Beautifully Functionally Dysfunctional

There are times when I speak of my functional/dysfunctional family. I went through divorce almost 28 years ago and my family was broken. We both fought for our children and ended up sharing joint physical custody of our three children.  It was a very hard season of my life. We learned early on how to be civil and even kind to the other side and kindness was given in return. When I remarried and she remarried, we figured out how to make room in the kids’ lives for stepparents.  I remember working through this season with lots of prayers and learning to hold my tongue whenever possible. A lot of healing too place and today we have this, what I lovingly refer to as a “functionally dysfunctional family” that loves the Lord and is seeking to honor Him. We all genuinely love each other and are walking out our family of faith together.

As I read scripture, I see the Lord using functionally dysfunctional families all the time to do His work. I was reading this morning how the lineage of King David, which was ultimately the lineage of Jesus came from a dysfunctional situation with one of the sons of Israel. Check this out…

Judah had three sons from Bathshua, a Canaanite woman. Their names were Er, Onan, and Shelah. But the Lord saw that the oldest son, Er, was a wicked man, so he killed him. Later Judah had twin sons from Tamar, his widowed daughter-in-law. Their names were Perez and Zerah. So Judah had five sons in all. (1 Chronicles 2:3-4 NLT)

The story behind this widowed daughter-in-law is in Genesis 38 and was quite the scandal when it went down. Judah didn’t follow proper protocol with his son’s widow, and she took matters into her own hands and with a good disguise, made herself available to him. She got pregnant with twins and one of them became a patriarch in the lineage of King David.

I see through this story that the Lord can make beautiful things out of the messes we make and create.  There is NEVER someone so lost that He can’t save them.  This passage reminded me of a song by Michael & Lisa Gunger called “Beautiful Things”

All this pain
I wonder if I’ll ever find my way
I wonder if my life could really change, at all
All this earth
Could all that is lost ever be found?
Could a garden come out from this ground, at all?

You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of the dust
You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of us

There is hope for all of us functionally difunctionally people. The Lord is Creator and is still creating beautiful things out of my messes.  I’m so humbled and thankful for His Creativity and His Grace that prompts His Patience and Presence.  All of us are imperfect, flawed human beings for sure, but He makes us beautiful with His Presence in us!

Pressing On!

Dwayne

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