Family

What does family mean to you? I have discovered over the years that family means different things to different people. To me family is very important. Family is the people that you love and support no matter what they are like or what they do. Whether you agree with them or not you love them and support their decisions (and yes, it is possible to love and support someone even when you disagree with them). If you have a choice whether you see family or friends you choose family, actually there really isn't a choice (in a good way, I wanted to see them). To me family is really more like FAMILY. It only falls below God on the importance scale. When I got married I encountered something different. What do you do when your FAMILY time clashes with his FAMILY time? Is his (or her) family Family like yours or is it Family, or even just family. And what about your new immediate family which is made up of you and him and in the future your children. How do you rank the families? Who gets first dibs? What if you don't get along with each others families? This is a very hard question and one I, and my husband, have been struggling with for 3 years now. It is especially difficult if you have difficulties getting along with a specific person in your spouses family. I have a problem like that. Today I found the answer in the Bible (a great place to turn to for answers, I just haven't known where exactly to look, but today it just sorta crept up and surprised me :) ). I have been struggling lately within myself with how to deal with this person in my husband's family that I sometimes find difficult to love and respect. Ephesians 2:14 says (NASB) "For He Himself is our peace, who made both groups into one and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall". And verse 19 says "So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and are of God's household". I know some of that is a little bit hard to grasp, but here is what it meant to me today. We are FAMILY (now I want to break into song :) ) It doesn't matter how I feel about this person, they are my FAMILY, there should be no barriers or dividing walls. When we married our two families were made into one because Jesus is our peace and we are all part of God's FAMILY. So his family is my FAMILY, I need to love them and support them and spend time with them in the same way that I do with mine. Now this may not clear up all the conflicts regarding time, but it does help better my attitude. I will try to never again think "You mean we have to leave the FAMILY party to go see your family?" (Not that I specifically thought that, but i may have felt that. Dear God, please help me remember this lesson and help me change my attitude. Amen.