As our kids grow up, and we grow together, my wife and I were just wondering out loud to each other, “What do we get out of these obligatory relationships?”  We are crazy about our kids, crazy about each other, and even crazy about all of our relatives/extended family.  Really!  We are truly blessed to avoid almost all of the awful stories you hear/read where families just scream at each other.

Still, it takes a LOT of WORK to keep a family moving in a direction that is healthy.  After we (meaning me and Ang) get through our ceaseless chore list and are reasonably certain that the house won’t fall apart/burn down/get repossessed/rot/flood/mold, we STILL have relationships to foster.  If we give our best effort at work, and the kids give their best efforts at school, what do we come home to?  What do we have left when we finally get to the house, pull up the drawbridge, and lock ourselves in our castle?  This world is exhausting!

My almost constant prayer these days (and believe me, I’m no holy man deliberately setting an example), is that we five people who live in this house can just LOVE each other.  So simple but it takes a mountain of resolve and a pile of good intentions and a vat of grace to see past each other’s unvarnished humanity and take care of us – better or worse.

Is it just us or is it tough for everyone?

P.S.  Remember the story from The Mexican?  Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts?  “How much is too much?  When do you say enough and that the relationship is over?”  “NEVER, Never is the answer.”  (or at least something like that)