Sisters' Weblog: It Bloggles the Mind!: A Purpose Driven Framily

Our framily is made up of Katie and her two kids, a boy 15 and girl 12, and me, a friend. Friend + family = FRAMILY. The ideal way to raise children would be with mother and father in a loving home, but circumstances do not allow for all of that at this time for Katie's kids. They have their mom and they have me, the "not-the-mom"! We are making the best of it and I'm doing my best to love this framily with all the love God can fill me with!

For now, God has these four people sharing a living space and growing in Him, while learning to live together and love one another. It is not always easy to do. Notice the ages of Katie's kids...teens! AAAAUUUUUGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH! Teenagers make life interesting. Please note the euphemism!

We are not trying to live as a normal family, we are trying to live as a Godly framily, and we do not always succeed. I do however, think God is really working in our individual lives and in the life of this framily. He is using Purpose Driven Life to do so too.

Currently our church is engaged in the PDL study. I had studied it before with my SaLT group about a year ago, but the whole church is now reading through it together and discussing in in our SaLT groups.

The framily had become somewhat disjointed and we are all going our own ways. It hasn't been the epitome of healthy relationships around here, and Katie and I have been brainstorming trying to figure out how to deal with some of the negativity that has crept in and virtually taken over in this household. Critical attitudes and selfishness have really been prevailing around here and leaves us all feeling upset a lot of the time.

Duh. After one week of all four of us reading PDL on our own, I said "DUH! Why don't we all read together as a framily!?!" So tonight, we just finished chapter fourteen, our first week of reading together as a framily each night. We read aloud to each other and discuss points that stand out as we go. I'm not sure how much the twelve year old is getting out of the study, but I can say this, she is enjoying the time together as a framily and actually initiates our gathering in the living room each night to read. She rounds us all up and shares a lot of the reading responsibility.

Since we started reading together as a framily, it has been a lot more harmonious around here. Tempers aren't flaring as much. We seem to be doing a lot more laughing and are just plain getting along! It's so much fun! We've gone to seem Team Impact two nights in a row and enjoyed that time together as well. We went to DQ after Team Impact tonight and had some ice-cream and enjoyed each other's company. The other night we spent a good hours worth of time just hanging out together taking pictures of each other doing nutty things! We laughed and laughed and it felt so good!

I love this framily! I've really enjoyed the past week reading a Purpose Driven Life together and watching God work in our lives. God is soooooooooo good! ALL the time!!!!!!!!

Here are some pics we took, enjoy!

Justin's audition for Team Impact: