Writer’s Name: Danielle Taylor
Title: A Family that Prays Together Stays Together
There are many things that can increase the unity within the family. One of the most important things is prayer in the family unit. There’s this old saying “A family that prays together stays together.”
Keeping a clear line of communication open will also maintain a healthy dialog between one another in the family; and being honest about each others’ feelings, desires, hopes and dreams will be an effective method of doing so. Keep outsiders as such - people on the outside looking in. What goes on in your house should stay in your house.
Spending quality time together playing games, watching a movie, or a family vacation, are all ways to increase the bond of the unit. Members of the family should be allowed to be themselves and understand that each of us is made the way God wanted us to be. Lastly, over-stepping certain boundaries may also cause a breakdown in the family unit and should be highly discouraged.
Every family should support, encourage, and love one another unconditionally no matter what. At the end of the day, we can pick our friends but not family. I can remember a time, as a child, an idea of what the perfect family was; my vision of the perfect family was the “Cosby Show” - that was the ideal family. I’m pretty sure that there were many more who thought the same thing. The father Heathcliff Huxtable was the perfect father. He worked as a doctor, and he was a family man. Heathcliff was the support system for the family, emotionally, physically and financially. In today’s society the father isn’t present in the family unit. If we were to look at how the people of the Bible were, we would see that they indeed lived as a family, and family should be very precious to everyone. Although, The Huxtable’s is a fictional family one would hope and believe that somewhere down the line that this can really happen.
If we look at The Obama’s we can see that a healthy family does exist and they’re quiet young. Although I’m not sure what goes on behind closed doors, in the public, they are happy. Only one can imagine that The Obama’s pray as a family and individually, for their strength and courage on the walk they’re taking.
If we would spend less time fighting and more time loving one another we can build the family that we all desire to have. At the start of this article, there was mentioning of selecting the perfect family. If we had the opportunity to do so, how would we choose what we believe to be the perfect one? Naturally we choose to be with a family that we have no business being in from the start. God gave us the families we need and what He wanted us to have. Think about it like this, if it wasn’t for the families we have, we might not be the person that we are today. We have to thank God for the families we have; it’s a blessing to even have a family. We can actually have the family we desire if we just invest the time and energy into them.