We Live. We Love. We Learn.

There has been some drama in our family recently. Nothing I’m not used to as it seems to always be something!

I’m sure you have no idea what I mean and your families are perfectly fully functional, right?

Right.

There has been a family member that has let us down. They have reacted to situations in a disappointing way.  We’re not really sure what will happen from here but there is a possibility of them no longer being a family member.  This person has been someone that has always made us pause.  We weren’t fully sure about them, ya know?  There were some character issues that didn’t settle well with us.  Should we trust them? Should we allow our children to become attached to them?  We just didn’t know.  But they were family now.

So we did what feel is always the best answer.

We loved.

We dove in, and with our insecurities and questions we brought grace and trust and love.  We allowed ourselves and our children to become attached.  We endured hardships and disappointments.

But we loved.

Now, the worst has happened. The hardships and disappointments have gone too far.  So now what?   Where do we go from here?

Sometimes I think we didn’t do enough to protect our children.  We could have foresaw this day and protected them from it.

But, that is just not true.

Life is tough. Life is hard.  I would much rather my boys learn about the difficulties of life with me by their side showing them they way.  Loving them through it.  I can’t put them in a bubble and my head in the sand and pretend that life is sunshine and butterflies for their sake.  We must face the harsh realities of life together.

People let us down.  Divorce happens. Death happens. Sickness happens.

It’s all about how we choose to respond to those harsh difficulties of life that matters.

And also? Should we assume the worst in people?  Should we guard our hearts and never let anyone in, ya know, just in case?  Absolutely not!  Sure, we should be smart.   But I don’t want to live my life always expecting something bad to happen and that people will let us down. And I certainly don’t want to teach my children to live their lives that way either.

And now we have a chance to teach our children, even at their tender young ages, that bad things happen to us sometimes.  People we trust let us down.

And you know what we are going to do?

We are going to love.

We will move on, arm in arm, and face the sadness together.  We do not know what the end result will be.

But whatever happens, we have each other.

We have lived fully.

We have loved wholly.

We have learned through it all.

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