Community Within Your Family

It has been a lot of years since my son was small. When he was young we had regular family devotions, had evenings set aside for reading as a family from some book we found interesting, and had regular game nights. He got older and we got busier and those things by and larger fell by the wayside. We still counted important our fellowship together, but we lost our way about how to do this, especially when our son became an adult. Learning to relate to adult children is far different from when they are little and even teens and they are still under your authority for their schedule.

Finding a new kind of relationship within that family dynamic is critical. Why? Well do you want your adult children to value you as you age? Do you want them to come see you when they move out of the house on their own? How about when they have their own children, do you want them to bring those grandchildren to see you and to teach them to love and respect you like they do? Then it is really important to find your way in establishing a new kind of relationship that focuses on community within the family.

Community is talked about a lot in Scripture, and having a healthy relationship with others. Churches teach about having a fellowship or community of believers that love and value each other. This is just as true in families. My family has started going through the process of seeing this as important and figuring out what that means for us. We are on a journey to build our relationship with God and with each other. It will not look like it did when our son was young, and it will not look like another family's journey. It will start with hope, and end with love and in the middle it will take a lot of faith to persevere, and not give up when failures happen. Building a community within our family will help us to be a better part of the community that exists in our church and everywhere we go and interact with others.

How about you? What does your family community look like? It is a good thought to ponder on.