Many of us remember the cute little movie that came out in 2002 about a mutant alien who crash landed in Hawaii. The little guy, Stitch, is found by a loving young girl who begins to take care of him. Through the comedy that we find in their adventures, one thing seems to be directly under the surface. The idea of family.

After seeing that movie, one thing that has always stuck with me is when the conflict is rising, Lilo tells Stitch a new word, Ohana. When he asks what it means she replies:

Ohana means family, family means nobody gets left behind. Or forgotten.

Recently I have been thinking more about family and how much it has been forsaken. Maybe this comes from hearing friends talk about how they don’t want a relationship with their family or watching families all over the place be torn apart. I think that it is time for a change. And this change starts with us.

I find that most Christians don’t have a problem with loving others. We actually try to one up each other all the time by being more loving. Because it is easy. On the other hand, it can become hard to love our family – both biological and our family of believers. We have to do life with each member of our family every day sometimes. We have a past with them, we remember the times they hurt us and the times we have hurt them. We take that hurt and shield ourselves to only love them as much as it is comfortable. This is where we make the mistake. We begin to put more stock in loving others but we fail to love the people closest to us. Because our families are broken and have hurt us, it makes showing love to them hard. This flows into how we love our brothers and sisters in Christ. It matters most that we learn how to love those who are closest.

We all have an idea of what family should look like. Maybe some of you reading this blog think your family is messed up, and maybe they are. Maybe some of you come from a great family, but there is no depth. So what is family?

Again, we have to go back to something that Stitch says later in the movie. It gives me an added perspective on family, and I think it captures most of our family lives as well:

This is my family. I found it, all on my own. Is little, and broken, but still good. Yeah, still good.

When was the last time that you thought that about your family? Maybe we need to understand that even though these people are family, we are still broken. We still have issues. We still mess up. And above all, we still need love – usually more than the people that we usually show love to.

Fairly often in conversation about family, people ask how do you do it. There isn’t a special word or a way that you instantly fix your family. My family is great and I love each of them more than others may ever understand, but it was tough work to get to this great family unit. It starts with placing God at the center. Walking through trials, going through stuff that is just ucky and nasty. We had to do life together in the worst times so that the good times actually meant something. But at the center of it all, love and grace run throughout our family. We fail, sometimes in the same area more than we ever want to admit. But family has become a safe place for us to be real. We don’t allow elephants, we talk about issues and have hard conversations, we do crazy things, we don’t have it all down. We probably never will. But we have our family.

Your relationship with your family is probably the most important relationships that you will ever have. If you want to know how you are doing with your relationship with God and how you will do in relationship with others, look at how you are doing with your family. By this, I don’t mean look at how your family acts with you, but how you act with your family. How do you show love to them?

Sometimes we feel like our parents can’t understand us. They really do, but sometimes they don’t know how to show us or maybe even love us in the way we need. But then again, sometimes we do the same thing don’t we? The difference is that we are learning how to do things differently, and sometimes change is harder for others than it is for us.

As a 20something, you have the ability to change your family. But it doesn’t start with making them different, it starts by changing yourself. Practically, this means stepping up and showing more love. Taking time out of your day to be involved in each of their lives. Praying for them daily (have you ever noticed it is impossible to be upset at someone who you constantly pray for?) and doing things to show them love. It sometimes can take a 20something dawning on the skin of Christ each morning and shining light at home to make things different. Is the problem with you? Maybe, maybe not. That isn’t for me to say. But can you make things different? Yes – by being different. By being the person who God has called you to be to the people who should be the most important to you.

Fight for family and they will fight for you. Love family, and over time they will love you. But remember, love isn’t just a word. It means action. It means becoming vulnerable, it means not being reactive, it means loving in any situation. How you do family now will not stop when you move out, but it will be the same way you do family when you have one.

Lets start loving those closest to us with the love that we show to everyone else and bring back Ohana into our culture. It is our time to make the change, are you with us?

“Love is hard. If it isn’t hard, you are not doing it right”

Kyle

Recently one of my favorite magazines launched their new print edition of a website called Reject Apathy. The logo is awesome and the site is full of things that make us aware of what is going on in the rest of the world. A look outside our ivory towers and high rise apartments. The vision was launched by the creator of Relevant after a trip overseas where he got to see first hand what was going on in other nations.

The idea of apathy has entered my mind for a while now, thinking of how much this applies to our generation. I know that even I am apathetic more than I want to be in areas that should matter more, so know that I write this post not only with you in mind, but with me as well. We are all in this together, but I think we have a problem. But it is a problem that a bunch of 20somethings can change.

lack of feeling or emotion : impassiveness : lack of interest or concern : indifference

~ Apathy