Dealing with Family Stress

Everyone's family goes through different ups and downs. There is not a single family that lives a perfect life without stress or a crisis. The stress placed on a family might not even be that much stress, but every family at one point or time will go through a hardship. Stress means that there is strain or tension whether that be emotional or physical. Stress is a pretty common thing for an individual and for a family. Is having stress in your life necessary or important?  Imagine a time in your life or your family's life when you had a stressful moment. Now imagine if you wouldn't have experienced that moment. Would your life be better or worse, would you have learned or grown without it? In my family when we go through stressful moments it helps us grow closer together and I can look back at those times and feel grateful that our family went through it together. Something cool I learned was that word crisis in Chinese means danger and opportunity. I found this to be really interesting. When a crisis hits a family there are two pathways they can go down. They can either go down the path of danger. This would mean that they would let the crisis overtake their lives and their relationships. They let it ruin everything they love and have worked for. They let it tear their family apart. Then there is the other part of the word which is opportunity. A crisis can lead to the pathway of opportunity. Depending on how the family handles the crisis they can grow, learn, and change. Actually a crisis demands a change. This can be a blessing in some family's life depending on how they take on the trial. Some people allow the stress to pile up until it becomes too much. That might be an unhealthy way to cope with stress. Everyone copes with stress in different ways. I think that it's an important thing to talk about with your spouse or partner. When you talk about how you're going to cope with a stressful moment, it can help prepare the both of you for when a trial actually happens. If you believe in a God will you remain believing or will you blame God and give up? I think if both spouses are open and honest with each other it will make the time less painful and instead they can lean on one another and their children too. I just want to share a time in my family that was a stressful moment. I was currently serving a mission and for those who don't know a mission for the LDS church costs about 400 dollars a month. My parents were super willing to pay for my mission and help me out. I had only been on my mission for about 2 months when I received an email from my dad telling me about what had happened at his work. My dad had been accused of stealing money from the company. He had been working at that company for 20 plus years as General Manager and was currently trying to buy out the company with my two brothers who worked there. My dad was devastated because didn't see this coming at all, and he looked over everything and believed that he was innocent. The owner demoted him and lowered his pay. This affected our family pretty hard. My brothers quit and were forced to move other jobs for better pay. This actually ended being a blessing for my brothers because they both found better jobs in the end. Unfortunately this was still hard for my dad because he couldn't find another job and money was really tight. They struggled to pay for my mission, but wanted to continue to support me. During this time as a family we really joined together. I could feel the love from every single sibling and I know my mom was really supportive at this time. We still struggle with money, and my dad still has that same job and its a stressful time still for my dad to go to work. Even though it was a difficult time we grew as a family together. We learned how to be happy and work together as a family through hard times. Remember to be happy and stay positive and always remember that stress is a good thing when dealt with it in the right way. Until Next week!!