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