The Family: A Formation Center for Human Relationships

Edith Schaeffer shares with us in her book, A Celebration of Children, that "human relationships start at birth and continue to death, whether or not anyone consciously thinks about it. Good or bad human relationships and constructive or destructive human relationships take place at every level of life. Whether people treat people as human beings or machines, people are treating people in some way. Whether people treat everyone as having importance, dignity, significance, or whether people treat others on a sliding scale of importance--everyone is reacting to other people in some way.

A family is a formation center for human relationships. The family is the place where the deep understanding that people are significant, important, worthwhile, with a purpose in life, should be learned at an early age. The family is the place where children should learn that human beings have been made in the image of God and are therefore very special in the universe.

Parents have been teaching children lessons of how to treat other people, in devastatingly horrible ways or in biblically right ways, whether or not they have ever thought of themselves as teachers. Teaching takes place by example, every minute of every day, for every human being."

We, as parents, need to be ever mindful and intentional about what we are teaching our children. Many times we are making impressions on them through the example of how we live our own lives in front of them. Let's be vigilant in examining ourselves in light of the Word with the constant reminder that within our families, we are training in human relationship building!