Gospel Prism

In families where there are multiple children, usually more than 2, there is always the potential of sibling distance.  Perhaps that has happened to some of you.  You have one brother you’re closer to than another sister.  You have a sister you’re closer to than another brother.  In the past, I used to chalk that up solely to personality.  But as I examine my own children, I am coming to see that, though personality certainly has something to do with it, parents can take an active role in preventing such distancing.

I watched my oldest daughter Charisa grow quite close to Sarah, our second daughter, and virtually have nothing to say to Elisabeth our third daughter.  Because of Jack’s uniqueness (only boy and youngest), he always somehow gets into the fray of any conversation.  But Elisabeth, she was slowly being isolated.  This obviously concerned me and Shua and so we made very intentional efforts to draw Charisa and Elisabeth together.  We have taken the two of them to different places in one car while taking Sarah and Jack in another car, such as our church retreat.  The funny thing about that car ride was that neither said more than a few words in a 1 and a half hour car ride, which made me realize just how much things had deteriorated.  And though I asked questions to both of them to get them to connect with each other, nothing seemed to work.

So Shua and I decided to switch Sarah into Jack’s room and Elisabeth into Charisa’s room.  And that has actually worked.  They talk more.  They play together.  They laugh together.  Sarah is fine because that’s just her personality. She seems to always fit in somehow.

My point is that parents make a different.  We might not be the sole arbiter of children’s relationships and their closeness or distance.  But we do radically impact the relationship our kids have with one another, perhaps much more than we realize.  Paul writes in Ephesians 6:4: “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.”  We are called to bring them up in the Lord and that means we are to be intentional in leading them to love God with all their hearts and to love one another.