TRUE DYSFUNCTION

Introduction:  It’s that time of the year when schools are getting back in session. Families are making their one final trip to the beach. Some are looking forward to the routine again. Others are sad that all the fun is coming to an end. As you look back over the summer, I’m sure you have some happy memories and even some not so happy memories of time spent with family. Having ice cream at that place on the beach/mountains, that was fun! Having to go the ER because someone stepped on broken glass on the grass, that was not fun. Staying up late playing your favorite board game or watching that funny movie, that’s a happy memory. Staying up late because of that person saying what they said or acting as they did, that’s not a happy memory. Truth be told, we all have some happy and some not so happy memories of growing up in our families. When the not so happy memories of growing up are too impactful negatively, we call that a “dysfunctional family.” Unfortunately, that epithet gets tossed around too easily these days, along with “trauma” and “toxic.” In this miniseries, still in Romans, we want to address this topic. In the next 3 messages, we want to answer through scriptures and through latest scientific research questions like “What is a dysfunctional family?” “How to raise our children in our broken world?” and “How to rebuild and heal broken family relationships?” My wife Nicole, who is a counsellor with our Lighthouse Counseling Ministries at Clearview, is going to join me on the stage.

Romans 8:37 (page #1742) “Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.”

Context: The reason I chose Romans 8:37 here is because of the Greek verb “hupernikao” = we are completely victorious, or we overwhelmingly conquer. It is plural. We often think of our victory over circumstances or crises in life as singular. At the most, it is me and Jesus or me, Jesus, and my counselor/therapist. Dr. Fred Gingrich, one of Nicole’s professors in her Masters, (“Strengthening Family Resilience to Trauma” in Treating Trauma in Christian Counseling, edited with his wife Dr. Heather Gingrich) said: “Even in an increasingly disconnected contemporary culture, family relationships, including marriages and extended family, are often a victim’s primary healing community, whether they live in individualistic or collectivist cultures.” In other words, family relationships have a big role to play in healing trauma in an individual’s life. When someone has gone through trauma, they think that if I see a counselor or get some therapy, I’ll get better. More and more research shows that we need a community to help us heal. Our family is our first community that helps us to heal in trauma. This can be very difficult if your family is dysfunctional. Unfortunately, the world throws that label around too easily. As a result, many families are estranged or fragmented, and many are hurt and confused. Hopefully, the message today will begin to bring some clarity and some healing to many families and individuals.

Nicole: 

Before we go any further, what are the different types of traumas that we experience growing up in our families. If we have bad coping mechanisms, then it can cause dysfunctions, or you can be “traumatized”:

• These are simultaneous trauma, where families are directly affected by a trauma (accidents, natural disasters); 
• secondary or vicarious traumatic stress, where families see or hear about a traumatic experience from another family member (rape, illness or accident); 
• intergenerational trauma, where family is impacted by traumas endured by a previous generation (children of POWs, second generation Holocaust survivors, immigration); 
• and intrafamilial trauma, where one member of the family is traumatized by another member of the family (incest, domestic violence, alcoholism). (Fred Gingrich, 164)

While individual therapy and counseling are invaluable in these situations, we cannot discount the role the family unit plays in helping its members through life’s struggles and heal from traumas. Family gives us a sense of acceptance and belonging in our daily lives and is a protective element in life struggles.

Throughout this message we will be using the term resilient. What does it mean when it comes to defining family? Pauline Boss defines resilience in her book Loss, Trauma, and Resilience as “the ability to stretch (like elastic) or flex (like a suspension bridge) in response to pressures and strains of life.” She goes on to say that resilience includes one’s response to “normative stress from everyday hassles, expected family transitions of entries and exits (including births and deaths) across the lifespan. It also includes the stress and trauma from unexpected crises and catastrophes” (48). If a family, before a trauma, has healthy relationships with one another (mother/father, parent/child, sibling), is involved in church, and has good communication skills; they can be resilient.

One of the theories that I use in counseling is family systems. It “stresses that what matters most in life is not what happens within or inside people but what happens between them” (Gingrich, 166). Family Systems emphasizes relationships. 

There is no such thing as a truly healthy family where a family experiences success in everything, is always stable throughout time and situations, and has no need for outside help. We live in a world that is infiltrated by sin, and we are told in scripture that we will face trials, so when a family struggles, it is normal. 

Abidan:

We are all born in dysfunctional families. It goes all the way back to Adam and Eve. They lived in the world without sin until they chose to listen to the Enemy and disobey God. All of a sudden, the one became two. Their relationship went from “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh (Genesis 2:23) to “The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate” (Genesis 3:12). Now, in the judgment against Eve, there was going to be pain in childbirth and “Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you”(Genesis 3:16). And, in the judgment against Adam, the ground was going to be cursed, there would be toil in eating all through life, there will be sweat, and “dust you are, and to dust you shall return” (Genesis 3:19). But, thank goodness, they decided to move forward. Genesis 4:1 “Now Adam knew Eve his wife…” The Hebrew word for “know” is “yada,” which implies sexual intercourse, but normally (not always), if its only sexual intercourse, there are other words for that. The word “yada” typically implies a deeper intimate knowledge of each other. They could have moved away from each other, refused to touch each other, try to undermine each other. Instead, they came together and decided to obey God’s command to “be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth.” They chose to be resilient. 

Unfortunately, the consequences of sin didn’t end here. They followed into the next generation with Cain and Abel. What happened when God rejected Cain’s offering because it was not a blood offering? Genesis 4:5 “…And Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell.” Instead of humbling himself and doing it God’s way, something came over Cain. The Hebrew is “wayichar leqayin meod” = “burned Cain very much.” We immediately think anger, and that can be true; but the word for anger “aph” is not mentioned here. This expression has the idea of “it began to eat at him.” The first thing he thought of was the rejection. The last thing he thought of was the rejection. It began to gnaw at him night and day. In fact, some scholars think that it means that he became depressed. Here’s why I think they may be right – the very next line is “nepeluv penid” = “fell his face.”

Application: I believe that depression is real, and it is very painful. Having said that, when being depressed becomes our refuge instead of repenting of our sins or forgiving the sins of others, we are going the way of Cain. The Bible doesn’t tell us, but did Adam and Eve not help Cain? Why didn’t he ask for help?

As you know, Cain killed his brother Abel. I wonder how Adam and Eve must have felt…their hearts had to be broken. The worst part would be to know that you as parents are the cause of it. They could have walked away from each other, but listen to Genesis 4:25 “And Adam knew his wife again, and she bore a son and named him Seth, ‘For God has appointed another seed for me instead of Abel, whom Cain killed.’ Talk about Resilience.

Nicole:

The goal is to go from dysfunctional (faulty coping mechanisms, possible mental illness, and therapy is required to get better) to resilient where the family can bounce back in times of stress. Family relationships should be a place of learning, support, and education where the individuals can develop healthy ways of dealing with crises.

What makes a family resilient?

• When crises do come, resilient families adapt. They don’t become numb or self-sufficient or try to minimize the crisis. As Froma Walsh stated in her book Strengthening Family Resilience, “Resilience is forged through adversity, not despite it.” 
• Families continue to grow and develop and learn different and better ways to deal with the problems of life. This includes communication skills between spouses and between parents and children. Members of a family need to communicate their needs, wants, and desires and realize that no one is a mind reader.  
• Individuals in a family and the family as a unit can rise above difficult beginnings. “We are not lifelong victims of traumatic experiences; secure relationships in the present are the antidote (Gingrich, 170). 
• The spiritual life of a family is also of utmost importance. Even secular authors and therapists recognize this fact. When each member of a family has a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and is involved in the local church, these two factors have significant influence on how the family will navigate a crisis. 

Personal stories: Facing trauma growing up for both of us.

Application:

Question: What should you do to become a resilient family?

1. Seek professional help– individual, couple, and family. Seek individual counseling because each person can be dealing with his/her own issues that are contributing to the family dysfunction (addiction, depression, self-harm, eating disorders). Seek couples counseling because the issues that you and your spouse are having are contributing to the family dysfunction (poor communication, abuse, lack of trust or respect, conflict). And lastly, seek family counseling to learn how to become a more cohesive unit by learning communication skills and problem-solving skills. 

2. Build family resilience 

1. Strengthen your family’s belief system-meaning making in a crisis. 
   • Know what the Bible says about trials. Look to the Bible as a guide for dealing with crises. 
   • Asking the right questions: What is God trying to teach me? What does God want me to learn? How does God want me to respond? Because my children are watching/because my extended family is watching. 
2. Strengthen your family’s connection to others. This can be done in a variety of ways, but the best and God-honoring way is to connect to others in the church body. This is why Sunday School, Care groups, and Small groups are such an important part of our church. “The relationally isolated family is not much better off than the individual who is isolated from family and friends” (Gingrich, 178). When we surround ourselves with other families that are resilient families themselves, they can provide support during crises. 
3. Strengthen your family’s communication skills. How your family talks to each other matters (Gingrich, 172). It is important to learn the skills of communication, but if you cannot put them into practice, the skills are useless. So, learn the communication skills, but don’t forget to practice them!
4. Strengthen your family’s future (your children). If you as a parent have ever been in a crisis, you know how easy it is to forget about your children in the midst of it. Remember that while you are trying to cope, your children are being impacted by the crisis as well, and they don’t have “the sophisticated cognitive abilities of adults and cannot make the distinctions adults make, such as an event being witnessed versus being experienced firsthand” (Gingrich, 180). 

Question: Are you truly a dysfunctional family? Healthy – Older generations may struggle with this. Watch out who you are listening to. Friends and family. Social media, especially TikTok. Google search. College professors. Or even counsellors, because they are lowering the bar of trauma.

Psychologist Sherri Campbell said “…Toxic people are very bad people with good moments. They’re not good people with bad moments.”

Psychologist Nick Haslam wrote,” The bar for qualifying as trauma today is much lower.”

Experience vs identity

• My trauma may not be yours vs “everyone is traumatized” craze
• We are all dysfunctional vs “my family is dysfunctional” craze
• You go to counseling because its good to go vs you go because you like “to be broken” craze

You don’t have to let your trauma define you. Does my trauma define me?

Truth (God’s Word), prayer, church community, seeking salvation.

Romans 8:37 (page #1742) “Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.”

Question: Are you saved?