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Thoughts for a Woman's Heart |
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encouragement in things that matter |
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Changing Families
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Their father was a man accustomed to manipulation. He was also a man who understood how parents could play favorites and the negative consequences that could result, and yet he, too, very overtly showered his affection on his favored son. Within this new generation of siblings, hatred sparked by favoritism eclipsed loving relationships. The favored son became a cocky teenager which only fueled the widening gap of familial congeniality, especially since the younger teenager approached his brothers with grandiose talk of his superiority. Jealousy forged strong bonds with hatred and irrational thoughts of murder fell to a hastily constructed plot that brought financial gain with its deceit and cruelty to an aging parent. The siblings allowed the agonizing grief of their father while they reveled in the absence of their younger brother. Although this could be the dysfunctional family reflected by the disturbing headlines of a local newspaper, this account is detailed for us in the closing chapters of Genesis. Jacob is the father, and Joseph is his favored son.
Fast forward though as a cocky teenager becomes a successful and capable manager, albeit a slave, in the household of Potiphar, and then through years of rising from prison to royalty, and from a country bathed in harvests of plenty to years of famine. Famine that had been prepared for. Famine that reunited a very dysfunctional family. Famine that reveals that even a dysfunctional family can learn to be "functional." Joseph was God’s instrument to prepare Egypt for famine and Joseph stood unrecognized before his brothers when they traveled from Canaan to purchase the grain in Egypt that had been wisely stored away. Joseph does not immediately reveal himself to his brothers, but their concerns and behavior reveal much about a change in their family dynamics. Remorse for past sin, their concern for the brother that was a very young boy when Joseph disappeared, and their concern for the very spirit of their father united them as they worked together to resolve this newest chapter in their family’s history .
I
am blessed by the hope that this story offers. Yes, there is much more to it than "dysfunction" becoming "functional," but the hope that it offers in this one area is light in a darkness that so many families struggle with. God was continually behind the scenes orchestrating His plan, but the characters within it had to willingly allow God to effect the changes necessary to bring togetherness to a family. God still changes families today.
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— Bev |
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