Grateful for Family

Post written by Steve Otto. Follow me on Twitter.

Last evening we had a gentle reminder of how blessed we are. Blessed because of our family. Blessed because of the opportunities we’ve been given. Blessed by the friends we have. Blessed by the support of our church family. So many of the blessings we have all stem from the families we’ve been raised by and the support we’ve been given throughout the years.

This Old House
We recently purchased a new washer and dryer and just sold our old ones on Craigslist last night. A very sweet family came to purchase our dryer and in the short time we encountered them, we were reminded at how blessed we are. As we chatted while loading the dryer into their van, we learned that they had just moved up here and were renting an apartment in a very old house. From the sounds of it, it was pretty run down. They were here on their own. No family to look to for help. They hadn’t developed any new friendships. They were missing the support group that we take for granted every day.

Their Return
The family returned to our house about an hour later after purchasing the dryer because it wasn’t working after they hooked it up. They had purchased a new cord when they originally bought the dryer and the Dad used my tools to wire it in to the back of the dryer. I’m guessing he didn’t have any tools at home. We know the dryer worked fine, and we are guessing the new cord wasn’t properly connected or the older house may not have been wired properly. My wife and I tried to help as best we could as they asked all sorts of questions about hooking up the dryer. Even simple things like, ‘Do we need to have a hose connected to the vent in the back.’

They had trouble getting power to it and mentioned they knew the plug worked because they tried plugging in the washer. This concerned us, since the washer normally runs on 110 and the dryer runs on 220. So they started asking if it was easy to rewire the outlet.

Easy Questions when you have Help
These seemed like a pretty easy questions for us, but then again, we had family there when we bought our first washer and dryer. Mom and Dad reminded us to buy a new vent hose. They explained that the Dryer ran on 220 and we needed a special cord. Sometimes they run on gas and they helped us determine which type to buy.

Sure you can figure these things out on your own, but the support of your family and friends makes an incredible difference in your life. As I think back, both my wife and I were born into very loving families who weren’t necessarily rich, but definitely provided everything we needed. They gave us opportunities – from small things like loaning us tools, to big things like the opportunity to go to college.

Broken Hearts
It broke our hearts to see this family without that kind of support group. My wife overheard the Mom say in her frustration, “Maybe we should just pack up and go back home to Virginia.” I wasn’t able to be out in the garage helping them for too long as I snuck away from a wedding planning meeting (another thing that wouldn’t be where it is today without the tremendous support from family and friends) for a few minutes to help, but I wish I was able to ride over to their apartment and offer them some of the help we’ve received over the years.

Heart Attacks or Old Age
My friend just started a book that my mentor recommended to me, called The Outliers, by Malcom Gladwell. My friend shared, that in this book, Malcom discusses an incredible community, I believe in Pennsylvania, that has a very interesting statistic in common with everyone in the community. Everyone in that town basically dies of old age. No heart attacks ever occur – despite that being one of the top reasons for deaths nationally. This community all happens to be immigrants or descendants of immigrants from the same village in Italy. So they did study after study to see why these people defied the odds of dying from a heart attack that everyone else faces. First they thought it was something genetic or in their health because they all came from same town in Italy. Many of these people smoked and often worked long 12 hour days, so it wasn’t based on their health. They thought it might be environmental, but the town on either side of them all had the normal heart attack rate. Study after study ruled out what might be the cause for their ability to avoid heart attacks and die of old age until they finally determined it was one simple thing. Community. Everyone in this town was huge into community. They constantly gathered together and treated everyone like family. Houses were homes to extended families instead of nuclear families. Sidewalks were always filled with folks catching up on each other. Everyone knew everyone and they had community together. That was the one thing that was different between this small town and all of their surrounding towns.

By Design
We are designed to be a part of family and it is so important to us it makes a difference on our health. Take a minute and think about how blessed you are to have the family you do. Or perhaps you are in a situation like the family who bought our dryer and you don’t have that luxury. I would encourage you to find a healthy church, in which you are treated like family.

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