Kris Vallotton • Mar 05, 2021

How to Cultivate a Healthy Family That Changes the World

HOW TO ACHIEVE HEALTH FROM DYSFUNCTION


What does a healthy family look like? How do you cultivate this? I grew up begging the question and searching for the answer, I wanted the experience of a healthy home so badly.

My home life was dysfunctional, broken, and abusive; I only dreamt of joyous family dinners and holidays spent together. Maybe you’ve experienced the same thing, wishing your family was different or that it hadn’t deteriorated? From a young age I dreamed of the family I would raise one day and what I wanted our home to feel like. The only problem was, I had never experienced it for myself. I had no idea how I would cultivate it; it became my mission to find out. 

The kingdom of God is not limited by the lack of love or dysfunction you might have experienced in your home growing up. The truth is that God doesn’t call the qualified, He qualifies the called. He arrives on the scene of dysfunction and begins crafting a redemptive story for our future, providing tools and strategies for the deficit of healthy home experience. God gave me the mission to lead my family before I had ever seen a healthy family displayed. Raising a family doesn’t come with a user manual, it is a lifelong lesson of continual surrender and sacrifice.

I’d like to propose that if you are going to make a difference in the world you have to start within your household. Our most important project and precious gift are the lives given to us to lead by God. Family is a heavenly assignment, noble decree, and a virtuous pledge to the sacrifice of personal gain for the pursuit of a greater love - that transforms homes and society beyond our four walls. 

In this week’s video blog I talked more about how to cultivate healthy families.

  In a nutshell: 

  • When you grow up in a certain culture, you either become like it or respond to it.
  • Cultivating a healthy family has to be a proactive mission. 
  • Family is not an interruption, it is what you have been given to lead, everything else you lead is optional.
  • Cultivating a healthy family requires sacrificing selfish ambitions.
  • Love looks like something. 
  • You cannot fix what was broken with continual lack of care with one extravagant gesture of love, it is a daily decision.

LOVE LOOKS LIKE SOMETHING


The truth is, love looks like something! It’s a daily decision to sacrifice my selfish ambition. It’s more practical than you might think... It looks like showing up to your kid’s soccer game, spending time doing an activity with your family they enjoy, excusing yourself from a meeting for a family emergency...These decisions ripple across barriers and send a resounding message of commitment and love beyond your four walls. 


The challenge is, we often want to replace the daily determination to be present to the few in our family with a monumental moment. The truth is, we cannot fix what is broken because of continual absence of affection by displaying one extravagant expression of love. Cultivating a healthy family is a process, it takes time to prepare a foundation that could weather any storm.


I want to encourage you to ask yourself what your family needs and begin showing up for those needs on a daily basis. This might be as simple as checking in with your family and asking how they are and what they need or putting aside intentional time with your spouse by doing something they love. Caring for the few will affect the multitudes, this is what will change the world!

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