Recently my wife and I attended a seminar by Rebecca Ingram Powell, who reminded us that one of the most important relationships we can encourage with our children – is their relationship to each other. Siblings generally share the most time together throughout a lifetime, at least in amount of years they can be in relationship.
We hear about “sibling bonds” all the time. We encourage them to show love. We remind them not to fight. We force them to share. We duct tape them together in hopes than in about 10 minutes they can accomplish what they couldn’t the entire day previously. Just kidding. 🙂
But when it happens on its’ own, it’s a beautiful thing. Seriously. When your walking down the sidewalk, and you look over to see your daughters join hands on their own – you want to stop time. Breathe in that moment. You helped that to happen. So I felt like I needed to brag on what happened last night:
We’d had a “garage sale” day. You know, the kinda day where you host your own garage sale, and the rest of life’s daily worries seem to fade away? The girls were running around the yard while we waited on our last few customers (everything was free by this point, grateful as we were to not have to bring it all back in!) That’s when the scream came.
I look to where the girls are playing, ready to defend against the dragon, and I see our 3 year old, Sophie, limping a bit toward me with a sob that looked like it was about to jump off her emotional cliff. Her toe was bleeding, but she assured me she did not need to have her toe washed or get a band-aid. The great father that I am, I referred her to mom, our home-trained RN. The playing continued after she was taken care of, and little more was said about the incident. Until later.
Before bed, we’ve been talking with our girls about their “Favorite Part of the Day”, and “Not So Favorite Part of the Day”. Usually these are great times to talk/bond with them, and see what might be standing out. The prized moment came, as we asked Addison, our newly-turned 5 year old, about her “Not So Favorite Part” of the day. Her response?
“When Sophie got her toe hurt.” Complete with sympathetic-sisterly-love-facial-expressions.
Needless to say, we melted into a mushy moment of family smiling.
I can’t imagine how God feels when we’re motivated – not by a sermon reminding us, and not by a scripture we read that morning (though those are great too). But when we’re motivated simply by love for our brothers and sisters in Christ, to carry their burdens, and feel their pain along with them. May we continue to seek His heart…
words from wick 