Family Harmony

I have noticed that my attitude truly determines our family harmony. I hate that so much rests on my emotions because most of the time I have such a hard time keeping them in check. When I am under control and joyful my house is harmonious, but when I am not things fall quickly into chaos.

In the last three weeks our family has moved more toward harmony than we have ever been. I truly believe it is because I have begun to make some earnest changes in myself. I have let my emotions rule me for my entire life. If it even seemed like it was going to make me happy I did it. Most of the time not really considering the consequences. I rationalize that if I was happy that everyone else would be as well, and this new "thing" was going to do that for me. Thing was not always something material, in fact it was usually quite the opposite. It was usually a new system or procedure to getting things done.

All the time ignoring the truth. The truth is that nothing exterior is going to do it for me. The change must come from the inside. I must rely on God to work the changes in me. This has always seemed like the wrong way to go about things. Shouldn't I be able to control my emotions? Shouldn't I be able to change myself by pulling myself up by the bootstraps and just doing it? Apparently, I am just a silly human like everyone else. Even though this is human nature it is not what God wants me or you to do. He wants us to rely on him, He wants to heal our hurts, He wants to make real change in our life.

So even though it is hard and goes against everything that I am, I have been praying for Him to take over. Truly take over. And guess what? I think it might be working. :)

Real change is helping our family to live in harmony with one another. For once I am not expecting anyone to change for me. My emotions are also not holding everyone hostage. I am sure they are fully expecting things to go back to business as usual, but I am hoping that they don't.