Love Keeps No Record of Wrongs: Having Generous Hearts Towards Our Families

One of the best parts of being in a loving family is feeling like you belong. But even in a loving family it can be easy to let our other responsibilities like jobs and school, have the best of us and give our loved ones the left-overs.

At the end of a long, and seemingly unproductive day, it takes extra effort for me bite my tongue at bedtime when my children dawdle over teeth brushing or ask for an extra story. All I can think of are all of the annoying things they’ve done during the day and why I just need them to go to bed so I can get a minute to myself.

When my husband is taking a break to play a video game it’s easy for me to feel resentful because I still have loads of laundry to do or blog posts to finish.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what it means to look for the best in my family. To tell them each my favorite things about them and find ways to genuinely like each one of them. Being generous toward my family can mean not keeping a record of wrongs. It can mean giving them each the benefit of the doubt and first believing the best about them

This can apply to extended family as well. Depending on how we grew up, we may suspect the motives of the people we grew up with. We may find it difficult to forgive and be quick to take offense. Past experience may have taught us to see every innocent comment as a veiled insult. But we don’t have to continue like that.

I’m not saying we should allow people who have abused or manipulated us in the past to continue to do so, and nor am I saying that it will be easy. Likely it won’t. Changing how we relate to people can be difficult.

The discipline of extending grace to those closest to us is another important step in cultivating generous hearts in ourselves.

Next – When We Can’t Fix It: Recognizing Generosity That Provides Hope