Only One Way To Survive - The Ultimate Guide To The Perfect Family Series

This may come as a surprise for many, but every man desires to have the perfect family. It's no secret that every woman desires to have the perfect family, but so do men! However, if you haven't noticed yet, there is no perfect family. We are all messed up, flawed beyond hope and very dysfunctional. And unlike popular sitcoms about dysfunctional families, it really isn't funny! So how can you survive or overcome these flaws?

God Cares about You

What is wrong with your family? How flawed are your parents, your spouse, your kids? It's almost as if God didn't care! But God does cares about the family flaws you have to face now And He cares about the family flaws you endured in the past, and the ones yet to come. God wants to help us handle the abnormal things about our family. I want you to know that no matter what your family situation is, God still loves you and can use you.

Remember what I told you before, if we will plug into God’s grace and ask for His wisdom and follow His instructions we can have peace and joy in our lives no matter how tough things have been or are right now in our family! Just remember that no matter what you have done or what others have done to you, God wants to restore your life. And no matter how hard things seem right now, God can and will bring you out of that for His glory.

A True Story

Let me tell you a true story that will bring some perspective to this whole thing. The story is taken from "God Allows U-Turns" and it is titled: "In God’s Eyes," by Candace Carteen of Portland, Oregon.

"By the time I was ten, I was totally ashamed of my father. All my friends called him names: Quasi-Moto, hunchback, monster, little Frankenstein, the crooked little man with the crooked little cane. At first it hurt when they called him those things, but soon I found myself agreeing with them. He was ugly, and I knew it!

My father was born with something called parastremmatic dwarfism. The disease made him stop growing when he was about thirteen and caused his body to twist and turn into a grotesque shape. It wasn’t too bad when he was a kid. I saw pictures of him when he was about my age. He was a little short but quite good-looking. Even when he met my mother and married her when he was nineteen, he still looked pretty normal. He was still short and walked with a slight limp, but he was able to do just about anything. Mother said, “He even used to be a great dancer.”

It Got Worse

Soon after my birth, things started getting worse. Another genetic disorder took over, and his left foot started turning out, almost backward. My Father's head and neck shiftedover to the right, his neck became rigid and he had to look over his left shoulder a bit. His right arm curled in and up and his index finger almost touched his elbow. His spine warped to look something like a big, old roller coaster and it caused his torso to lie sideways instead of straight up and down like a normal person. My Father's walk became slow, awkward, and deliberate. He had to almost drag his left foot as he used his deformed right arm to balance his gait.

I hated to be seen with him. Everyone stared. They seemed to pity me. I knew he must have done something really bad to have God hate him that much.

Ungrateful Teenager

By the time I was seventeen, I was blaming all my problems on my father. I didn’t have the right boyfriends because of him and I didn’t drive the right car because of him. I wasn’t pretty enough because of him, I didn’t have the right jobs because of him and I wasn’t happy because of him.

Anything that was wrong with me, or my life, was because of him. If my father had been good-looking, like James’ father, or successful like Paul’s father, worldly like Terry’s father, I would be perfect! I knew that for sure.

The night of my senior prom came, and Father had to place one more nail in my coffin; he had volunteered to be one of the chaperones at the dance. My heart just sank when he told me. I stormed into my room, slammed the door, threw myself on the bed, and cried.

The Pillow

“Three more weeks and I’ll be out of here!” I screamed into my pillow. “Three more weeks and I will have graduated and be moving away to college.” I sat up and took a deep breath. “God, please make my father go away and leave me alone. He keeps sticking his big nose in everything I do. Just make him disappear, so that I can have a good time at the dance.”