Love, family, death, growing up

[dwd3885]

So I am 20 years old and just got done watching a home video from about 10 years ago. I got really sad. And sad because my family of 5 won't be like that anymore once we start our own families. I will start a family, my brother will do the same. It's just sad for me that we have all grown up and sometimes I wish we'd all be in my dad and mom's arms again. But that is life, people grow up, right? I think i'm like that because I say I'm a christian, but I don't really have a strong relationship with God. I think that if I did have a strong relationship with God, then I would be so happy that everybody is growing up, starting their own families soon and will all join to see Him. I guess what I want is help or scripture in dealing with growing up. I'm a lost soul who is trying to get right with God again. I know I havent explained my whole story, barely any, but I'm asking for your prayers for me, as I feel once I put God first in my life, my love for my family will become a different kind of love. AM I right in thinking that? It's scary for me because I think that if I do that, I might not love my family as much. Is that true? I'm just really confused with my life right now and am feeling depressed, like life has no meaning for me. We grow up and have families, then our parents die, then we grow older and then we die. I've just had a really really weird feeling in my stomach the past week. Somethign I've never felt before. And I don't like it. It all stemed from watching that home video of seeing my brother really really small and getting sad about the fact we're all not like that and aren't going to be like that again. And then I feel for my parents, who love us so much and we are all grown. Help me God

 

[sallystrothers]

There are others who can give encouragement to your entire post, but I can offer my take on a couple of your points...

If you put God first in your love, you will not love your family any less. You will find in putting God first, a great an unexplainable capacity for love never before known!!!! The most amazing thing in this world is discovering the love your Creator has for you.

It was Him who first loved you.

Your love for God will far surpass that of your family. God will change you. His love will teach you to love your family EVEN MORE THEN YOU DID BEFORE.

Life goes by fast friend. I was blindsided with this when as I held my father's hand in the bed of a hospital, and felt it grow as cold as the steel bed he lie in. I watched tears flow from my momma's eyes a thousand times. I expected to find her dead in her house every weekend I came home from college, God forbid. God gave us a wonderful gift through the flesh. Our time on the earth will be the only time in eternity that we will be able to work, set goals, help those in need, struggle, press forward admist adversity, and achieve success.

Life goes by fast friend. There was much I wanted to do with my family. I miss the careless summers I had with my brother, fishing everyday after school. I would give an arm to hug my father once more. My family is already dead. I never see anyone from youth, not even those of blood.

I cry for the innocence torn from those who deserve it the most.

You don't have to see your family die to you. Call them, every couple days. Help coordinate with each other to find a city where you can all be together. Don't allow yourself one moment to carry bitterness against any of those you love. It only causes regret.

Most importantly, press into Jesus, seek the face of God. There you will find love unequivicule to any your life has known.

 

[Saucy]

You made it sound like your death will be the end. No. There are no such things as a good-bye when you're in Christ. When you're in Christ, you adopt a brand new, huge family. We're all your brothers and sisters. Yeah, your parents die, then you die, then one day your kids will die and their kids...unless the rapture happens soon. It's the way things are, but this place is not our home. It's not. We are the foreigners. Our real home is up there. Our real father is watching down on you. That's where our family is.

 

[Buttermilk]

I'm asking for your prayers for me

for you

 

[scrumpyjack]

soon you'll be watching home videos of your own children growing up. It's true that you'll always miss your childhood. I think life gets better when you find your own family and experience that bond allover agian but in a different way just shows you how big God is and how much He cares for us

 

[D'Ann]

So I am 20 years old and just got done watching a home video from about 10 years ago. I got really sad.

I know exactly what you mean. I'm a mother of two daughters who are 14 and 19. When we watch old videos... those moments in front of me are history and it does make my heart sad. At the same time, I look at my daughters as they are now and they are so alive and vibrant. They have grown so much.

And sad because my family of 5 won't be like that anymore once we start our own families. I will start a family, my brother will do the same. It's just sad for me that we have all grown up and sometimes I wish we'd all be in my dad and mom's arms again. But that is life, people grow up, right?

There are some options in how you look at these situations in your life. Life is about change and about learning, understanding and that is how we grow and mature. Life cannot become stagnant and thus that is what will happen if everything always remains the same as yesterday.

Change is a very difficult thing for us to accept sometimes though. Growing and learning and understanding also can be very difficult as well. It's okay that we are sadden and/or are afride of what tomorrow will bring... it's okay that we grieve for the sense of loss that the future may bring... that is also about learning and understanding and growing.

It is also okay that you love and cherish your family as they are right now, today. It is human nature to want to hold tightly onto our family as they are now. I, too, would love to be in the arms of my parents once again. It would be nice to feel the warmth and security of being protected and taken care of in that way... as my girls feel now here in our home.

I think i'm like that because I say I'm a christian, but I don't really have a strong relationship with God. I think that if I did have a strong relationship with God, then I would be so happy that everybody is growing up, starting their own families soon and will all join to see Him.

All Christians have moments of being afride of things. What I do recommend for you is prayer. Please pray with all of your heart, mind, soul and strength. God will hear your prayers and He will answer them too and he does truly love you very much. I also recommend the book of Proverbs. Proverbs has words of wisdom that guided me through my teenage years. I also recommend the book of Psalms. The book of Psalms will help guide you in how you can pray to Jesus. Psalms 24, 111, 23 are excellent prayers to start with. You will find great comfort, peace, hope and joy in reading Proverbs and Psalms.

I guess what I want is help or scripture in dealing with growing up. I'm a lost soul who is trying to get right with God again. I know I havent explained my whole story, barely any, but I'm asking for your prayers for me,

I will definitely keep you in my prayers. with all of my heart, mind, soul and strength.

Later on, I will recommend more Scriptures that will be a comfort to you.

as I feel once I put God first in my life, my love for my family will become a different kind of love.

It will become a deeper love for your family with more of a completeness to your love for them. It will be with God's love that you will love your family with and others too.

AM I right in thinking that? It's scary for me because I think that if I do that, I might not love my family as much. Is that true?

It's scary because you are not sure of the aftermath. Let me reassure you... your love for your family will go deeper and be purer and truer. You will love your family even more so and also embrace your family more so as well. Also with God's love, you will also embrace others and learn to love others and be inclusive with your family instead of exclusive. With God's love, you will not be insecure and worried about change, but will embrace change with love because you will be certain that by God's will all will work out. You will love through the arms of God and through the eyes of God is how you will see others and yourself. God's love is greater than any love that we could possibly have as human beings here on earth.

I'm just really confused with my life right now and am feeling depressed, like life has no meaning for me. We grow up and have families, then our parents die, then we grow older and then we die. I've just had a really really weird feeling in my stomach the past week. Somethign I've never felt before. And I don't like it. It all stemed from watching that home video of seeing my brother really really small and getting sad about the fact we're all not like that and aren't going to be like that again. And then I feel for my parents, who love us so much and we are all grown. Help me God

Yep, I've had that weird feeling in my stomach too... it's called being scared of what tomorrow will bring. I will keep you in my prayers, but please know that as your family grows and as you grow... it will all work out. And it is not as black and white as growing up, getting married, having babies, growing old, dying... there is a lot of living in and between all of those phases in one's life. Life is about living and experiencing, learning, growing and understanding, life is what one makes it to be and how one looks at it... it is about friendship and love and including others in your life and branching out to other parts of life...

We need to embrace our life and enjoy our life and by doing this, we learn to embrace all of the people that God puts into our lives... including new additions to one's family. Believe me, it will all make sense to you in time.

Here are some Scriptures that I pray will be helpful to you.

[font=Arial, Geneva, Helvetica]Mt 5:43 - Show Context "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.'

Mt 5:44 - Show Context But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,

Mt 5:46 - Show Context For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?

Mt 19:19 - Show Context Honor your father and mother, and, You shall love your neighbor as yourself."

Mt 22:37 - Show Context And he said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.

Mt 22:39 - Show Context And a second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

Mr 12:30 - Show Context and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.'

Mr 12:31 - Show Context The second is this, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these."

Mr 12:33 - Show Context and to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength, and to love one's neighbor as oneself, is much more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices."

Lu 6:27 - Show Context "But I say to you that hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you,

Lu 6:32 - Show Context "If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them.

Lu 6:35 - Show Context But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the selfish.

Lu 7:42 - Show Context When they could not pay, he forgave them both. Now which of them will love him more?"

Lu 10:27 - Show Context And he answered, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself."

[/font][font=Arial, Geneva, Helvetica]Joh 13:34 - Show Context A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.

Joh 13:35 - Show Context By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."

Joh 14:15 - Show Context "If you love me, you will keep my commandments.

Joh 14:21 - Show Context He who has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me; and he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him."

Joh 14:23 - Show Context Jesus answered him, "If a man loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.

Joh 14:24 - Show Context He who does not love me does not keep my words; and the word which you hear is not mine but the Father's who sent me.

Joh 14:31 - Show Context but I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father. Rise, let us go hence.

Joh 15:9 - Show Context As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you; abide in my love.

Joh 15:10 - Show Context If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love.

Joh 15:12 - Show Context "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.

Joh 15:13 - Show Context Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

Joh 15:17 - Show Context This I command you, to love one another.

Joh 15:19 - Show Context If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.

Joh 17:26 - Show Context I made known to them thy name, and I will make it known, that the love with which thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them."

[/font][font=Arial, Geneva, Helvetica]Ro 5:5 - Show Context and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us.

Ro 5:8 - Show Context But God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.

Ro 8:28 - Show Context We know that in everything God works for good with those who love him, who are called according to his purpose.

Ro 8:35 - Show Context Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

Ro 8:39 - Show Context nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Ro 12:9 - Show Context Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good;

Ro 12:10 - Show Context love one another with brotherly affection; outdo one another in showing honor.

Ro 13:8 - Show Context Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law.

Ro 13:9 - Show Context The commandments, "You shall not commit adultery, You shall not kill, You shall not steal, You shall not covet," and any other commandment, are summed up in this sentence, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."

Ro 13:10 - Show Context Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.

Ro 14:15 - Show Context If your brother is being injured by what you eat, you are no longer walking in love. Do not let what you eat cause the ruin of one for whom Christ died.

Ro 15:30 - Show Context I appeal to you, brethren, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to strive together with me in your prayers to God on my behalf,

1Co 2:9 - Show Context But, as it is written, "What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him,"

1Co 4:21 - Show Context What do you wish? Shall I come to you with a rod, or with love in a spirit of gentleness?

1Co 8:1 - Show Context Now concerning food offered to idols: we know that "all of us possess knowledge." "Knowledge" puffs up, but love builds up.

1Co 13:1 - Show Context If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

1Co 13:2 - Show Context And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

[font=Arial, Geneva, Helvetica][/font][/font][font=Arial, Geneva, Helvetica]1Co 13:3 - Show Context If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

1Co 13:4 - Show Context Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful;

1Co 13:5 - Show Context it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;

1Co 13:7 - Show Context Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

1Co 13:8 - Show Context Love never ends; as for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.

1Co 13:13 - Show Context So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

1Co 14:1 - Show Context Make love your aim, and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy.

1Co 16:14 - Show Context Let all that you do be done in love.

1Co 16:22 - Show Context If any one has no love for the Lord, let him be accursed. Our Lord, come!

1Co 16:24 - Show Context My love be with you all in Christ Jesus. Amen.

2Co 2:4 - Show Context For I wrote you out of much affliction and anguish of heart and with many tears, not to cause you pain but to let you know the abundant love that I have for you.

2Co 2:8 - Show Context So I beg you to reaffirm your love for him.

2Co 5:14 - Show Context For the love of Christ controls us, because we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died.

2Co 6:6 - Show Context by purity, knowledge, forbearance, kindness, the Holy Spirit, genuine love,

2Co 8:7 - Show Context Now as you excel in everything--in faith, in utterance, in knowledge, in all earnestness, and in your love for us--see that you excel in this gracious work also.

2Co 8:8 - Show Context I say this not as a command, but to prove by the earnestness of others that your love also is genuine.

2Co 8:24 - Show Context So give proof, before the churches, of your love and of our boasting about you to these men.

2Co 11:11 - Show Context And why? Because I do not love you? God knows I do!

2Co 12:15 - Show Context I will most gladly spend and be spent for your souls. If I love you the more, am I to be loved the less?

2Co 13:11 - Show Context Finally, brethren, farewell. Mend your ways, heed my appeal, agree with one another, live in peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you.

[/font]

I have more, but these probably will keep you busy for a little time.

 

[dwd3885]

i don't know if things happen quicky in the kingdom of God, but just the past few days I have improved my emotional stability and confidence with this issue. My childhood was great, it would be a blast to go back for a day just to see how everything was. But I'm not sad about death, because I know now that there's life after death, and it's going to be even greater than this life we all now know. Words won't be able to describe it. And if something were to ever happen to the ones I love, I am hopefull to see them again in a much better place. And that will be a great moment. So I'm not totally there in being confident in this situation of life, growing up, etc, but I am beginning my walk with the Lord and feeling better by the second. Thanks for the prayers! God Bless

 

[D'Ann]

This is wonderful news. I'll continue to keep you in my prayers. God be with you always.

 

[sallystrothers]

I wrote a bit of my testimony. Maybe you can relate...

http://www.christianforums.com/t2324111-a-bit-of-testimony-of-my-life-from-age-10-22.html

 

[D'Ann]

Dear Sallystrothers,

Your testimony is awesome and truly a blessing. God bless you always.

Debbie

 

[superbear02]

The whole growing up thing is incredibly scary. Being right with God might not make you more willing to grow up but you will be able to realize that where ever life might take you, God will always be there by your side, even if your parents can't be. I know I know, I'm younger than you. However, I have learned a lot in the past few months as I start college; God goes with you where ever you go and your family loves you no matter how far away you are and how much things change. Yes, it might not be the same as when you were all little but as much as you pull away from your parents you find you need them more yet less. They will always be there for you though.

Just hang in there and enjoy the whole growing up thing!

 

[SteelDisciple]

So I am 20 years old and just got done watching a home video from about 10 years ago. I got really sad. And sad because my family of 5 won't be like that anymore once we start our own families. I will start a family, my brother will do the same. It's just sad for me that we have all grown up and sometimes I wish we'd all be in my dad and mom's arms again. But that is life, people grow up, right? I think i'm like that because I say I'm a christian, but I don't really have a strong relationship with God. I think that if I did have a strong relationship with God, then I would be so happy that everybody is growing up, starting their own families soon and will all join to see Him. I guess what I want is help or scripture in dealing with growing up. I'm a lost soul who is trying to get right with God again. I know I havent explained my whole story, barely any, but I'm asking for your prayers for me, as I feel once I put God first in my life, my love for my family will become a different kind of love. AM I right in thinking that? It's scary for me because I think that if I do that, I might not love my family as much. Is that true? I'm just really confused with my life right now and am feeling depressed, like life has no meaning for me. We grow up and have families, then our parents die, then we grow older and then we die. I've just had a really really weird feeling in my stomach the past week. Somethign I've never felt before. And I don't like it. It all stemed from watching that home video of seeing my brother really really small and getting sad about the fact we're all not like that and aren't going to be like that again. And then I feel for my parents, who love us so much and we are all grown. Help me God

not all of us start families. My wife and I don't want...and don't LIKE kids.

 

[Boss_BlueAngels]

Ya know, about 12 years ago I was feeling the same way as you. I have two other siblings, me being the youngest by 12 years(my brother) and 10 years (my sister). I was about 10 when my brother got married, and I was very sad about that and thought things would never be the same... they weren't. It was better, now I had another sister. Then a few years after that my sister (who is like my best friend growing up) got married... I was really sad about that at first, but God totally turned that around too.

12 years ago our family get togethers (nearly every day during summer!) includes my parents, myself, and my four siblings--and now their kids. (i won't even mention what i, the "baby" of the family, thought of some new pip-squeeks stepping in! haha) And it is an ABSOLUTE blast now! Two nephews from my brother, and a niece and "unknown" on the way from my sister.

Now to my point... when things change we tend to get scared that change is always bad. But it isn't. Same with growing up. Sure things will never be the same as they were in the past, but through faith in God and TRUST in Him, they will only get better. I too have looked back and thought those were the days. But then I look at what I have now because of God, and that is what makes me look forward to every new day. You may move away geographically but still be able to remain close with your family.

I hope that has helped.

 

[Hitch2astar]

i relate to your sadness. i had a really special relationship with my cousins when we were young, but now we're older and all going our different ways. it's alright when my relationship with God is strong but when not its enough to tear me apart.