FAMILY MINISTRIES-Seventh-Day Adventist Church-Scotland

Family Life Snippet-Imperfections

FAMILY SNIPPET - IMPERFECTIONS

I was painting one of the rooms in our home the other day and Matthew, our 6-year old child, wanted to help me. While I traced the edges of the room with the paint brush, I gave him the chance to use the paint roller and apply paint to the large part of the wall to where he could reach.

I obviously had to keep an eye on him while he was busy, as well as examine the whole area after he declared his completion of the job.

While examining his work, I admitted that it was quite good for a 6-year old who never painted in his life, even though there were gaps and imperfections in his work, which I had to correct afterwards.

I remember saying to myself that I could keep him out of this room and not help me again, or I could allow him to do the second coat, after I have corrected his imperfections without him knowing, and thus make him feel proud of doing a great job. I decided the latter and called him when the next coat was ready to be applied. 

After the whole room had been painted, I realised that giving him that responsibility was a very good experience for both him and me. For him was the pride he had for being able to do a good job and have his father be proud of him and complementing him. For me was to see his face light up in pride, and running to his mom to come and admire his handiwork.

I learnt two valuable lessons that day. The first lesson I learnt was that my families’ imperfections in actions and character are minor compared to the value they have as person and part of my family. The second lesson I learnt was that the ‘forgiving and forgetting’ virtue is valuable to the health of any relationship.

C.S. Lewis wrote this: “To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable, because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you”

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Family Life Snippet- For What It's Worth

Family Snippet - For What It’s Worth

For what it’s worth consider the following 3 points:

1. God considers that our ability to give and receive love can and would inspire us and enable us to build high quality interpersonal relationships with one another.

2. Seventh-day Adventists believe that the family unit in whatever form is the place where social behaviour and spiritual values are constructed; where social behaviour and spiritual values are interpreted; and where social behaviour and spiritual values are transmitted from one generation to the next.

3. Secular society regard that it is difficult to develop a happy, secure family environment when the marriage relationship is not stable and vibrant; uncommitted marriages will sabotage their families and contribute to the problems within; the emotional ties  that bind families together create incredibly important bonds of attachments that influence us, often for the rest of our lives.

Therefore the opportunity for us exist to help another family who needs support as well as to pray for another family who struggles with some sort of family challenge.

Also for what it’s worth … I happened to stumble on to an informative and helpful discussion on Radio

Scotland

which airs on 92-97 Fm, 810 MW, Digital radio, and on the internet at www.bbc.co.uk/radioscotland

Their newest program is called ‘A Family Affair’, and is broadcast from 11:00 am -11:30 am every Monday morning. Following is a snippet from their website to advertise the program:

“A Family Affair

What's the best way of caring for our elderly relatives and how do we solve our obesity problem? These are just some of the difficult areas of family life and living which pose hard ethical and emotional questions for all of us in today's society.  Ruth Wishart finds out how we're tackling such dilemmas, with people who've had to face them. It's been said that raising our children today is harder than ever - this week, Ruth meets three parents, including child psychologist Richard Woolfson, who talk about the challenges they've faced. “

If you are not able to listen live at the time of broadcast, the program stays online at the ‘Listen Again –Link of the Radio Scotland website’ for 7 days. At the following link:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/noscript.shtml?/radio/aod/scotland_aod.shtml?scotland/feature1_mon

To listen you will need to have a programme called RealPlayer installed on your computer. Download it for FREE from our audio help page - http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/audiohelp.shtml

For what it’s worth , I thought I’d share that with you. Blessings.