My Friend,
My heart breaks for you
You've known only unhealthy
In your family ties:
Yelling commonplace
Violence a given
Manipulation a daily system
Guilt-tripping often
Habits formed
Even as you start your own marriage
Much healthier than that
But friend,
You don't know safe.
You think family is important,
Yet
You don't know safe family.
You don't know WHY family is supposed to be important.
Family is supposed to look like:
Supporting you for you,
Not trying to get you to fit a mold
Or telling you their plan for your life.
Listening to hear your thoughts
To understand you for you
Not to gather info for their next attack or rebuttal
Weeping with you
Laughing with you
No strings attached
No expectations
Open arms acceptance of you for you
Honest, humble, gentle challenging of your sin for your good
Not to show how much better they are than you (it's in their tone and face, no matter the words)
But because they love you (not just say they love you, not just challenging you because of their expectation of you)
Praying with you when you're confused
Taking you to God's presence, knowing He's the only One who can bring clarity.
Giving advice humbly when asked,
Not cleverly inserting it wherever possible,
Trying to get their way.
Giving an honest opinion
Without judgment if you don't agree/follow
Always feeling safe to run to
Because they don't judge others so why would they judge you?
Instead of unsafe family where you're always thinking of what they'll think of you
Because they talk poorly of others so often,
So surely they'll think poorly of you if you don't GET IT RIGHT
Getting it right isn't something you have to worry about with healthy family
Because they just love you for you
You both can kindly disagree (without raised voices) and go about your way
Knowing the love has not changed.
You don't know that family isn't valuable just because it's family.
Family is valuable when it is safe.
When family looks like any other unhealthy relationship,
The response can be the same:
"No thanks" and "Goodbye."
Friend,
I grew up in healthy.
I grew up safe.
So when I was abused by others, it hit hard.
The contrast was SHARP.
I knew healthy
So I knew something there was wrong.
I couldn't put my finger on it for years,
I thought if I could just learn to communicate with him...
Things would be different.
But after awhile,
Gathering all the pieces of gunk in a basket,
I started putting the puzzle together,
And I knew.
My body knew before that:
The heart-thumping with conversations
The cloudy head when I was desperate to understand and communicate
The stomach issues
The tight jaw
The tinnitus...
But friend,
You see my situation and think,
"It's not that bad; why would you react so strongly?"
But oh my friend,
You don't know what healthy is.
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