Day 183 - Family

📖Daily Reading

Obadiah 

📝 Reflection 

 Obadiah 10-12

   “Because of the violence you did to your close relatives in Israel, you will be filled with shame and destroyed forever. When they were invaded, you stood aloof, refusing to help them. Foreign invaders carried off their wealth and cast lots to divide up Jerusalem, but you acted like one of Israel’s enemies. You should not have gloated when they exiled your relatives to distant lands…”

 

Family is complicated to say the least. When we are in a good healthy family, we are healthier and better for it. When we aren’t it can also affect our health. For the purposes of this reflection I am referring to our health holistically. There are many aspects to our health, most of us just think about our physical health, but there is also our mental, emotional, relational, spiritual, financial, creative, vocational.. etc…. Our family relationships can affect us deeply and profoundly in ways we may not fully understand. It plays a supporting role in all areas of lives for better or worse. 

Of course family ideally is a place where love and relationship are supposed to be taught, nurtured, role modeled and practiced for the larger societal families that we are a part of. We are all related, there is a oneness about humanity and life itself. But again the self and the ego come in and try to convince us differently. When the ego wins, families and ‘loved’ ones lose which means that we ultimately lose. Love is a verb and a choice that requires a constant and  active choosing. 

Family can be a place where we can practice choosing love. Make no mistake, that choosing to love someone does not mean you like or agree with everything they think or do. I didn’t really understand this growing up, and I don’t think a lot of people do. In fact many families operate very unhealthily, dysfunctionally and even toxically. As we can see from this example going back to Edom and Israel, the descendants of Esau and Jacob. 

I can just feel God’s pain over the war being waged within this (his) family, who has forgotten and/or denied this aspect of their relationship. They have allowed their egos to be in the drivers seat! Remember the acronym for ego - Edging God Out. Our egos really take us out and have the power to take everyone around us out too. One ego on fire with righteousness, pride, jealousy, envy, lust, greed, power etc activates another ego. Egos are like wildfires, the spread and can grow out of control very quickly. It seems with in families there is extra fuel that gets activated and can amplify it gets raging even more quickly. 

These wildfires get passed on generationally until someone decide to choose Love. Love quenches and starts to put out these fires, but like any wildfire it might cause utter destruction and annihilation first. The analogy of an earthquake is also used in Obadiah. These things can and do often cause damage that seems beyond repair, but Love is miraculous and healing. We can choose to love each other, even when we don’t like them, even when we don’t agree, even if we have different beliefs. Sometimes it is the loving thing to do to disengage. Sometimes a period of desolation and rest has to take pace before healing can be done. 

Because Love is a choice, we can also choose our family, especially if our family of origin is not in a place that can receive the healing. You can choose to love from a distance, see them for the people that they are which may be very confused and ego driven. You can choose new people to bond with and create family, churches, support groups there are all kinds of ways. We are meant for family. We are meant to choose love. We are created for love by love, life is love. Choose wisely it affects all aspects of your health and it shows up everywhere. What is your life ‘showing’? It is never, never, never too late to choose love. 💞 

 

✍🏼Daily Journal Prompt 

 What is your life showing? Are you choosing love? How can you show more love in your family. How can You be the cycle breaker? God's love is unconditional, this takes a lot of choosing. Our tendency is to have strings and conditions attached, even if or especially in families. Great practice grounds.. 

📖Tomorrows Reading

Jonah 

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