Sister Love

They who love us till we die,
Who in sorrow have been tried,
Who will watch our closing eye,
When all grows cold beside:
Where shall friends like these be found,
Search the earth and ocean wide;
On what hallowed spot of ground,
Save our own fireside?

~Anne Pratt

One of the benefits that sprang from our isolation on the mission field many years ago was the intense bonding our immediate family enjoyed. On mission, we had no like-minded friends outside of our family. For the first few months, I pitied myself about this. I whined that the girls had no friends, and they were lonely. Well, that was not the truth as the Lord eventually revealed to me.



In a very short time, I began to notice our daughters were NEVER bickering with one another, and it seemed that any unpleasant form of sibling rivalry had dissipated entirely. In fact, the days in our home in the woods, far from society were the setting in which our girls had delightful fun together as sisters. As the Lord would have it, He used this isolation to wean us from unhealthy peer-dependent relationships while growing our relationships with one another on a deeper plane. Even my hubby and I began to depend on and support one another in ways that we had never done before. What a blessing this isolation was for our family. Oh, we spent alot of time with other people on the mission field, but they were the sorts of people, though very sweet, with which we could not share Christian fellowship because of unequal yokement.




Now that we are back there are many friends that come knocking wanting to play. I can tell when there has been too much "socialization" when my children begin to sneer at one another. That is when we scale our social lives back again.

I am certainly not saying that I think it unhealthy to have friends. Friends are a good thing. Rather, I am saying that a ration should be applied here. In our society, we tend to tip the balance too far in one direction. In reaction to some strange fear that we will not be "socialized" enough, we find ourselves saturated with peer-dependent symptoms that reveal themselves heavily in our marriages and sibling relationships. And, on top of it all, we have decided that these unresolved problems or the norm, a standard environment for human development.

Let me just say, Christian, that unresolved problems within your family should NOT be your norm.




If you are having issues in your marriages and with your children, I want to encourage you to take time to isolate and simplify your contacts outside of your immediate families while you make attempts to find resolutions to your conflicts. Get control over your social life, and keep it at moderation levels. We find that we have good control over peer-dependency by homeschooling.

If you are suffering from bitter relationships in your family, than you have no business enjoying great fun with people outside of your family while within, there are sisters and brothers, husbands or wives suffering for love and support. That is cheating anyway. Your outside friends don't see you often enough-- when you are tired or sick or relaxed in your sin nature. It is too easy to be loving and loved during our best moments which we reserve for public display, but God has called us to a deeper love and compassion for one another and we should not avoid these training grounds designed for practicing deeper compassion within our own homes.