I recently had the opportunity to conduct a workshop with this title at a women's retreat at Lake Ellen Camp in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Judy Peterson (wife of camp director Ralph Peterson) asked me to speak on this topic after I had shared with her some of the dynamics of the relationships in my life with 5 (now 6) married children and the weekend getaways I've had with my "lovely ladies" (my daughters and daughters-in-law). A number of women asked if I would share my notes and I offered to post them here. So, women of the Lake Ellen Camp Women's Retreat 2015, this is for you!
FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS
When it comes to family relationships, and especially the relationships between the women in our families, we want it to look like this.
We want harmony and symmetry. We want happiness and cooperation. We want to not only look like we get along, but really feel like it.
Far too often, we look and feel like this.
Our relationships too often publicly display dislike, distrust, and contempt. If not outwardly, then very likely inwardly those feelings are simmering along with fear, isolation, suspicion, indifference, judgment, and anger. I've seen it among families, in churches, and between women in many circles and I wanted to do what I could to prevent it from happening in me, in my church, and in my family.
Eight years ago my family looked like this.
The youngest of our eleven children was not quite a year old and our first daughter-in-law joined our family. I had been mentally preparing for this time for almost a decade. I remember, about 20 years ago, considering my own in-laws with their family of six and thinking of how they never had time alone with their children, their immediate family. We daughters-and-son-in-law were always there. We were with them on holidays and at family reunions, in their home when fans gathered to watch a basketball game, or at the park on a picnic. I began to realize that my days with my precious family as I knew it were numbered.
I have a wonderful relationship with my mother-and-father-in-law, but there's something about the family nucleus, the parent and child, that is special and I knew it would some day be forever changed. I just wanted it to be changed in a good way. Sure, I could love my new daughter-in-law and welcome her and make her feel at home. And then I could do the same for the next and the next. But what about them? Would they criticize the differences they saw in our family? Would they support our relationships or tear them down? Would our married children be encouraged to love their parents or would they be driven away from us? Would my own sons and daughters have gracious loving hearts that fostered a welcoming environment to the increasing number of newcomers to the family? Would it become "us against them"? Would there be factions and pairing off? How could I prevent it? I wanted to fix something that wasn't even broken!
It didn't take long to see the outward changes that came with the advancing of years. Just seven years after that first wedding our family looked like this.
(Side note--if you're a detail oriented person and you're seeing that the people in the two family photographs don't seem to match up, you may be relieved to know that this recent photo includes our Norwegian AFS student.)
There are six new adults and almost a dozen grandchildren children in the picture and the dynamics have most certainly changed. I can't control everything (and, believe me, I'd like to!). I can't control the attitudes. I can't make people love each other. I can't stop the hurts and the difficulties. But I
can have an influence and I
can foster a loving environment. I make mistakes and am sorry to admit that I have been the source of problems at times. But, using the examples and directions given to us by God in His word we can all have a positive effect on our family relationships.
One of the things I have done is to plan several "White Women's Weekends" with my girls (this isn't racist, we all either have--or in the case of my married daughters, had--the last name White). We stay in a house together (no kids or spouses). We drink coffee, do foot soaks, build fires in the fireplace, cook together, go out to eat, go for walks, take silly pictures, and I plan a study around a Biblical topic that will help foster Christlike attitudes between us. During our first weekend we all filled out one note card for each person that highlighted a fruit of the spirit that we thought was best displayed in them and why. Those cards are still in my wallet.
I have loved connecting with my ladies in this personal way, but our schedules don't all collide very often and we have a lot of months between girl gatherings for problems to seep in. Problems are part of the human experience, solutions should be part of the Christian experience. In our workshop we considered the common causes of relationship problems and ways to prevent them.
PREVENTING PROBLEMS
CAUSES..............................POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS
Expectations...........................Keep an open mind
Criticism................................Seek to understand
Not listening...........................Listen!
Pulling away...........................Reaching out
Gossiping...............................Hold your tongue
LACK OF LOVE......................Love
LACK OF HONOR..................Honor
We talked about each one with some examples but I think they are fairly self-explanatory. The last two are in capital letters because they are really the two that are the heart of who we are and how we relate to others. We had a limited amount of time for our workshop and so I chose to focus on Honor. Love is a familiar subject and most of us understand that love is an action, that we show love by our service to others. When we put the needs of someone else before our own we are showing love. Love is about how we treat another person. But, we don't often talk about what honor looks like. I think our lack of honor is our greatest stumbling block to successful relationships between women. Honor isn't so much about how we treat the other person, but has much to do with the way that we present them to others.
The most helpful Biblical passage that I have found on honor is in Esther 6 where the king asks Haman what he should do to
show honor to someone.
So Haman came in, and the king said to him, “What should be done to the man whom the king delights to honor?” And Haman said to himself, “Whom would the king delight to honor more than me?” And Haman said to the king, “For the man whom the king delights to honor, let royal robes be brought, which the king has worn, and the horse that the king has ridden, and on whose head a royal crown is set. And let the robes and the horse be handed over to one of the king's most noble officials. Let them dress the man whom the king delights to honor, and let them lead him on the horse through the square of the city, proclaiming before him: ‘Thus shall it be done to the man whom the king delights to honor.’” Esther 6:6-9 ESV
We can see here what honor "looks like".
Four things were suggested:
1)
Bring the royal robes.
If we're going out in public or we're having our picture taken we want to look our best. We want to put on clothing that flatters us. We want it to hide the blemishes, cover the bulges, and accentuate our positive features. In the same way, honoring someone is presenting them at their best. We are to figuratively clothe them in the most flattering attire and present them to others as we would want to be presented. Our attitude toward them and our conversation about them will highlight their good qualities and conceal their less attractive features.
2)
Put him on the king's horse.
The king's horse was undoubtedly the biggest, most majestic horse in the stables. Whoever sat on that horse was lifted up higher than anyone else. We are to raise others up so that they're lifted high. Lifting someone else up does just that, it lifts them up. Somehow, we think that lifting others means that we're brought low, or that by putting others down we lift ourselves up. But,
I should not be part of the equation. The way we treat others, how we honor them, is not meant to say anything about us. It's meant to say something about, and do something for, them. Remember, this was the king doing something to honor someone. It was not meant to draw attention to the king. His status as the king was not diminished because he was showing honor to another. Honor puts the focus on someone else and elevates them.
3)
Set the royal crown on his head.
This takes honor to a new level. The crown represents authority. Placing the crown on someone's head is acknowledging that the person is equal in status to the king. We might think,
"But this person in my life is certainly NOT in equal standing with a king, in fact, they're really far below it and (the way I see it) they really have a lot to work on. When they get their act together to meet my requirements I'll think about showing them honor."
Some of that may be true. Will it ever
not be true? Will there ever be a time when someone doesn't, when we ourselves don't, have something to work on? What example does God give to us?
"When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
what is man that you are mindful of him,
and the son of man that you care for him?
Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings
and crowned him with glory and honor.
You have given him dominion over the works of your hands;
you have put all things under his feet" Psalm 8:3-6
,Doesn't He look at us through His Son, our King, Jesus? Isn't
His righteousness placed on
our head so that His status becomes our status? "For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin so that, in him, we might become the righteousness of God." 2 Corinthians 5:21 Do we deserve it? No, it is only by His grace that we are acceptable in the sight of God. And so, we extend grace to others who are as undeserving as we are and place a crown on their heads and lift them up in honor. Not because they deserve it, but because we are followers of Jesus and walk in His footsteps and pattern our behavior after His. We don't honor the undesirable, or sinful, qualities. That's why we begin with the royal robe, we publicly cover the flaws. We present the good and honor it.
4)
Lead him through the streets proclaiming his delight to the king.
We are to
speak compliments about the person we would honor. We are not only to dress them in the best and most flattering way with the flaws concealed but then we are to
share that with others. We are not only to raise them up but are to
display them to others as raised up. We are not only to crown them with excellence but are to
speak of the excellence to others.
Honor is personal in how we think of and act toward another.
Honor is public in how we speak of present someone to others.
I have a very personal example of this. Many years ago a young family moved to our area and joined our church. I was speaking with the young mother in my home one day and the name of another woman in the church came up and I said something. I don't remember what I said and I don't remember the context of our conversation. But I remember, exactly, the response from the young woman. She said to me, "You two don't like each other very much, do you?" She said it in a very matter-of-fact way as a blunt observation; and, those burning words seared themselves in my mind.
I was convicted for having said something that so blatantly portrayed my (what I thought were hidden) feelings. I was not surprised to also realize that the other woman had made statements of a similar sentiment about me. What a terrible testimony to this young mother!
I made a vow to change my side of our relationship. I promised myself that I would do two things. First, I would pray for her every day. Second, every time her name came up I would say something good about her. In the beginning I had one good thing I would say. I reworded and rephrased it, but I paid her the same public compliment for quite awhile. In my selfishness and high-mindedness I had dwelt way too long and hard on the things I did not like about her and that's all I could see. I wasn't in the habit of seeing the things that were good. But prayer and compliments began to bring about a change in me. I started seeing admirable traits in her. I discovered that she was patient, she was even-tempered, she was thoughtful, kind, humble, steadfast, virtuous, godly, and before long I thought much more of her than of myself and started admiring her! The compliments became heartfelt and real.
I also discovered that my complimentary conversations behind her back were finding their way back to her. One of my daughters shared with me that when she spent time with this woman she found herself sharing, "My mom says how you're...", or, "My mom thinks you're really good at...." Imagine how you would feel (or, hopefully, you know how it feels) to have someone saying good things to others about you behind your back.
Without ever sitting down and addressing a relational problem and trying to hammer out and correct the situation our relationship has turned around. Honor is not about two people working things out or having mutual respect for one another. Honoring someone is something you can do without any cooperation from them. You can show someone honor, conceal their blemishes, lift them up, equate them with excellence, and broadcast their virtues to the world without any cooperation from them. This is something you can commit to the Lord and draw from His strength and example to show just a minute fraction of the grace and honor that he has extended to you.
May God bless you as you draw near to Him and seek to bless the women in your life by honoring them!
(I finished our workshop with a young women's rendition of I Corinthians 13 that I wrote for my lovely ladies at one of our weekends. I think I have written enough here for one day and will plan to share the poem next week.)
