Saturday, November 16, 2013

Family Crisis

Crisis in the family can have a positive or negative effect on a family, depending on how the situation is handled. A crisis adds stress on the family. Usually when people think of stress, they think of it as a very negative thing, but it all reality, it can be for the good. It can help motivate someone to make changes and get something accomplished. Death, job loss, illness, infidelity, divorce, or drug abuse  are all examples of family crisis. Death can be beneficial for a family if they come together and rely on each other. When mom or dad loses their job, it can hurt the family if they are constantly in a bad mood and won't move on from the situation or they can work out the problem by coming up with a solution and working through it together. Family crisis can help make changes in the family structure.

We cannot expect every crisis to have a positive effect. You have to put some work into it. It all depends on how we react. In the Ensign of February 1990, there was a talk given about dealing with stress and discouragement. It says, "Some experts like to rank stressful activities by the amount of stress they produce. But the truth is, it is more the way we react to events, rather than the events themselves, that causes stress. It is our ability to adjust to changes in our circumstances that determines the degree of stress we feel. It is for this reason that what is stressful for one person isn’t necessarily stressful for another." What are we going to do when our child decides to use drugs? Are we going to belittle them and not help them out? That is a moment when your child will need your love the most. Turn to your husband and other children if you have them. Pull closer together as a family and reach out to that sibling who is a little lost. If dad looses his job, he could turn to alcohol consumption or he could turn to his family and our loving Heavenly Father to get help in saving money and finding a new job. The Lord put us in families for a reason. They can help us through hard times. They should be those people in our lives who love us no matter what. We should strive to be as close to them as possible. We need them more than anything on this earth.

Communication is one of the most important ways in which we can accomplish our goal in getting a positive effect from a crisis. Talk WITH each other rather that TO each other. Along with talking comes listening. Listen to each person's concerns. Get everyone involved when it is appropriate. Not everything has to be up to mom and dad. Children can be involved and help in the process as well.

Another important way we can make positive changes in the family after a crisis is to love unconditionally. Also in the Dealing with Stress and Discouragement talk it says, " After all and above all, our greatest means of supporting others is to love them without guile. That means we learn to see them as the Lord sees them, for their eternal worth as children of God. As parents, we must learn to do this especially when our children seem to deserve it least. If we can do this, despite all our personal weaknesses, we can overcome anything together."

How are you going to react the next time a crisis happens in your life? I hope we can all try to make it great instead of terrible. Do something good! Make a change!

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