How’s Your Family Growing
Recently, a couple of things happened that were not actually related. In my sometimes unusual way of thinking, there might have been a connection.
My wife and I hosted our “second annual Cousins Camp.” All of the grandkids were at our house. It was a little — no, make that a LOT — loud for a few days. Thankfully, we had some “counselors” to work with us — our daughter and our daughter-in-law.
Cousins Camp is the brainchild of my wife. It is an attempt on our part to help develop and nurture the sense of family that is so important to us. It is also an opportunity for us to see how the grandkids are growing.
Boy, are they ever growing! We now have a grandson who is almost as tall as I am. He’s thirteen!
While the “counselors” and “campers” were packing up and getting ready to go home, I did a little of what I call “visiting the visitors.” I do not have a perfect record on this, but I do have a goal. My philosophy is that, when somebody takes time out of their schedule to visit where I preach, I need to try to find the time to take out of my schedule to visit them. Again, I’ve failed to do this more often than I would like to admit, but it is a goal and I do succeed sometimes.
During one of those visits, a lady was talking to me about the fact that, after years of marriage, she and her husband are now divorced. The words she used are seared into my brain. I wanted to cry when she said, “We just grew apart.”
As the conversation continued, she told me how her ex-husband had been with her during a recent hospital stay, how she will still fix a meal for him once in a while, and how they are still good friends. In spite of all of this, they are no longer married because they just grew apart.
How about you and your spouse and/or children? Are the children growing physically, socially, and intellectually? Is the business and/or your career growing? How about that retirement account? Is it growing like you want it to?
While nothing is inherently wrong with any of those things, I pray you’ll take the time to ask one other question (maybe two). Is the relationship with that person you dreamed of spending the rest of your life with growing closer and more meaningful or more distant as the years go by? How about those children you brought into the world? In which direction are those relationships going?
It is my prayer that I will never again hear anybody say, “We just grew apart.” I pray that all of us, including me, will make whatever investment it takes to grow closer to the ones whom we love.
After all, I don’t want anybody looking back on his or her life (including me) and say what this dear lady said: “Maybe we should have tried harder.”
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