Friends this note if going to be short, but it may not be sweet. In my opinion, aside from my relationship with God, there is nothing in this world more important than my relationship with family. Those relationships grow over our life times and as the older relationships mature we take on new family relationships. Each new bonding changes the focus and attention given to the older relationship, but that doesn’t mean the older connection has died. It means it has born fruit.

I have recently become aware of an extended family relationship that is suffering. A daughter-in-law pitted against her mother-in-law for the love of her son. The prized weapon being use to wage the battle…the children. I don’t know the words that were used, but the intent is this, because you have done thus you will never see your grandchildren again.  The line has been drawn; the husband caught in the middle has to decide. He will side with his wife, even though he knows there should be no choice that has to be made, the bond with his wife is stronger than the older more mature relationship that he has with his mother. The older relationship is strained, but can never be broken. The mother will back away, because she knows the new relationship takes precedence. Now she will be robbed of growing her bond with the grandkids. Why?

Life is a gift given by God. A wife or a husband is a gift given by God. A son or daughter is a gift given by God. Children and grandchildren are a gift given by God. He intended these gifts to be cherished, and enjoyed, and shared. Each layer of relationships growing in love, and making way for the next layer to do the same, each layer living in love for the growing family. God never intended for it to become “either this or that,” He intended a body of one, made up of many members. The cancer that has entered, and is now destroying that body, is pride and selfishness, and neither has a place in the body of love.

If what I have written doesn’t make sense to you, read it again, and think about it.

If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. I John 4:20

Till next time,

Grump