Strengthening Friendships With Parents and In-Laws

Susan Alexander Yates



We are admonished to honor our parents (Exodus 20:12). If we are single, our responsibility is to our own parents; but if we are married, our responsibility is not only to our parents, but to our in-laws as well. It is true that when we marry, we marry a family. Part of becoming one in marriage involves the sharing of all things, and that includes our parents.
The great Bible story of Ruth and Naomi illustrates for us a tender example of honoring one's mother-in-law. Facing a famine in Judah, Naomi fled with her husband and two sons to the country of Moab. There they raised their sons and saw them married to Moabite women. When her husband and both sons died, Naomi decided to return to her native country of Judah. Although she encouraged her daughters-in-law to remain in their own country, Ruth chose to go with her, saying: "Where you go, I will go, and where you stay, I will stay. Your people shall be my people and your God my God" (Ruth 1:16).
Ruth's faithfulness to her mother-in-law resulted in her marriage to one of Naomi's kinsmen and having the honor of being the great-grandmother of King David and a direct ancestor of Jesus, the Messiah.
God has called us to serve our mates and to honor our parents. These two foundational principles are vital in building friendships within the family. It will not always be easy. It may be inconvenient and costly to honor your parents. And you will not be able to please everyone. Your ultimate job is not to keep everyone happy, but to be faithful to God's calling, which is to love your spouse, to nurture your children, and to care for your parents.

Six Ways to Nurture Friendships with Parents and In-Laws



1. Expand the Positives
If we asked ourselves, "Whose approval do I most desire?" our parents and in-laws would rank somewhere near the top of the list. We want our parents to be proud of us, and we long for their approval. This desire can cause us to be overly sensitive to them, especially in the beginning of a new season of life.
As a newlywed, you decide to change your hairstyle. Your close friend says she thinks it looks best long. You take that as good advice. But if your mother-in-law says she'd like it long, you take it as interfering. Or, your toddler is misbehaving and your good friend says he needs a "time-out." You may welcome her insights, but if your mother had been the one to say that, you might have taken it as criticism of your parenting skills: "How can she be so critical?" Or, you work hard to clean your house before your folks come over. They fail to comment on how lovely it looks, so you assume they are displeased.
It's so easy to overreact or to give too much weight to our parents' comments or lack of comments. Becoming critical of their responses, we begin to dwell on the negatives when we ought to expand the positives. Even if there are genuine problems, we have to decide whether we are going to focus on the disappointments or choose to accentuate the positives.


2. Learn from Them
No matter what our parents are like, they possess two things that we don't—age and experience. With age comes experience and wisdom. And the older one becomes, the longer he has had to develop personal gifts and talents. Each of us can learn from our parents. They have lived a life different from ours, in a world different from ours.
We can ask ourselves several questions about our parents.
"What are their gifts?"
"Do they have wisdom?"
"Do they do something well?"
"Do they have a unique talent they could teach us?"
Some time ago, my husband, John, was struggling with a personnel problem in his office. He was really stuck and did not know how to handle the potentially explosive situation. He desperately needed wisdom and felt that he didn't have much! So he picked up the phone and called my mother. This was perfectly natural, because one of my mother's gifts is wisdom. She has had much experience with people, and she has an unusual ability to see clearly in the midst of a mess. She listened and was able to give my husband several insights that helped him decide what to do. It was mutually beneficial. He was helped by her insights and she was encouraged by being needed. And their friendship grew a little deeper because of his trust in her judgment.


3. Initiate Activities and Show Thoughtfulness
It's so easy to expect our parents to initiate activities with us. After all, they are our parents. We've grown up responding to them. So we wait, longing to spend time with them and wondering if and when they'll make a move toward us. Could it be that they need us to reach out to them? Yes. We can't expect our parents to continually take the initiative for getting together with us.
Jodie has had a difficult relationship with her dad, and yet she longs to grow closer to him. As we chatted one day, I asked her, "What does your dad like to do?"
After thinking for a moment, she replied, "Well, he often takes walks."
"Ask him if you could join him for a walk," I suggested. "Go with him with no agenda other than to enjoy being with him. And go as often as you can. It may feel awkward at first, but if you persist, you'll be surprised at how much more comfortable you both will become. Walks are 'his thing,' and you need to go where he is comfortable. You'll be amazed how a simple gesture like a walk can open the doors to a deeper relationship."


4. Care for Them When They Are Old and Ill
How you do this will vary with your circumstances. As we remember our two essentials—consider what is best for your own family, and consider how to honor your parents.
What are their needs? Where do you live in relation to them? What extended-family support is available? What resources such as financial, health care, housing, etc., are available?
Then, consider the needs of your immediate family. If you are struggling with toddlers or both husband and wife are working in careers with little flexibility, your options will be limited. If you are single or do not have children, you may be in a better position to help.
Communicate clearly with your extended family as you make decisions about your aging parents. Working together to solve problems could become an opportunity for brothers and sisters to deepen their friendships.
You must be willing to sacrifice time, space in your home, and financial resources to care for your parents. It won't be easy. Caring for older parents can be inconvenient and time-consuming. But just remember, you weren't easy to care for as their baby. You were hard to raise and often exasperating. You demanded sacrifice. Now it is your turn to honor them and sacrifice for them.


5. Maintain a Sense of Humor
Sometimes we feel like the children and our parents feel like our parents. Then, suddenly, they act like children and we feel like the parents. The relationship has turned upside down and it feels very strange. It's difficult to find oneself parenting parents.
Trish is a single parent in her fifties. Her daughter, Wendy, is 27 and lives with her. One evening Trish went with a blind date to the theater. She expected to return home right after the show, but she and her date were having such a good time, they went out for a late dinner. When she opened the front door, it was 1 A.M. Suddenly the hall light came on, and there stood a very sleepy, very concerned daughter.
"Mother," she exclaimed, "where have you been? You are later than you said you would be. And I didn't know anything about your date. You could have been in real trouble. I was about to call the police."
As Trish stood on the steps, she experienced a sudden flashback of herself in the same position years earlier! After Trish apologized to her daughter for causing concern, the two had a good laugh about their role reversals.


6. Prepare for "No Regrets"
When our parents and in-laws die, we want to look back with a sense of gratitude rather than a feeling of regret. "But you don't know how bad my relationship with my parents has been," you might respond.
That's right. I don't know ... but God does. And He has been there with you even in the most painful times. No matter how difficult your family relationships were, you must believe that your parents did the best they could, given what they themselves came from. Hardly any parent sets out to do a bad job of raising his own children. The good news is that it is never too late to do what is right, to get things straightened out, to ask for forgiveness, and to start over.
Pat was raised in an abusive home. Her only brother adopted the gay lifestyle, and she became estranged from her father. Recently, her brother was diagnosed with AIDS. The same week her father was told that he had terminal cancer. Pat longed to minister to both her brother and father, but she knew that in her father's case, she needed to forgive him before she could help him. It was painful and difficult, but with God's tender mercy she forgave her dad, and just before he died, he gave his life to Christ and asked for His forgiveness.
Then as she nursed her brother in his final days, he too surrendered his life to a loving heavenly Father who understands pain and who is able to forgive and restore relationships.
Pat's story is one of gratitude for relationships redeemed instead of regret and bitterness for relationships lost. Each of us must do all we can to live with "no regrets." We don't know what the future holds, and we don't want to look back and say, "I didn't get to tell him I was sorry," or "I wish I had told her I loved her."
Sometimes it's helpful to look ahead and ask ourselves, "How will I look back on this time in a few years?" We may realize that we need to forgive or to ask for forgiveness, we may need to write a letter expressing love, or we may need to give the gift of our time to sit with a parent who is ill. Whatever we must do, we should do it now, for we may not have as much time left as we think we do.


Excerpted from A House Full of Friends by Susan Alexander Yates. Copyright © 1995 by Susan Alexander Yates.

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Stress

by Edward R. Dayton

We all need relief valves. They can save a lot of time that we would normally take cleaning up the mess caused by personal explosions.
When we installed a new hot water heater, I discovered a local ordinance that says there has to be a relief valve hooked up somewhere in the water system. If for some reason the thermostat doesn't turn off the gas under the boiler, and the boiler is so hot it is ready to explode, the valve will pop off, and pressure will be relieved. Things may stay just as hot under the boiler, but at least it won't blow up all over the house.
One of the most effective, long-range relief valves is to recognize what causes the buildup of pressure. If you see by your calendar that you are in for a few heavy weeks or too many late nights, block out some relief-valve time. This might be a half-day, whole day or extended weekend. Take yourself out of your normal situation. Place yourself in a situation in which past experience has shown you can forget what is going on. This may mean a day alone at the beach or the mountains, a day with your family, or a weekend away with your husband or wife. It's a big help if couples will discuss their future schedules together to identify where the overload problems are and schedule in breaks in the routine.
In addition to the count-to-10 pressure reliever with which most of us are familiar, there are some others:

Staying ahead of your work is a good way to relieve the pressure of schedules. By scheduling a completion time 10 percent to 20 percent ahead, you have the peace of knowing there's time to recover if things go wrong.

Doing the hard things first, particularly if they have a great deal of emotional content, will relieve the subterranean emotions that tend to plague us in different situations.

Getting enough sleep is a must. Know how long you can get along with a reduced amount.

Do the difficult tasks in phases. Often a "first draft" will get you 80 percent of the way along. Time for "topping off" the finished product can be better foreseen, and meeting the deadline seems less of a task.

Have planned recreation and hobbies. I am a wood carver and a carpenter of sorts. Setting aside time for this activity helps me relax. Other people enjoy different methods of unwinding. One of my close friends has a way of announcing to his secretary when he will be finding some relief. If he says, "I'm going to inspect some real estate at 3 o'clock," you can be sure that you'll find him on the first tee at the golf course.

Admitting and verbalizing the causes for your own irritations (be they lack of sleep, overworking, too much stress or what have you) helps [keep] others from getting emotional with you and triggering unexpected explosions.

Facing up to the fact you really can't do all the things you scheduled and that some of them need to be postponed is probably the best relief valve of all. This can be a humbling experience, but the rewards in personal well-being are great.

Excerpted from Tools for Time Management by Edward R. Dayton, published by Zondervan. Copyright © 1974 Zondervan Corporation.

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The Upside and Downside of Anger

Is righteous anger ever justified? Know the difference between selfish and selfless anger.
by Ed Chinn

As almost everyone knows, we live in a conflict-driven culture. Various factors – political marketing, 24-hour cable news, talk radio, etc. – have Balkanized our society into a kaleidoscope of interest groups. They relate to each other through turbo-charged suspicion, shotgun blasts of opinion and open hatred.
In such an environment, anger has become a "virtue."
Many stand-up comics express their brand of comedy through profane and seething anger. One of the contributions of punk rock was the celebration of anger. You can also watch producers of daytime reality shows (like Jerry Springer) coax participants to, "Let it all out. Get mad. Tell her what you really think. Don't you really want to slap her?"
Very clearly, we have crossed a river. In the "new media age," political issues – immigration, the war on terror, global warming, abortion – can only be discussed in anger. The old-fashioned form of polite discussion of the issues of the day has deteriorated into a shouting match.
The one common denominator of all this cultural anger is a relentless and self-serving "worship of individualism." It is all about "me." Anger is directed at protecting the cherished terrain of my rights, my ideas, my feelings and my indulgences.
This worship of individualism has become the god of modern culture.
Is Anger Ever Unselfish?
As far as I know, the Bible reveals only two angry moments in Jesus' earthly life. One was when he threw furniture in the temple because mercantile interests were perverting the House of God.
The other episode was when He healed the man with the withered hand. Mark 3:1-6 paints the picture; Jesus encountered a serious human need. Unfortunately, surrounding that need was a religious system which could not even see the man or his infirmity; it was only focused on rules and preservation of an old order. Incensed, Jesus gazed into the face of that Pharisaical order and "with anger" at their "hardness of heart" reached out and healed the man.
Jesus – our pattern – got angry. In both cases, His anger was a response to barricades which blocked God's salvation and kindness from reaching into and touching the deep need of human lives. Jesus was not reacting out of a sense of being threatened (the usual earthbound cause for anger). Rather, His divine sense of justice was offended. He was angry at the perpetuation of illness, sin and oppression.
In a very similar way, when my anger is projected at injustice or oppression, that is usually a sign of healthy anger. When my anger revolves around my self-interest, it is more likely to be selfish and unhealthy.
So how do we know the difference between good and bad, "upside" and "downside," selfish and selfless anger?
Selfish anger will usually cause strong, disproportionate-to-the-situation, physical and emotional sensations: heart palpitations, trembling and louder and faster voice, shortness of breath, using bad language, etc. It can also leave us with the residual effects of insomnia, anxiety and depression.
Righteous anger tends to be slow, thoughtful and controlled. It leads to the formation of a plan rather than hasty and wild actions.

Copyright © 2007 Ed Chinn.

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Grumbling or Gratitude?

Barbara Rainey

Does it ever seem surprising to you that God made the Israelites wander in the wilderness for forty years because they grumbled? My kids may have spent thirty minutes in their rooms for griping, but forty years? What a severe discipline! Ouch, it seems harsh.
God clearly is not pleased with grumbling. It doesn't make Him happy to hear His children complain constantly. Sound like any children you know?
Being grateful is a choice. It's not a feeling dependent on our circumstances, as we clearly see in the Pilgrims' lives. They believed that God was in control—"Providence," they called it. They responded to the circumstances of their lives with a perspective that said, "God has allowed this for our good."
John Piper has written in his book, A Godward Life: "Remembering our dependence on past mercies kindles gratitude. Gratitude is past-oriented dependence; faith is future-oriented dependence. Both forms of dependence are humble, self-forgetting and God-exalting. If we do not believe that we are deeply dependent on God for all we have or hope to have, then the very spring of gratitude and faith runs dry."
Gratitude is what we express when we take time every Thanksgiving Day to remember God's past mercies and provisions and then pause to thank Him for them.
The stories of those who have gone before us inspire our faith. When we consider those great saints listed in the "Hall of Faith" in Hebrew 11 or our Pilgrim forefathers or those men and women we know in recent times who have modeled great dependence on God, our faith is stretched and increased. Their example of placing all hope in Jesus Christ encourages us to do the same.
Hebrews 11:1 says, "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." Those who sailed on the Mayflower knew their Bible well. They were convinced that God existed and could only be pleased through faith (Hebrews 11:6).
Someone has said, "Faith is a firm conviction, a personal surrender, and a conduct inspired by your surrender." The Pilgrims were totally surrendered to God, and they believed that He was leading them to the New World. So they went, confident that He would guide and provide.
The Bible is full of verses on giving thanks. Our problem in America is not that we don't know we are to be thankful, but often we choose to complain instead. The Psalms contain a number of verses that call thanksgiving a sacrifice:
Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving.Psalm 50:14

He who offers a sacrifice of thanksgiving honors Me. Psalm 50:23

Let them also offer sacrifices of thanksgiving.Psalm 107:22

To You I shall offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving,and call upon the name of the LORD.Psalm 116:17

Why is it a sacrifice to give thanks to the Lord? Because being thankful forces us to take our eyes off ourselves and put them on the Lord. Giving up our self-focus is the kind of denial that pleases God.
As a nation, we have inherited a remarkable gift in our freedom to worship, but we have strayed far from our roots and heritage. We must return to the faith of our fathers. Developing a heart of gratitude is the beginning step in growing a stronger faith. Remember what God has done and believe that He will take care of us in the future.

Adapted from Thanksgiving: A Time to Remember by Barbara Rainey, copyright © 2002.

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Q & A: The Persistent Child

Dennis and Barbara Rainey

Q: When my child makes a request and I give him an answer he doesn't like, he keeps coming back and making the same request over and over and over again. How should I handle this problem?

Dennis: Someone has said that nagging is like being nibbled to death by a duck. This is the duck that gets you right here—the persistent child. Persistence is really a good character trait, but it does have a downside.
Look at it like this. This child may be the next Billy Graham. This child may be the next missionary whom God uses to win people in foreign countries to Christ because he perseveres and comes back over and over and over again! Often a weakness is a strength that is taken to an extreme.
Of course, this is no comfort right now for a mom who bears the brunt of this "nibbling" perseverance. I know I made my own mother suffer—I hounded her to death, pestering her, wearing her down. A child can see when his mother starts to weaken, and then he keeps piling on the pressure.

Barbara: I think you need to find out what your limit is. I think you need to decide what issues you are going to draw the line on. On this issue, you need to make it clear to the child what consequences he will face if he repeats a request for which he already has received an answer.
For example, you could say, "When you ask me if you can spend the night with a friend and I say 'no,' that's my final word. If you come ask me again, you are going to be grounded." Then, when this happens, you need to follow through and discipline the child as you promised. Otherwise your child will learn that you are the type of parent who threatens punishment but doesn't carry it out. He'll take advantage of this and find a way to get what he wants.

Dennis: Barbara's dad once gave me a sign after traveling eight hours in a car with our family on a trip. It reads, "Exactly what part of the word NO do you not understand?" He felt like I needed to say “no” and draw boundaries and not keep listening to the kids as they nagged and complained. I hung the sign on a lamp at home. My kids didn't like it. I'm amazed that they didn't toss it in the trash can.
Barbara's advice is very sound—kids need to hear ahead of time what will happen if they come back over and over again with the same request or question. Now this may sound harsh, but it's all about developing character in our children. We used this technique a lot because we had many strong-willed kids in our family.

Barbara: It's an issue of trust. The kids need to learn to trust that the parent is going to do what he said he was going to do.

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Discovering Your God-Given Purpose

by Shana Schutte

There once was a man who netted three trout from a mountain stream and carefully placed them side-by-side on a thick patch of grass. Before he removed them from the water, they were like a liquid ballet in motion. Fluid. Graceful. Vibrant. Alive.
After he netted them, it was another story.
As the trout lay on the grass, they were motionless. Their eyes were fixed. They gasped for air, and they looked — and acted — stupid.
The man noticed they seemed unhappy, so he talked to them, hoping that his encouragement would change them.
“Little fish, don’t be sad. You’ll like the grass. Just try it out for a while.”
No movement. No response. No change.
A few more seconds passed. The man’s neighbor walked by. “Hey, Bob! Come and check out these fish!”
Bob sauntered over and the man explained that he was certain the fish could adjust. “I’m sure they could prosper here on the grass, don’t you?”
“Why not?” Bob replied. So he also tried to tell the fish it would be good if they learned to like the grass. After all, he liked the grass. Why shouldn’t they?
Still, the fish didn’t blink. They just lay there looking dumber by the second.
Finally, a little boy approached exclaimed, “What are you doing? Put them back! They can’t be all they’ve been created to be when they are out of the water.”
Finally convinced, the man carefully placed each fish back in the stream. After splashing for a split second, all three swam away effortlessly. Again, it was like a liquid ballet. What ease! What grace! What beauty!
In that moment, the man realized that no matter how long the fish lay there they would never adjust to the grass, and would never be satisfied — no matter how much he (or anyone else) told them otherwise. Even if the fish tried to convince themselves they could learn to like the grass, they never would, and they would never prosper. In fact, they would eventually die.
Do you feel like a fish out of water? Your prolonged dissatisfaction, God-given gifts, passions and the voices of others could be telling you that you were created for another purpose. And like these fish, if you feel like you are dying inside, listen up. It could be just what you need to push you into another, more satisfying ocean.

Listen to your dissatisfaction
We’ve been taught to believe that dissatisfaction is a bad thing, and that we should do everything possible to avoid it. Shove it down. Ignore it. Act like it doesn’t bother us. Take a pill. Plaster on a smile. Buy something new, or decide that misery is part of “bearing our cross.” But above all, don’t consider that God might be using it to make us uncomfortable so we’ll want to swim in another ocean where our gifts can shine.
Don’t get me wrong; dissatisfaction can be a result of spiritual warfare (Eph. 6:10-12) and not an indication that we are out of God’s will. But it can also be a road sign that He has another purpose for us. So if you’re miserable in your current career or job, (and you have been for a long time), you’ve prayed, sought counsel from others, looked for guidance through Scripture, and you’re still miserable, consider that God may have another plan.

Listen to others
One of my closest girlfriends lights up when she talks about mentoring young women. She also has tremendous business sense. I’ve suggested that perhaps God may use her to start a mentoring organization or ministry. When I shared my thoughts with her, she said, “You know, I’ve heard that from lots of people.”
Just as dissatisfaction can be a road sign from God to show you your purpose, listening to what others say about your gifts can do the same; so when someone notices or comments on one of your talents, take note. God may be trying to tell you something through His people.
There are times, however, when we shouldn’t listen to what others say. But when what they say about us agrees with our passions, internal convictions, gifting and what God has already revealed to us, it can be a solid indication of our God-given purpose.

Listen to your gifts
I’ve never liked math. Whenever I come within five feet of a math problem, I break out in hives. Numbers have never been my thing and my guess is that they never will be because God created me with different gifts. Even though I can’t do math, I can write, paint, draw, sing and communicate well. These gifts are also road signs to where God is directing me.
Have you ever considered your talents and gifts? Do you get a kick out of soccer? Are you a strategic thinker? A great listener? Can you motivate others to action with your words? Are you skilled at building things? I suggest making a list of the things and activities that interest you in which you excel. You can also ask yourself, “What’s the one thing that I do better than others?” This can also clue you in to your God-given purpose.
The gifts God gives us are like little seeds planted inside us, but for them to grow we have to use them. This means that if you can’t identify which “Gift Seeds” God has given you, try doing new things that interest you. Through these new experiences, God will reveal more to you about who you are and how He has called you to serve Him.

Listen to your passions
If I could ask you what makes you angry, joyful, excited or passionate, what would you say? Take note of when your emotions are moved; these times can be a sign of your God-given purpose.
I get fired up about the godless condition of the world. When I hear about little children being abused, I get angry. When someone tells me a story about loyal love, I am deeply moved. An exquisite arrangement of words on a page fills my heart with passion. A story of someone’s heartbreak grieves me. Talking about Christ stirs me up. When coupled with my talents, these passions point in the direction of my purpose of written and spoken communication about things that deeply impact people on a spiritual and emotional level.

Pray

Ask God to show you the things that move you and make a list. And remember, He wants you to discover His purpose for you more than you do.
Lastly, consider that your purpose is not just about you; it’s about what God wants to do through you. Therefore, if you ignore or neglect your dissatisfaction, what others say about you, your gifts and your passions, you are not only betraying yourself, but betraying God; because He has called you to a purpose and wants you to walk in it — for others and for your own joy.
Also consider that since God has called you, He is completely able to reveal your purpose to you, and He will as you diligently seek Him (Heb. 11:6).

Copyright 2008 Shana Schutte.

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Moments With You: Give Them Dinnertime

Dennis Rainey

She rises also while it is still night and gives food to her household. Proverbs 31:15

RV Brown was the sixteenth of 17 children. As he and his siblings arrived at the dinner table, he never understood why his mother stood in the corner with a bowed head. When he was older, he learned that she was praying that the butter beans and cornbread would make it to one end of the table and back without running out!
Of all the rich memories forged in his childhood home, this was the best: dinnertime. Everybody gathered around. Talking, listening, and enjoying the laughter and noise of family togetherness.
He can still hear the older kids talking about the work they’d been doing that day. Or about what had happened at school. Another might tell a story he remembered from his stint in the army. And before they finished, R.V.’s daddy, who couldn’t read or write, would lean back in his chair and begin sharing from his heart in that soft, arresting voice of his. Little bits of wisdom. Nuggets about how to treat people. Pearls about how to always give your best, settling little problems by using some patience and understanding and not hurting anybody.
I hate to think what the pace of life in today’s families has done to memories like these. How many kids, when they grow up and look back on their childhood, will reflect on how much it meant for them to wolf down a fast-food hamburger in the car between ball practice and youth group? I think that what we stand to lose by consistently eating on the run may be a generation that has learned to value activity over relationship ... and continues to feed self when they could be feasting together.
Give your children something they’ll always remember: Give them dinnertime.

Discuss
Be honest about your dinnertime habits. Are they what they should be? What’s one thing you want to do differently about your dinnertime?

Pray
Ask God to help you place more value on being together than on doing it all.

Excerpted from Moments With You by Dennis and Barbara Rainey. Copyright© 2007 Dennis and Barbara Rainey. All Rights Reserved. Published by Regal Books, Ventura, CA 93003.

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