Week 8

There are many different kinds of circumstances that can cause stress on a family. These can be things like a death, a birth, an injury, a loss of a job, finances, illness, etc. Family crises can cause extreme strain on a family. I can remember a few different stressors that my own family has been through. When I was in my freshman year of high school, my parents informed me that we would be moving to a new town. This was especially hard for me to hear because I felt like I had already planted my roots and had friends that I loved and whom I did not want to leave. But my parents were determined to go. At first when we put our house on the market, we had many people come to look at it and my parents were sure we would find someone to buy. After months of this however, our family began to feel the strain of it. Day in and day out we would have to leave our home at the drop of a hat whenever the realtor called to say she was bringing someone by. I regret to say that I did not make the circumstances any easier for my parents. I found any opportunity to express my dislike of the situation.

After months of waiting, someone finally decided to buy our house. We then had to pack all of our things up and move them to storage. For four months our family of six packed into my grandparent's basement while our new house was being built. The confined space we lived in turned out to be a major source of contention. Added to that was the fact that since the school year had not ended, we had to make the drive all the way back to our old town every day for a month to finish out the school year.

Finally, our new house was built. We moved all of our things into it and began the process of settling in. A new year of school was right around the corner and we were all very nervous about it. I was utterly convinced that I would never find better friends than the ones in my old town. On my first day of school I felt like a lonely wreck. Everybody seemed to have established friendships and no room for someone new. But then a girl from my new ward came and found me and welcomed me into her group of friends. From there on out, our lives improved.

'Clearly, people react in different ways to family crises....whatever the particular crises you face, there are always alternative ways of dealing with it. You can't control all of the things that happen in your life, but you can control the way you respond to them. This doesn't mean that you can avoid the trauma of crises. It does mean...that you can avoid long-term, adverse consequences. In fact, it is possible to turn the crises into something that yields long-term, positive consequences" (Lauer & Lauer, Chapter 13).

When I looked at our family stressor with a negative perspective, the strain in our family intensified. But when each of us choose to look at it in a positive light, we were able to see all the new opportunities that it presented and all the ways that we could learn and grow from it. After a few years in my new town, I realized that although I loved my old friends, I was also so grateful for my new ones. Thinking about how I might not have met them if not for that stressor makes me very sad.

The way we choose to react to a family crises makes all the difference. The next time your family faces financial difficulties, or a difficult move, or anything of that sort...just remember that attitudes are everything. No bump in the road is too difficult to a family who is united and ready to face it together.