I am thankful

When I was a young married woman and staying home with my children, I got caught up in soap operas. In one of “my shows” a girl got pregnant by one brother, who then went off to war and went missing, so she married the other brother to be the father of her baby because he was the only one she told about the baby, then the father of the baby turned up alive and came back to a bewildered woman who couldn’t decide who she really loved. Well, the evil girl in the show decided to see who the woman really loved and invited her and the father of her child >> but not her husband >> to a party. The woman with the baby had refused to talk to the father of the child and her husband, the brother of the father of the baby, refused to talk to him about it. The woman was asked if she was going to go without her husband, when they all knew the reason for the invitation was to catch her in a love triangle, and she decided to go simply to prove that she loved her husband, dun-dun-dun.

I quit watching soaps after that.

So, I said to myself how stupid that was that something so personal could go on in a family and they couldn’t just talk to each other about it. Throughout my life, I have had to relearn that lesson over and over. It is difficult to talk to people you love about problems in your relationships. This weekend, once again, I learned the value of speaking up; the reality that not saying anything, because you don’t want to offend someone, only magnifies the problem; that family love is strong and can perpetuate forgiveness even in the worst of circumstances.

I am thankful for family.