How Close Will You LET (ALLOW) Others to Be to You?

I'll never forget when my older brother Sam got married. I was about 12 years old at the time, and he married the (hot) girl from down the street (the one that all the guys liked to hang around while he was in Viet Nam!)
That started it, and as we added more and more people to the family, it was interesting and fun to see family get-togethers get bigger and bigger and bigger.

I was talking to Gabe today about some of the wonderful things my mom taught me when that started happening in our family: things that are happening NOW in MY family as MY kids are getting married one after another!

My Mom always said "open your circle and LET someone in"! She taught us the value of embracing the relationships that our siblings brought into the family. When you start to realize it, you live about 20-some years at your home and hopefully you'll live much more than that with your spouse and amongst the spouses your siblings choose.

So EMBRACE those relationships. I am SO GLAD we loved and accepted our "new" brothers and sisters into our hearts. Over the years, many times, they stepped in to play important roles when the siblings that we were raised with couldn't.

Even as parents, my husband and I have so appreciated the change to add our new sons and daughter to our family! We are SO EXCITED to have the change to be a Dad and Mom to Amber, Gabe, and Mike (and SOON Brandon!). Yes, yes, yes, we realize they weren't BORN to us, nor did we go through their elementary, junior high or high school years with them (well, with SOME of them we did – but NOT as their parents!), but when they married our children, they get US as parents from that point on. We take that role very seriously, and are excited to love them and provide for them as parents AS MUCH AS THEY LET US. We look forward to imparting wisdom we have, treating them as much as we can, and being there for them AS MUCH AS THEY LET US.

One thing about the Girgenti family that the Budzinski family has carried on is the extreme love, devotion and loyalty to our relationships. When my children came to me while dating with their problems, they would be SO MAD that I would "take the side" of Amber, Gabe, Michael, and Brandon. But I figured they already KNEW their "own" side, and I needed to "stick up for" their significant others, and help my children see their significant others' "sides"!

Even when my children go to each other, we all fiercely protect the one who is being complained about… We are about ONENESS and we fiercely protect the person not there! I have seen the total opposite in most families: I have seen families literally "gang up" on people that weren't born into the family, causing hard feelings, division and break-ups.

One friend of mine recently even told me about her husband's family having all their "natural born" kids go on a trip and left all the people they married behind because they weren't their "kids"!!!! That is CRAZY to me – I cannot understand how after over 20 years of marriage, parents still don't realize that the people their children married ARE their children as MUCH AS THEY LET THEMSELVES BE. My Mom has told me that because she LET the people her children married become as her own, they have brought so many blessings to her life in that capacity.

Challenge: OPEN your circle; OPEN your heart; and LET your children's and your sisters' and brothers' spouses IN – WATCH the LOVE grow and LIVE an AMAZING life of VICTORY and AMAZEMENT as you learn about the FAMILY of God from YOUR family!

Psalms 68:6 God places the solitary in families…

Proverbs 10:22 GOD’S blessing makes life rich;
nothing we do can improve on God.