Emotional Bank Accounts

Every Monday night we set aside a few hours to have quality family time that we call "Family Home Evening", aka FHE.  In our weekly FHE we will have an agenda that includes: opening song, opening prayer, scripture, lesson, activity, treat, and closing prayer.   Each person takes turn rotating assignments.  Yesterday Nathan taught the lesson on "Emotional Bank Accounts".  We have, as an ENTIRE FAMILY, fallen a little short in helping to fill each others bank accounts, but have instead made severe withdrawals in the way we have interacted.  I'm afraid we may all feel as if our accounts are in the negative, because there has been a little more contention and teasing between family members.  In this lesson we discussed ways to make deposits and things we do that make withdrawals from others emotional bank accounts.  We made a poster with the different behaviors.  Then we each made our own jar with stones inside for us to keep track of how we are doing.  The goal is for our stones to be in everyone else's jars, instead of our own.  Each time we do something to make a deposit for a family member, then we take our color stone and put it in their jar.  Each time we make a withdraw, we take one of our stones from our jar into the negative jar and one of their stones comes out as well.   The goal is to fill each others Positive jars with a variety of eachothers stones and keep the negative jars empty! I love this object lesson, because it will help us see how quickly we can build eachother up or empty out one another's emotional bank accounts.

Family home evening is such a blessing for our family.  It takes effort and sacrifice, but it is quality time where we can discuss, learn, have fun, and work together as a family to help us become better people and a stronger family. Life gets busy and can be very hard, but the efforts will be well worth the eternal blessings.

Too Long!

It has been way too long since I have posted.  I plan to write more about all different things, but for today I need to write about the last few weeks.  As our 3 year mark approaches I have reflected on the last few years.  I'm thankful for my journal and blog, because the first year is a blur.  The second year was a little better and time continues to help heal. Milestones, anniversaries, and trauma from the loss of other families often reopens that wound back to day one.  Those emotions and feelings are unforgettable.  My heart has been broken and I have cried several times for another family in our area who lost a child recently.  I have many times just wanted to go find the mom and hug her, even though we don't know eachother.  I have wanted to call.  But just as it was with our experience, I have NO IDEA what to say or what to do! There isn't anything people can say or do to take the pain away.  BUT, I do remember feeling the overwhelming love and support of family, church, friends, and community with phone calls, messages, notes, visits, packages mailed, meals, random door bell ditched goodies, and the list goes on.  We can't say or do much during these times, but we can do small simple acts of love that go a long way.  If you are ever at a loss of what to say or do, just do what you feel in your heart.  You have NO IDEA how small and simple those small acts go for the ones hurting so bad.

           I hope that I can continue to find strength daily to be the person God has intended me to be so I can be with my family forever. I hope I can pay forward ten fold the acts of love and kindness that helped lift me up during my darkest hour. It is a daily battle and I hope that at the end of each day I can rest knowing I have done all I can to help others, show love and kindness, compassion, and Christ like love to those around me, those who despise me, and especially to those who call me mom.