us for your name. Let us all live like you planned—chainless.
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Love y'all!
