Core Words: Family

Core Words are words that I live by. These are words that form my basic operating principles of life. We have looked at integrity as the destination and goal for everything I do. We have looked at how faith undergirds everything as the foundation and the reason for everything I do and every decision I make. So now we move on to what I call the conduits. The idea of how I move from living with faith towards having integrity in everything I do. These two conduits are family and duty. Here I want to tackle family.

Family are those that are closest to us. The ones that know us the best. The ones that see what the public doesn't see. The ones that know what the public doesn't know. Family are generally the ones we are most comfortable with. The ones we generally fall back on when the going gets tough. They are our safety.

However, for some families, the opposite of what I had just described is true. It's a place of strangers. It's a place where trust cannot be held, cause it has been broken one too many times. It's a place of danger due to the abusive environment it had been in in the past or is currently still in. It's a place of chaos, as no one seems to be in charge or knows what is happening nor when the next meal may be.

I'm not sure where you stand on this. But for me, family has been the closest thing to me. Family has been the ones that built me into who I am today. They're the ones that supported me in my dreams and callings in life, whether it made sense or not. They're the ones that believed in me.

But the thing is, family doesn't just include those that are biologically related to me. I have found that family extends further. It extends to those that have come into the inner circle of my life. The ones that have been there and seen me at the worst and at the best. The ones that have been there to correct me and to support me. The ones that have been like a father or mother away from home or the brother or sister that I don't have. The ones that have been a part of my life and have intertwined theirs with mine.

Where am I getting with all this? I'm laying the groundwork for why family is important to me and why it may be for you too. Why as I move on in life, I want to be there for my family, those that have been closest to me, those that have been there for me, those that have invested in me. These are my immediate family, my relatives, my friends and my church. They're all my family.

In order for you to be able to be there for your family, you need to let them be there for you. You need to be willing to be transparent with them. You need to be willing to allow them to correct and speak to you. And at the same time, you need to make a commitment to speak truth and love to them too, for their betterment and growth.

So that sums up why family is a conduit of my life and one of my Core Words. It is through family that I learn to live out my faith with integrity. They're the ones that sharpen me in life. They're the ones that grind away the garbage and the excess in my life. And I also want to do the same for them.

Family is the unspoken bounds of life. It's what keeps me going. It spurs me to keep going deeper in my pursuit of living with faith toward a life of integrity.

What about you? Have you found family to be one of your conduits in life?

Maybe your experience hasn't exactly been the same as mine but I'm certain there is someone that is family to you without you realising it till now.

(This is part 5 of 5 pertaining to the ideal of Core Words.)

Part 1: Defining and Knowing Yourself

Part 2: What is Integrity

Part 3: Baseline of Faith

Part 4: Family

Part 5: Duty