Family Issues

Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind.  Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit.  Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.  In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus.  Philippians 2:1-5


I've been thinking a lot lately about what it means to be a member of a church and what a church body should look like.  During difficult days, it's easy to look at another church body and wish you could be there.  It's happy there, people love each other there, it isn't awkward there.  My church has been wrestling through some family issues in the last few months, if not years, and it's made me wonder what the root problem is and how I can fix it.  There's been lots of offenses and hurt feelings that have appeared to me to be downplayed.  Lots of families have left--not just any families, but families of church leaders, families who have been there forever.  This is not just a small bunch of little kids whose feelings were hurt when someone told them they needed to follow the rules.  That point cannot be made strongly enough.  I'm not a supporter of seeker-friendly churches, but I am a supporter of a church that is member-friendly.

I think it's very telling of both the leadership as well as the members when these family issues fester over the course of months and years.  Since when can a family not communicate with itself?  Isn't that the heart of true dysfunction?  If we are a picture of a body, it seems that we have some kind of neurological problem since we cannot send signals that we are experiencing pain until we are so injured that amputation is needed.  It's been easy for me to pinpoint what problems I see in my leaders, but it wasn't until recently that my husband pinpointed our part in this problem--we have not been friends with the people we go to church with.  He remembers a time when he was friends with other church members.  They met after church for meals; they spent time together; they talked about everything, not just life (what's-been-good-on-television) stuff, but spiritual things because it was an overflow of their lives, not because they had been given a list of discussion questions to talk about at the end of a chapter.  Since when does a family need a list of questions in order to have a conversation?  Church members are a family, not a group of stockholders.

For months I've become irritated when our leaders have spoken from the pulpit about the congregation needing to be more open with each other when I have yet to see them be open with us.  And while I still feel that that issue is very valid, I need to see it first in my own life and seek to change that in my life before I can approach anyone else for his or her offense.  I need to be inviting more people into my life.  I need to sacrifice some of my family time for church family time.  Maybe it's time for us to carve out time from youth sports, homeschooling, hobbies, a perfectly clean house, baking, school projects, and me time in order to make ourselves a family with our fellow believers.  The church isn't a non-profit corporation wherein we keep things on a professional level.  The very essence of family is that things are on a very personal level.  And if we are to be one body, we need to know where we are hurt in order to know how to minister and aid in healing ourselves.

This is not a resolved piece or situation.  I have debated whether I should post this or just file it away somewhere in the recesses of my computer.  However, there have been lots of conversations around me about what the problems are and what the focus needs to be.  I have not been able to find a voice in the conversation other than writing out this piece and talking with my husband and hopefully through both of these methods I've been able to sort through things in my mind.  I share this now with you in order to continue the conversation.

When Your Best Isn't Breast

Before I gave birth to my first child, I knew I would be nursing him.  I had heard about all the benefits and while there was some vague mention about learning how to breastfeed, but I mostly heard about how wondering it was for both mom and baby.  Baby boy was born.  We weren't even out of the hospital before I had cracked and bleeding nipples from a bad latch.  The nurses tried to help, but it wasn't until I met with an independent lactation consultant that things started to progress to bearable.  My son was supplemented the whole time I nursed him.  My body just didn't make enough.  Maybe it was due to supplementing early on.  Maybe it was due to him staying in the nursery the first night.  There are so many different factors, it's hard to pinpoint where I went wrong.

Two years later my daughter was born and I was determined to do things right.  I exclusively nursed her until the nurses said that she had lost too much weight and needed supplementing.  I listened and she had supplements.  I started taking mallunggay to help my supply and did all the right things.  I drank water, I drank beer, I took all the supplements.  I started out with an oversupply.  Y'all.  It felt great.  Even through discovering that she had a milk protein allergy and living without my beloved ice cream, I nursed.

Months into nursing, my supply went down.  I nursed all the time, drank water, everything.  But, after considering all the details, I decided to wean to formula.  I hated it, but I hated it less than last time.  Breastfeeding awareness week is kind of tough for me.  I see lots of mothers proudly boasting about their breastfeeding accomplishments, posting pictures of themselves nursing their babies, talking about how wonderful nursing is.  I'm very pro-breastfeeding.  However, breastfeeding awareness week is hard for me.  The majority of women can do something I can't.

I'm not writing this to discourage those moms out there who are sacrificing their time, comfort, to do lists, figures, and so many other things in order to provide their best for their babies.  I'm writing this for the mom out there who feels wretched about her lack of ability to breastfeed her baby until the desired age to wean.  I'm writing for the mom who never made enough milk to begin with.  I'm writing for the mom whose body never got the message to make milk at all.  I'm with you.  It's tough. This didn't go the way you wanted it to go.

I've discovered that this is only the beginning of things not going the way I want them to go in my children's lives.  There are going to be so many other things that mess up and go wrong.  Let's not campout there, though, ladies.  Let's not dwell in the difficulty.  There is a time in every mom's life when she needs to say, "This is the best I can do" and leave the rest for God to make up for her.  We cannot meet all the needs before us.  There's not enough energy and ability.  This, for those of us who don't make enough, is an opportunity for us to let go the guilt and ask God to meet the needs of our child because we can't.  And after that, do what you can and don't worry or stress about not doing enough or being enough because God is more than enough.  He can and will do what we can't.