Family Matters

Recently my family has pulled together to fast and pray for one of my niece's who has been sick. She had an operation that was supposed to be only one surgery and due to an infection has turned into many surgeries and a very long hospital stay. It has been very taxing and hard on her family. Tonight I received an email from my Mom thanking all of us for praying and fasting for her. Her condition is getting better and they know that prayer has contributed to that.

It made me think about how important our families are. It seems like at any moment when we are in need, our first thoughts turn to the ones who know us and love us the best. As families, we go through many experiences that will shape us into the kind of people we are meant to be. I've thought a lot about some of those experiences in my life that have attributed to the feelings I have for the ones I love.

Throughout the years, I have been blessed to have five (six, counting my foster sister) older siblings who have loved and adored me. Being the baby they have always been especially protective of me. I've never doubted their love for me.

We have been through so much together as a family. One of the hardest had to be my parents divorce. I was eight years old. I still remember the day my Dad left. I was sitting on my bed crying and my oldest sister came in there and just held me and let me cry in her arms. I knew then that things for us would never be the same but that the love all of kids had for one another would get us through.That started the adventure of us truly being "Our brothers keeper." I remember going to see my Dad for visitations with just my brother Tom, and me and worrying that I wouldn't get to see my Mom again. Tom always reassured me that it would just be for a few days. I knew he would never leave my side.

Many of our experiences left us very close and willing to defend one another at any cost. My Mom would always tell us that someday she would be gone and all we would have was each other. I never thought those bonds could be broken or changed.

I am sad and embarrassed to say that for the last five years or so one of my brother's and I have not been so close. To this day, our relationship feels so awkward and foreign. We have tried to move past hurt feelings and anger and yet it still feels like it will never be the same. I look back and wonder how we got to this point. I always thought the world of him. We were so alike. And I have always loved him so much.

It has left me to thinking about why and how we hurt the ones we love so much. Sometimes it is by something we say or in our actions. Sometimes it takes someone swallowing their pride and asking for forgiveness. Why do we forgive friends who do us wrong but we are so quick to hold a life sentence over the heads of those who should mean so much to us?

I grew up watching my Grandfather have a strained relationship with his only brother. It affected the whole family and even though my uncle is gone now. It was never really resolved. How sad it makes me when I think about it.

This experience I have had over the last five years with my brother has hurt me in ways I can't even explain as I'm sure it has hurt him too.I have shed so many tears over it. More than anything, it has taught me how to love with a full heart and not only how to forgive, to ask for forgiveness and forget that which was done in the beginning to cause the fallout or hurt.

I had an experience a few years back when I was at Woman's Conference in Salt Lake. I wanted to go see the late night concert that was spotlighting a bunch of LDS Christian singers. No one else wanted to go with me but my sister didn't want me to go by myself. She decided to go with me while the others stayed at the Motel. One of the singers named Cherie Call sang a song called "Family Tree" it was about a family who had gone through divorce and how they were able to make it through it and be stronger because of it. While she was singing it I felt my big sis put her arm around me.I looked at her and she was sobbing. Of course I was too. It was "our song." The song of our family. It was like the singer had written it for my parents and my brothers and sisters. I now know, that it must of been the spirit telling my sister to go with me that night. It was probably the reason that only the two of us went, to share that experience together.

I have the song playing on my playlist right now. It is moments like the one I described that makes me want to listen more carefully when the spirit prompts me to treat my family with the same love and kindness that I would treat my friend or neighbor. I know that in time my relationship with my brother will improve because I know that the Lord has his hand in all things that I do, as long as I heed his council. And I know that the family is the most important thing to him. I am so grateful for the ever watchful eye he has always had over my family. I know it is because of him that our family has made it through the challenges we have had and are stronger because of them.