Hey brave heart, leave blessings in your wake for future generations and make a difference. You can spend a lifetime replaying your past or trying to change your family members. You can play the blame game. I know this – I’ve been there. This doesn’t solve things, and it gives power to people who cannot build God’s dream in your life.
OR Brave heart, you can trust God your Heavenly Father and move forward. I like that better – don’t you?
Inside God’s design for family, wives are to be loved as Christ loved the church. This love was sacrificial. It was costly. It brought beauty. Daughters are to be valued and raised without anger through unconditional love. Wives are to respect and submit to their husbands. Indeed, inside God’s family framework we find a model of how God intends to relate to us. The family should be a place of rest, solace, love – a place where we are free to make the mistakes necessary to uncover our true potential – a refuge from the storms of life.
Sadly, under the weight of a broken world, the reality of a perfect family is fractured. Every woman has imperfections in her family. While God’s framework for family is perfect… we are not. The perfect family does not exist because there are no perfect people. But sometimes those fractures are so great, that our hearts can carry deep wounds. I believe this grieves the heart of God.
Be wise brave heart. As much as there is a God that loves us and wants us to have his design for family, there is an enemy of our souls who would love to destroy family. Don’t believe his lies that God’s framework for family doesn’t work – it was fallen humanity that was not there to love you.
Never forget that Paul’s description of God’s family framework in the book of Ephesians, he writes about our war with the enemy. This order in scripture is no accident. The enemy knows that there is strength in family and would love nothing more than to destroy God’s design (Ephesians 5:21-6:20).
God in his great redemption has a plan for restoration for our hearts through Jesus. You have a heavenly Father that wants to nourish your heart with truth so you can live the life you were created and redeemed to live. As God’s adopted children through Christ, we can reach out to our true Father and hold on to him.
The key is to turn to God, live by the Spirit, and allow Jesus to have the greatest impact in your life. Researching and analyzing our family can help us understand why we are the way we are, but only the Holy Spirit can change us from the inside out. This is godly girl power. ONWARD!
This is not easy. No one would question that our background shapes our character. The people in our lives influence the way we are.
All of us have those negative cycles that may feel like inescapable realities. But the reality is we can break the cycles by making new choices. We can choose new life and new legacies for our children. God brings a solution that surpasses self-help, self-determination, and self-effort: God’s solution is found in sonship. God not only adopts you but longs for you to live “led” as his daughter.
Through Christ, we are adopted into a new family and given the indwelling of the Holy Spirit to walk in a new way of life. It’s not an instant change. If you want to live in the freedom of this new family, God will lead you on a slow and deep journey of beautiful internal transformation. This journey is called discipleship. It’s a lifetime process directed by the Holy Spirit. Listen, follow, and watch God unravel cycle after cycle as you surrender to him.
Cutting new paths is not easy and takes time. Cycles, even if they are destructive, feel comfortable, so moving beyond them is a process.
Leave blessings in your wake for future generations and see new legacies continue to emerge. Reestablish God’s framework in YOUR family and leave a legacy. (Be the first if you have to, brave heart. What an honor!) Could there be any greater blessing in life than that?
While your family background may influence your character, it doesn’t define your God-given destiny. May the gospel of Christ, which brings you into God’s family give you hope to live beyond your broken family by living by the Spirit. You are a treasure.
Nourish Scripture: Ephesians 5:21-6:9
