Lovingly Caring For All Family Members

As parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and dear family friends we care for all of our family

and friends. We desire that their daily lives are safe and worthwhile, and we hope and pray

that their future decisions and adventures will be successful and enjoyable. Those thoughts

and desires are proper and acceptable. How many times did Jesus urge his disciples and

followers to love and accept everybody including those neighbors they did not agree with? It appears he shared those thoughts and directions many times, but how often were they

followed?

Today in our modern world we read and hear so many different directions and decisions that

conflict with our personal feelings and beliefs. They cause us to feel concerned and even

angry sometimes. Remember feelings are our internal emotional reaction to various different situations. Those feelings will range from joy to sadness and even to fear and anger. We cannot adjust our feelings. They are normal reactions within each of our individual brain neural "wirings". We have inherited many of those neural wirings, and the other wirings occurred as each of our brains grew and created our individual mentalities. Each of our brains are similar but different, and our feelings are not right or wrong… they are normal signals from our brains.

But our behaviors and reactions to our feelings are controllable and adjustable. We do have

the ability to select what we say and do after experiencing an emotional situation. This is

when and where our personal beliefs also affect our behaviors. All family members that have grown up within the SDA faith or another faith trusted their meaningful parents, grandparents and other family members and trusted the faith guidelines and meanings shared with them. If they attended the SDA schools they again trusted and believed their meaningful teachers, coaches and leaders.

Personally, Carolyn and I often step back and recall a question I blurted out to my college

mathematics professor while struggling with a complex equation full of unknowns - "Sir, how do I know what I don’t know ?" He stared at me and I thought I’d failed the class then he

wrote my question on the class white board and saved it all semester. I feel I passed that

class because I asked the best question ! Many years later we often revisit that question as

we encounter new emotionally complex situations. How do our families, pastors, teachers

and professors "know what they don’t know?"

In our rainbow world all of us can find ourselves in a personal world of unknowns. It is even

more complex today because of worldwide digital communications. I’ve added an additional

thought "How do I know what I know is correct or accurate ?"  The world is full of incorrect and purposely altered information that deflects our own understandings and beliefs. Many in-corrections occur intentionally while others can occur through naivety. We don’t blame many of our faith leaders for their inability to accept and support rainbow families because they honestly are naive. While others we know do have rainbow family members but refuse to publicly help our faith understand, adjust and accept everybody. Unfortunately their careers are controlled by what they say and do judged by their superiors, and they aren’t allowed to "love and accept everybody they connect with - even those they may not agree with".

In summary, dear families and friends - we can personally accept Jesus’s and other biblical

members to "love and accept all of our neighbors even those we don’t fully agree with" love

and support for all of our rainbow family members. They, and we, all need God’s love and

support, and according to Jesus, we will receive it. Together through friendship with all we

can help others discover "what they didn’t know" and help them shift, adjust and accept the

real world - not an incorrect world.

“Jesus never looked the other way - and through friendship with others we won’t either - love all rainbow families !!”

Carolyn & John Wilt

Kinship Families & Friends

families-friends@sdakinship.org