Saturday, November 2, 2013

Canadian geese and families...yes, there's a connection



There's a cornfield directly behind our house.  I love the feeling of country living right in the middle of the suburbs.  I enjoy looking out my back windows and watching the Canadian geese feeding on what's left of this year's crop.  The geese fly over in large flocks, but not in a nice, straight V-formation as you might expect.  Their flight formation seems to be mostly organized chaos - they're often out of line, pushing for the front and honking loudly. But while it may lack a bit of order they never really loose their formation.  They are a ragtag band, but they still follow the lead goose who seems to know where he's going.

Reminds me a lot of our family.  The REAL family, not the Pinterest perfect one we often strive for.  In our family Mike is the leader and I would like to say we all fall into formation under that leadership without any complaining, shoving or honking.  But I can't say that.  There are power struggles, arguments, messes...maybe even some shoving or honking.  But ultimately we still follow the leadership God set up for our family.  The leadership model allows us all to respect authority, learn to follow, work through disagreements, swallow our pride and humble ourselves when necessary.  Honestly, it's a lot of work, but it's the only way that family works.  God designed each member to work in loving conjunction with the other as an example to the world of His love.

I wish I could say we are always a good example, but we're not.  We mess up...a lot, but we've also gotten really good at "I'm sorry."  Our relationships are stronger when we work through the shoving and honking.  Geese are not quiet animals.  They make themselves known.  Yeah, we're a lot like those geese.  We like to make our needs known, but we've also gotten better at listening and communicating.  Seems our formation is improving.

We certainly don't look like the picture perfect family, but I've lived long enough to know there IS NO picture perfect family.  Only an illusion we like to chase...honking loudly all the way.

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