As I write this, I am umpiring relational conflict in my family. It does seem if it is not one of us arguing with another of us, then someone else is arguing with someone else. I sometimes feel as if we descend into a round about of “Who’s on First?” If you are too young to know what that is, look it up…its so frustrating. Family is frustrating, right? I mean whether its a holiday, a vacation, a dinner table, a car ride…frustration seems to reign. We use words to hurt, control, garner favor, win. We use non-verbals to back up the verbals, showing our disgust. The curse…In his fantastic book, Families Where Grace is in Place, Jeff VanVonderan uses curse as an acronym to describe these family exchanges…

• C-Control - We want people to perform, can’t she stop being so late to Christmas Eve, can’t he step up and lead our family, can’t she stop going to every party and not a single class. We want, and our family disappoints, so we attempt to control.

• U-Unforgiving - We then won’t let those things go. We don’t forgive, and we use it to have an upper hand over another holding them in a debt that they can’t repay, where our family is scrambling to discover the good behavior to make up for the wrong.

• R-Reactive - We then react in order to control. We sense that our well-being comes from the performance of another…they have power over us…when they act in a way that is bad for you…you react in order to regain control. The curse means control or be controlled, and no one is controlling us.

• S-Shaming - We shame…we want our kids to know it when they do something that really makes our family look bad…so we say, what’s wrong with you. Implying they are defective. Or we say why can’t you be more like your sister, or like Johnny…Johnny was my extremely moral Irish Catholic best friend down the street, the one my parents used to shame me into better behavior. Shame is used to control the behaviors of another. What kind of husband are you, anyway? Shame.

• E-Ego - We are in a proverbial game of King of the Mountain, you know the childhood game where you try to come out always on top. We place ourselves over others…I want my children to do this, so people think well of me…I want you to cater to me…I must please my spouse and kids so I look like a good spouse or a good parent…

Curse-full exchanges. The challenge in these moments is to make the grace move. To flip the script to Grace-full exchanges in our families. How do we do that? Well, I have no idea. Ha-ha, just kidding. In the sermon we talked about some, and I’ll remind. The baseline is knowing what our family is and what it isn’t, and knowing what Jesus has done for us. Our family as our article of the week emphasizes, isn’t ultimate. There is a pecking order and it isn’t on top. Jesus reimagines it for us. He expands our families to those who do the will of God, namely those who cherish Jesus and believe in Him and His finished work for us. This is our family. In so doing he topples the sovereignty of the nuclear family. Knowing this can release us to let our spouses, children, FAMILY, be who they are without such lofty expectations. The Gospel says we all fail and fall short of being perfect sons, spouses, sisters…so see them through Jesus. See yourself through them. A family built not on conditions, but on unconditional love and acceptance. As we build on this foundation we can do some of the following:

• Out loud affirming…members told they are loved and accepted, valuable and supported…OUT LOUD!

• People oriented…love and acceptance not fluctuated by what way your family acts. We can separate people from their behavior. We can send people-approving messages in the midst of unacceptable behavior.

• Clear rules and expectations…rules are there to serve people…not people to serve the rules. For families to thrive they need to know who they are, whose they are and how to live into that…expectations clearly stated help one do that.

• Clear communication…we love to code, we are often like the CIA in wartime with our messages. Man, it would sure be nice if someone would take out the trash, cook me some eggs, get me a beer…what do you want, I don’t know, whatever. Here’s your ice cream sundae, well, I didn’t want that. Followed by pouting. We love to involve others…triangulate the convos…you know what she did, you know what your father did, you know what your grandma said. Running messages ensures that our family members will never have to get along on their own. It blurs boundaries. Fixing and decoding are not jobs in the family.

• Children are enjoyed…its ok for kids to be kids. Supervised, risk-taking allowed while supervised, questions answered, questions asked…

• Responsibility and accountability. We would rather find fault and blame, but what if we helped our family be responsible for their choices by appropriately holding them accountable. Let me give you an example. Let’s say one of my daughters is careless and breaks something—and she’s not talking. The fact that she is hiding what she did tells me that she feels guilty about it. She may even wonder if I am going to shame and criticize her if I find out. There are two reasons why I want to know the truth. First, so I can discipline her. This does not mean punish. It means to help her learn something from the incident. This might occur through consequences she receives, or it might happen just by talking together. The second reason I want her to confess is so that I can forgive her. In not talking about what she did, she is carrying the weight of it. If she would just tell me, I could help lift that spiritual weight of guilt from her by offering forgiveness.

• Learning…not defending. We spend so much brain power justifying ourselves, defending ourselves, making excuses, to get out of being responsible. If your family is pre-approved, then a question like why did you do that is nothing more than inquiry to seek understanding.

• Feelings become something that are valid and useful. They aren’t right or wrong…they exist. We say all the time in Men’s Group, “your feelings are welcome here, whatever they are.” Our emotions are signals that tell us something about our world, us, our God. The choices we make in response to our feelings often determine the good or bad, right or wrong result of our feelings…whether they are helpful or damaging. Our emotional life is an opportunity to connect with one another.

• Outsides matching insides. What is real is more important that how things look. Family is a safe, accepting place where outsides match insides, so we can know if there are inside needs and problems that need to be addressed. Life is seen with a process perspective rather than an event perspective. We don’t have to react or attempt to fix behavior forever. God is involved. So we don’t have to panic. This is a real trouble spot for me in my family. I can freak out and my freak out forgets God is involved. The good news is the story is not over, even if it doesn’t look good right now.

• Lastly...God is the source... He is our need-meeter. Our vindicator…our defender…the one who has the final word on our value and acceptance. It’s so easy to think that our family is the source…that our church family is the source…This is a fight to keep seeing this as our source…it is so easy to move the source to someone else’s standard in order to be acceptable, whether it is a parent's view of parenting, or our friend's view of family devotions or our child’s view of us…as the church, we must point one another to God’s grace and love and not performance or what people think.

So, after the umpiring this morning, I had a chance to use grace and not curse. One of my kids had some conflict with friends. Another mom let us know about the conflict. I began my conversation wth my child with affirmation, with acceptance, with telling this child that I didn’t need all the details, that I know conflict happens and that when it does, we must make certain choices that show that we are God’s. My child cried, but I think felt grace too. We are all works in progress here. The event of our failure is not the end. Let’s make the grace move and remind one another to make the grace move, so we can be a grace-full family.