Ian Pilkington shares with honesty

Ian Pilkington

If you could have seen me and my family as we were at breakfast (those of us that actually made it), you may well say I would be pretty much disqualified from saying anything on the subject of family life. But here's a very personal view of family anyway, starting with a quick look at that breakfast:

A few grunts from our seventeen year old son as his Mum tried to ask some really important stuff about his future and his present worries; an attitude reminiscent of Harry Enfield's 'Kevin' character from his younger teenage brother; tears from a very tired three year old who wasn't allowed to get up to the cooker and watch the porridge cooking; our youngest teenager in bed, late for his day again (fortunately home-schooled); and our 6 year old happily planning a 'jelli baff' - a present from his little buddy which apparently turns the bathwater into slimy green stuff, and then (allegedly) back into water again - we're not convinced.

Meanwhile my wife (the best in the world) and mother to our six children (the best in the world) was not having the best time of the month; and there was me, wondering what on earth I have done wrong to produce such a dysfunctional family, and balancing feelings of worry for the kids' schooling and some girlfriend issues, with anger at some attitudes, bafflement at the things that are important to a three year old, and some slight trepidation as to how my normally wonderful wife is going to respond to it all in her fragile state. Tired and irritable myself, I just wanted to get into work, get the day successfully ordered and completed, make things happen and come home to a haven of family peace and joy.

It probably will not be like that when I get home tonight. Nicely sorted family problems may be the norm on Fresh Prince or The Wonder Years or whatever, but it doesn't happen that way in our house. Nor, I suspect, in anyone else's. But isn't the reality so much more fulfilling?

Sure, we did not expect to go through the traumas that we have as our boys reached and (in one case) went through and out of those teenage years (we thought that we had it all sorted before-hand and that tales of teenage problems were an exaggerated media myth) - but boy has it opened up some new ground for our marriage; nor did we quite expect to be having our younger children, now 6 and 3, so long after the other four boys, effectively giving us a second run through - but the joy that they bring and our ability to parent them, is profoundly enhanced by our older age. And we have recently been surprised to find that there are whole vistas of communication in the landscape of our relationship that we had never even known were there, let alone that they were vitally important and have actually caused hurt from their lack in the past - but there's a real healing coming now, with a future hope that was not even dreamed of.

There's nothing like family to really force you out into the open, to challenge you to your core in areas (which you would often rather keep to yourself) and so find the happy freedom of emotional honesty, and to bring you to your knees in deep, earnest prayer. There's nothing like family to bring you the joy of being with people in those innocent, unguarded moments when they are truly themselves.

It's hard work, but it's worth the effort. God shows us the way and helps us to make it by being there to comfort, counsel and heal us into loving human beings. Family at its best can provide the environment for a deep healing of life's hurts, and the opportunity of discovering realms of relationship you may not find elsewhere. Belonging to a family helps to give us the stability and security to handle life and the opportunity to welcome others into a loving, lively home, however imperfect it happens to be. And family is simply the best place for any child to grow up.

The Good Book says that 'the Lord sets the lonely in families'. That's been our experience, and I hope it's yours.