Family First

by Gabrielle Harbin

  

How important is love to you? Do you ever wonder how important love is to God? This world was created in love by a God Who is Love, so I would assume that love is immensely important to Him. Not only that, but how and who you love matter to Him as well.

 

Ever since I was little I was always told, “Friends will come and go, but your family is forever.” I believe the same holds true for ministries and family. Ministries will sometimes come and go, but your family will always be there and they deserve to come first. We must start loving in our homes, before we are truly capable of loving outside of our homes. We live in a world of non-stop meetings, soccer games, church programs, work, birthday parties, computers, video games, and anything else to keep us busy. This includes ministries.

 

I have seen women so busy doing things for their church and school that they start neglecting their families. Can you imagine trying to be a mom and a wife while juggling choir director, Sunday School teacher, baking for functions, making the church bulletin every week, cleaning the church, visiting sick people in the hospital, and taking care of dogs and cats? I didn’t even mention the home duties, but I’m sure if you know anything about what a mom/wife/daughter does for her home, then you can fill in the blanks. How do you handle all of that and not neglect your children, husband, or parents?

 

We are given responsibilities from God that should come first. The most important of all is your husband and children. If you are still single with no children, then your parents should be considered your “in-home family.” It’s easy to love, but sometimes not so easy to show your love, especially when you’re juggling many different things at once all day long. So, what can we do to be sure we aren’t neglecting the ones who are most important to us? I can think of something that is so crucial to loving a person, yet so many people do without it or they spend very little of it—time.

 

To nurture any relationship you must spend time with that person. It shows that you want to be around them, get to know them, listen to them, and love them. Try to set aside some time every day to spend with the person you love. If you’re a wife with no kids, you can figure out a good hour when both of you will be home, and spend that hour with no TV, phones, or radio. Just the two of you talking and listening to each other, making sure you are asking if he needs anything important. Make a date night once a week. It will help you both feel good about yourselves and your relationship.

 

If you are a mom, your kids are equally important. It’s hard to be a working mom and wife. If you are working, it’s really hard to get quality time with your kids. I’m a single, working mom and it’s difficult to spend time with my daughter during the week because we are both so tired at the end of the day. However, I make it a point to spend some time at the end of the evening after dinner to go over her homework with her and ask her questions about her day. I want her to know that I care about what goes on at school when I’m not there.

 

Something I feel a lot of families don’t do anymore is have dinner at the dinner table, not in front of the television. This really gives your family an opportunity to talk about what goes on in their day and opens the floor for anything that might need to be discussed. It’s good, quality family time without distractions. Another idea is to have a family game night. Designate one night during the week for the whole family to get together and play Monopoly, dominoes, or whatever game is fun for you. My family loves to play Outburst, and we also play on the Wii. You could also have an ice cream night where you pick an ice cream spot for your family to enjoy.

 

If you’re single with no children, then start with your parents. They will always be willing to spend time with their kids, so find some time to at least call them (if you’re not in the same house) and ask them about their day, and if they need you to do anything for them, like mow the yard or clean their house. You could also cook dinner for them one day out of the week. If you don’t cook, then take them out to eat. I know they would appreciate that! If your parents are deceased or for some reason you no longer have a relationship with them, what about other family members? Or an older couple who had no children?

 

If we can’t show love to those who are closest to us, then how will we ever be able to love those hard-to-love people in our lives? We all have them; people who just push our buttons or get under our skin and make it really hard to love them. Sometimes those people are in our own family. Practice makes perfect! The easiest way for me to try to love my hard-to-love family is to treat them the way I want to be treated. I have to repeat that in my head over and over again sometimes but I try, and that’s what counts.

 

Most important is that you make sure you don’t neglect the needs of your family for something that seems like it’s important. God wants us to be an example for our children and if all we are doing is pushing our families to the side and running ourselves ragged for everyone else, then that is what we are teaching them to do. One of my favorite passages in the Bible is 1 Corinthians 13. It’s our instructions for how love should be in our lives. Pray daily for God to show you how to love your family, and He will give you opportunities to love them.

 

Ideas for Family Nights:

Card night

Ice Cream night*

Pizza night*

Bowling night

Wii night

Monopoly night (or board game night)

 

*For these nights you don’t even have to go out. Buy ice cream and order pizza, or you can buy the items for the pizza and everyone can help put a topping on and bake the pizza.