My Perception

I have been thinking hard and long about a subject: Changing my family tree. I have been thinking about different aspects of what that could mean. It has to be about more than just individuals that make up the tree.
I automatically visualize a tree with names and lines drawn to other names to show parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, siblings, children as far back as we can trace. But as I contemplate on the subject I think about the ones I have known in my lifetime. I look at the names and see fame, fortune, abuse, alcoholism, kindness, love, spirituality, acceptance, obsessiveness and many other pronouns that describe those individuals.
As I stumble to try and say what is in my mind, I hope you will see what is in my heart. As we raise a family, those children meet someone, marry and continue the process of being part of another family. As those families come together we see that we do not always agree on how everything is to be done, partially because of what we perceive as normal from how we were taught to do it. Neither is right or wrong, just different.
As I look back on my grandparents, I realize that I only knew them from the standpoint of a young child. I spent quite a bit of time with them until the age of eighteen, but left home and never really returned to get to know them from an adult standpoint.
I know for myself, that I made a commitment that I would have a home that was calm and inviting. I wanted those who entered my door to feel welcomed. I wanted them to have a comfortable place to sleep if they were spending the night. I don’t know exactly where I got my commitment from, maybe partially from what I was taught and also different from the environment I grew up in. I look at family and have come to the realization that I do not have to have everything the way my parents or Steve’s parents set up their home life to be. I can be different, hopefully taking some of what I have seen, grab the best of it all, and make my life, hoping that my children will take the best of what they see in me and their dad and work to make it stronger, and leave the negative behind!
In writing this, I will challenge you to look at your life as you know it, your parents, your grandparents and pick out the best, leave the worst and set forth to make a better life for you, your spouse and children, if you have them. Ask yourself questions: Do I want to be like my parents, my grandparents, my aunts and uncles when I am their age? Depending on your answer…then what are you doing to make that happen? Do I like how they treat each other? Do I like how they talk to each other? What you see is not “normal” except for the fact that it is your perception of normal.
In closing this chapter, I hope to challenge you to investigate every aspect of your life and see if your “normal” matches up to your spiritual beliefs. There are so many verses in the Bible that teach us what normal should be. "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. John 13:34. Ephesians 5:25-27 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her; 26 that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she should be holy and blameless.
My challenge to myself is to take a good hard look at what I perceive as normal, and set out to make it even better. I feel like I have a good marriage, because I see mine as better than what I perceive as normal. But there is always room to make it better. Aspects that I intend to work on include, personal relationship, finances, attitude, physical being, and spiritual being.
I am excited to venture into this year and begin chiseling away at my perception of “Normal”!