Disconnect or Connect

“I saw all the people  who were mistreated here on earth. I saw their tears and that they had no one  to comfort them.” Ecclesiastes 4:1 (NCV)

When families suffer a crisis in life relationships can suffer, feelings are hurt, then anger takes control.

It is when we allow this anger to control that families split, we must realize our anger, confess it and not allow it to control us. 

What we do with anger makes all the difference.

I borrow some words from Rick Warren:

"When my relationship with God isn't right, it also disconnects me from everyone in my life and causes relational distance and discord."

"How is it that being disconnected from God causes me to want  to cover up? How is it that when my relationship with God is out of whack, I  don’t want you to see the real me? When my relationship with God isn’t right,  it also disconnects me from everyone in my life and causes relational distance  and discord." from Daily Hope by Rick Warren

It is okay to differ in the way we respond to this crisis in our life, it is not okay to "disconnect" from God.  We have nothing to be ashamed of. 

I choose this day to set the example to come boldly to my Lord and Savior.  Again I borrow from Rick Warren. 

"Like Adam and Eve, when I start to hide from God, then I  start to hide from the other people in my life and cover up. The intimacy is  replaced by fear and distrust.

Adam and Eve “suddenly  felt ashamed of their nakedness so they strung fig leaves together to cover  themselves” (Genesis 3:7 LB).

 And there’s been a cover-up going on in  relationships ever since."

I am praying for help as I set an example to my family "not to cover up" to come bodly to each other and express the hurt, the anger.  Then to "forgive" and move forward.

As I have encouraged my family to pick up, dust off, and read God's Word, I encourage you to do the same (as I encourage myself). 

If we allow ourselves to become, "out of whack with God" then  we are opening ourselves to disconnect from God and from each other.

Days, weeks months have passed, we are fast approching the one year anniversary of first Tanner, then Alex and finally Andrew's birthdays.  We are approching the anniversay of the day John Skelton made his first attempt to leave the state with these boys and then that fateful day in Nov. when they did not come home from the Thanksgiving parenting time with John Skelton. 

This is not a reason for us to "disconnect" it is a reason for us to come closer together.  So as a family we meet every month bringing our ideas for "awareness" expessing our hurts and anger.  It is then that we are able to "forgive" to move forward and connect as we "hope" for a "Coming Home."