A Timely Topic: We Do Family Well
Photo by Samuel Charron on Unsplash
Following a particularly harrowing bedtime routine with our Formidable Four this week, my husband flopped on the bed beside me and sighed, “Maybe we should’ve just gotten four Frenchies.” Our French Bulldog is easily the most contented, well-mannered, and just generally wholesome soul in this household, so it is a fair thought. I found it amusing; all the more so, considering I’d just been asked to write a piece titled, “We Do Family Well.” It’s clear these people don’t know the kind of sacrilegious thoughts we occasionally entertain, like trading in our kids for canines, for example. I think to be fully authentic I will have to do a little title restructuring: perhaps, “We Do Family (As Darned) Well (As We Can)” or just “Well, We Do Family.”
All jokes aside - for any human, and particularly for those of us who claim Christ, we know how important this “doing family” thing is. Maybe we know innately that at the end of everything, it will be our truest life’s work. Maybe because building family is at the very core of God’s heart - this God who sets the lonely in families and has a mind to reconcile all things to Himself. This One who came to make the Invisible One - visible, the Unknowable One- knowable. To God be the glory!
Family is the crucible where we find ourselves in the holy work of loving and being loved, knowing and being known. Family is part of God’s shaping of us; it is often what hones us - pushing us beyond our perceived capacities, giving us new perspectives and a space where we must learn to set (sometimes uncomfortable) boundaries.
And by family, so you don’t misunderstand me, I don’t mean simply the getting of spouses or the birthing of babies, to be clear; learning to be in meaningful and interdependent relationships with others is what we’re talking about, and this is for every one of us. I’d bet we have all seen single men and women, as well as couples without children, who have leaned into and embraced this work of “doing family” with more zeal and intentionality than many of us who can’t seem to stop procreating, so really, let’s not let that be the threshold of success. For each one and in each season, the work of relationship may look different - currently for me it looks mostly like grappling with my role as wife, mom, and daughter to some exceptional souls. At times, exceptionally difficult souls. They’re all humans though, so I should’ve seen that one coming. (The Frenchie is basically never difficult.)
Frankly, sometimes it just doesn’t go very well. Learning how to be in relationship through the crises and tumult of these middle years of my life has been the greatest challenge I’ve known yet. Sometimes the complexity of relationships has overwhelmed me; sometimes I have not believed I was up for the task. Sometimes I have ached with the particular pain of knowing I cannot give the thing that lacks; cannot right the wrong or fill the void for the ones I love most. Sometimes I’ve resented the demands of my particular life-arrangement or wished, at least, for some more obvious returns (I’m lookin’ at you, motherhood); sometimes I have chafed under the demands or confinement of my commitments and forgotten that these very restrictions inform my purpose and focus. My NOs undergird and enhance my Yesses. Tim Keller says it this way:
“Disciplines and constraints liberate us only when they fit with the reality of our nature and capacities. A fish, because it absorbs oxygen from water rather than air, is only free if it is restricted and limited to water. If we put it out on the grass, its freedom to move and even live is not enhanced, but destroyed. The fish dies if we do not honor the reality of its nature. In many areas of life, freedom is not so much the absence of restrictions as finding the right ones, the liberating restrictions.”
Isn’t that beautiful? And so, to you, whomever you are, and in whatever season; with whichever doors open to you, and whichever ones closed- my prayer today is for you and me both, that we know the pleasure of God over us exactly where we are. God, let me see those restrictions that liberate me every day- the things that I've accepted that I should not have, as well as the limitations that I need to embrace; let me know and recognize them for the arrow that they are, drawing me in to the messy, holy work I am called to- this “doing family.” Let me live in joy, accepting of the closed doors, alive to the light that streams through this big, beautiful, open one that stands before me.
Bio:
Liana Stone writes from beneath a sometimes literal pile of the most delicious tiny humans you ever saw. She and her effervescent husband, Jason, currently call Oregon home, having moved back from Zanzibar in 2020, where they served with All Nations. Liana had the privilege of not only attending the first Capetonian Church Planting Experience (CPx) in 2008, but attending a second CPx in Cape Town with Jason in 2012 (Double graduate here, people). Both Liana and Jason have a deep love for the All Nations family and are grateful for the way their time working within All Nations has shaped and impacted their life.
Get Connected & Let’s Grow Together!
We invite you! Here are some amazing resources and events we hope you’ll check out!
To participate or learn about our monthly global prayer for the neglected people around the world, sign-up HERE to receive a monthly video prayer invite. We meet on the last Thursday of each month at 8 am CST (US). We encourage everyone to join in as we pray that Jesus will be worshiped by all peoples of the earth — the least, the last, and the lost!
Lessons from the Least, the Last, and the Lost, All Nations Weekly Devotion by Blake Staton, M.Div.
All Nations Pocket Guide to Church Planting by Dr. Pam Arlund (in many languages)
All Nations Storytelling Resource
Mission’s Edge, a monthly roundtable learning opportunities with ministry and missions leaders! Sign-up for any of these today and participate! Let’s grow together!
Our Founder, Floyd McClung, has 18 books and audio/video teachings that will be an encouragement to you as you press in to all Jesus has for you in your journey! Connect HERE to our founders area to be equipped!
What are you needing? Reply and let us know how we can help you! You can also email us at: comm@allnations.international.
We want to serve you and help you find your seat in the Great Commission. We have volunteer opportunities, too!
Be sure to see some of our recent blogs below to continue learning and growing with us!
Bless you today!
