SHAPING YOUR FAMILY’S FUTURE


APPENDIX B


heal those old wounds. Reconnect on new terms. Forgive what needs forgiving. Accept what can’t be changed. Make the phone call. Have the conversation. Go home. Take the chance and trust that things can get better. If the work you’ve done here has made you appreciate your family even more, then tell them. Deepen the connections that are so important as you create a family of your own.


Most of all, this is the time to develop your support network. Enlist your family, your friends, the people in this Shaping Your Family’s Future program, or a combination of all of those people. Parenting is not something we are meant to do alone. It truly does take a village for families to survive. Your village is made up of grandparents, aunts and uncles, neighbors, babysitters, teachers, and on and on. German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was executed by the Nazis for participating in a plot to assassinate Hitler, said in his book Life Together, “Christian community is not an ideal we have to realize, but rather a reality created by God in Christ in which we may participate” (30). In other words, you are part of a community whether you try to be or not. This community of family and friends is God’s gift to each of us.


If you take nothing else away from this course, you should take this: God loves you


as you are. You and your family are part of the ongoing story of God. This story reaches back through the generations that came before you. It will continue until long after your children are grown and raising children of their own. The idea that we parent not only for our children but for the generations that will follow them is both noble and humbling. This notion of parenting can keep you from stumbling over the details of raising children. It can help you focus on the big picture, on the journey that you and your children will travel together.


Chapter Insights 1.


Just as individuals are not islands, so also families function in and are influenced in various ways by larger communities; and you need communities as much as they need you.


2.


Communities remind you that you and your family are part of and responsible to something much larger than your clan. The diversity and support of communities can enrich family life.


3.


Your family can have a positive impact on your community as well. In the give-and- 72


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