Families and Healing

I know people who have had loved ones act in such shameful ways that it forever affects their relationship. So much so that in effect they never have a relationship. It is an open and continual wound that never heals. It doesn’t have to be that way.

In the Perkins family we’ve had many such negative events; Adultery and divorce, alcoholism, drug dependency, gambling, murder, suicide attempts, political differences, religious differences and I guess every sort of difference that you can imagine, and yet generally we are a big happy family. Here are some reasons that I think that is so.

We were taught to love each other and forgive and we had plenty of family gatherings where that was demonstrated.

I remember as a kid that we had come into town to spend Christmas and were staying at my grand-parent’s house and there was a big commotion. One of my uncles had come home drunk and knocked over the Christmas tree. Somehow they got the Christmas tree back up and we had a good Christmas and no one seemed to be too mad about it.

Every other year we gather at my brother Greg’s home for Thanksgiving and before the prayer the three brothers talk about family and memories and what the future holds and how God has blessed us.

A few years back we had a Perkins’ family reunion in San Diego, California and had 120 people in attendance. I give Facebook a lot of credit for that because we are all friends on Facebook. I’ve seen relationships build that didn’t previously exist. At the reunion many said… you know, I’ve never met you but I feel like I know you!

I’ve seen a relationship build between my daughter and my oldest cousin. Lauren has only seen Dave Perkins a few times but I can see that they love each other. We even have a private Facebook page that only family members are on so that we can share things that the rest of the world wouldn’t begin to understand.

I heard my daughter tell another cousin's wife (who had a tragedy occur in the family), "I love you and I think about you every day". They have only met once or twice but those are healing words.

We have several text message groups; Texas Perkins, Perkins Hog Hunters with Extreme Malice, Perkins Texas 42, Perkins Texas aggies, Deplorable Perkins and a few more. It’s not unusual for me to look at my phone during the day and see over 100 text messages.

We always contact each other on our birthdays including calling and singing “Happy Birthday”. The common response of the listener is to say you sound like the “Mormon Tabernacle Choir”.

Perkins’ have a great (although frequently misunderstood) sense of humor. We can make fun of each other and laugh at ourselves. If we know someone is a little sensitive we can even back off a little bit until we get them up to speed. My brothers and I were raised in a home that had a lot of laughter.

My uncle who never darkened a church house door after he left home was a drunk, left his wife for another woman and was notorious for his bar room fights. And yet in his old age I would call him three to four times a year and send him a ham at Christmas. I would occasionally talk to him about Christ but not all the time. The main thing I wanted him to know was I cared about him. Most of the time I just poked fun at him and he loved that. At the end of those conversations he would always tell me that he loved me.

About 5 years ago my brother Scott and I had a disagreement/misunderstanding and he was so mad at me I didn’t know what might happen, but now it’s just water under the bridge and the subject never came up again. You see if you love someone so deeply and intensely you just can’t let anything interfere with that. Of course there’s work you have to do along the way and communication is a big part of that as is demonstrating unselfish love.

I don’t know every situation and yours might be different but I do know a lot of situations and thought maybe these things could be of benefit to you. Sometimes those old wounds can heal if you apply a little medicine to them

"My Husband Doesn't Love Me"

Imagine you were at a dance and you saw a girl on the other side of the dance floor that just… took your breath away… her eyes sparkled, she smiled at you and you thought she was the prettiest thing you had ever seen and were summoning up the courage to ask her to dance when your dad came up and said, “I want you to dance with that other girl that no one else is paying attention to”. You looked over and saw a plain homely kind of a girl and your heart sank but you did it and danced the whole night with her. Finally at the very end you got to dance with the girl of your dreams and your heart beat so hard you thought it was going to break out of your chest.

That’s kind of like the story of Jacob, Leah and Rachel in the book of Genesis. Jacob had his heart set on Rachel but God had other plans for him and he had to marry Leah first in order to also marry her sister Rachel.

Here’s the thing… Leah knew Jacob didn’t love her. Jacob only had eyes for Rachel. What do you do when you realize your husband doesn’t love you? With many tears Leah prayed to God and God heard her prayers and opened her womb and gave her six sons and one daughter whom Jacob loved with all his heart… and Rachel? God closed her womb so she could feel some of Leah’s hurt.

When I used to work cattle every so often we would push a Brahma (Bramer) through the chute. Often times they would go down in the chute and “sull” stopping the whole process. You could put a kink in their tails or hit them with a Hot Shot but you just couldn’t get them to move until they were ready.

Leah didn’t “sull” she did what she could do, gave it a little time and left the rest up to God. Rachel eventually had two boys but died during the birth of the second. Leah lived a long life with Jacob and felt his love and was buried by his side. God does answer the prayers of his faithful ones (including Rachel).

Don’t despair if you’re not the prettiest one at the dance. God knows who you are and like Leah can make your offspring as numerous as the sand on the beach… one of whom was Jesus Christ. Have a little faith.

Proof of Faith

The letter that James wrote has a lot to say about proving our faith, which begs the question… does our faith need to be proven?...apparently so. James illustrates two ways faith is proven.

The first is by successfully conquering temptation to sin (James 1:2-3). When the Christian is faced with temptation and refuses to sin he has completed one leg of the race.

The second way faith is proven is by faith inspired works (James 2:14-26). The scriptures are replete with examples of faithful people whose faith inspired them to perform so called “works” and those works are illustrated in great detail.

The section on faith and works is concluded by the statement “faith without works is dead”. You may have conquered sin but there is still more to do. No one wants to have dead faith or even weak faith. Our goal is to have strong, vibrant faith.

The body builder goes to the gym every day to lift weights. One day is “arm” day another is “leg” day… so forth and so on. Eventually his physical body is transformed to the image of Herculean strength.

The spiritual faith builder exercises his faith by working good works every single day. As he does so he is transformed and his faith gets stronger and stronger until he is shaped into the spiritual image of Jesus Christ.

Our faith is proven in two ways; by refusing to sin and by proving our love for others by providing for their needs. Follow that formula and you will be well prepared for eternity.