I don’t know about all of you, but I’ve never been so grateful to have the holidays end as I was this year. For many, Christmas goes hand in hand with family. With that intent, we packed up our recently moved (about a month) selves and traveled from Pennsylvania back to Georgia to spend nearly two weeks, most of which time was spent with my husband’s parents and grandparents.
Let me take the opportunity to say that I am very grateful to my husband’s grandparents for putting us up in their home for almost that entire time. However, two weeks is a long time for anyone to spend together if they are not used to each other, and I’m sure that we annoyed them in minor ways without realizing just as they inadvertently upset us. But the truth is, after two weeks, I’m sure they were almost as relieved to see us go as we were to say goodbye.
On the phone with my mom, I was lamenting yet another thing someone in my husband’s family had done to offend me. She remarked, “It shouldn’t be so hard to love your family.” Well, I love them very much, but at that moment, I didn’t like them too terribly. “Same thing,” my mom said.
My first response, of course, was to point out the fact that if you put my mom in the same room with me, we are lucky to last 30 minutes without going at it. We spent almost two hours at her house, with all three of our small children, and I could tell we pushed the limit of her patience. My second response, of course, was to get offended – after all, my mom is thrice divorced and doesn’t really get along with her parents or her sisters. Who was she, I wondered, to give me family advice?
I’ve done a lot of thinking on families over the last week. The church teaches us that families can be together forever, and there have been times – not just over the holidays – when I’ve asked my husband if he thinks that means we have to be. I was mostly joking.
Few families will run perfectly smoothly once the children have grown and moved out. In addition to personality clashes (particularly once you add in marriage), you also have to struggle with accepting the fact that your baby has grown up. My mom has a hard time accepting the fact that I am now “the mom” in my house. The key, then, seems to be creating lasting family relationships while our kids are young enough to be ‘forced’ together. Teach them to forgive and not be offended (I’m working on it, I’m working on it!).
One of the biggest struggles I’ve had since I joined the church has to do with family. Both of my parents are rather misanthropic; my mom isn’t close to her family at all, and my dad isn’t close to either of his sisters, only to his mother. My husband, on the other hand, grew up with seven sets of aunts and uncles, the oldest only four years his senior, a literal part of his grandparents household. We’ve both worked to integrate family traditions and to accept each others families. In the meantime, one thing I pray for on an almost daily basis in our (little) family prayer is that we will work to be a celestial family that wants to be together forever.
For now, of course, I have the opportunity to exercise a growing amount of patience and love. In short, nearly every contact with my family – both mine and my husband’s – gives me the chance to work on Christlike tendencies. I need to learn not to easily provoked or offended (and I need to read, reread, and then study Elder Bednar’s talk from October Conference). I need to work on my patience, not just with my five year old but with those fifty and seventy year olds I interact with. I need to try to be more kind, and maybe even seek out ways to serve those family members who especially annoy me. After all, Christ had to live with childhood friends and neighbors scorning and mocking him for asserting that He was the Messiah. Ultimately, the same people He came redeemed crucified Him. If He can forgive that, surely I can forgive thoughtless hurtful words.
At the same time, I can continue finding ways to make sure my children grow closer together. I can keep promising myself that I will never be one of those evil mother-in-laws (not that mine is; she’s actually a rather good MIL). And, hopefully, in years to come, my grandchildren will know they and their spouses are welcome in my home, even if they are glad to return to their own space after the holidays are over.
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Eternal Siblings
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Benefits of Family Scripture Study