Brothers and Sisters: Restoring, Renewing and Strengthening Relationships

By Marilyn Baltrus

How to
Communicate more clearly
Make the most of your relationships
Work through conflicts
Get along better with challenging people

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: May 16, 2014
• ISBN: 9781496908629

Marilyn Baltrus

Marilyn Baltrus grew up in a family of seven children. Combined with all the kinds of experiences a large family affords, she has learned, experienced and observed much along the way, and is still learning. She writes poems and occasional letters to the editor of the local paper. She is a catechist in her local parish (Sunday school teacher) with many years of experience. She is also a licensed massage therapist. She lives in Brooks County, Georgia.

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© 2014 Marilyn Baltrus. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 05/14/2014

ISBN: 978-1-4969-0861-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4969-0862-9 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014907866

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Scripture texts in this work are taken from the New American Bible, revised edition © 2010, 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Washington, D.C. and are used by permission of the copyright owner. All Rights Reserved. No part of the New American Bible may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Good News Translation® (Today’s English Version, Second Edition)

Copyright © 1992 American Bible Society. All rights reserved.

The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved. The Living Bible, TLB, and the The Living Bible logo are registered trademarks of Tyndale House Publishers.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface

Acknowledgments

Part 1 Considerations

Part 2 Common Relationship Pitfalls

Part 3 The Road To Peace

Part 4 Strength For The Journey

About The Author

Appendix One

Appendix Two

Glossary

References

To Our Lord God, the Source of our hope, salvation, victory and inspiration.

To Mom and Dad, and Jimmy, who successfully won the race before us, and whose intercession the rest of us greatly value and treasure.

PREFACE

There are so many family relationships in our world with so much suffering. The term dysfunctional family has been tossed around so broadly we wonder if there is such a thing as a normal one—unless we redefine the word family. It seems like everyone has one problem or another with at least someone in his or her family, friendship circle, or workplace, each one accompanied by some degree of emotional misery or sadness. I have come to the understanding that if we do not deal with these issues during our life on earth as much as possible, we will have to deal with them in Purgatory before reaching our perfect life of Heaven.

So my purpose for this book is to explore the things which contribute to these relationships, the negatives which instigate all that suffering, and those factors, practices and virtues which increase family unity. This book is not about my family, but families and all relationships in general.

I also hope to use this book as a peacemaker. That is a task for all of us to do. Jesus tells us, Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the children of God (Matthew 5:9). Improving our family relationships will definitely bring about more peace—as well as more love, unity, and other blessings.

The Appendix section has the scriptures referred to in the book, so if you don’t have a Bible close by you can still refer to them. The section entitled Additional Support Material is a collection of book notes, inspirational items, meditations, and a further reading list. I hope and pray these are all helpful in some way to the reader. Some of these, like the book notes, show that not just my own ideas are used. Much of what I say, someone else has said before me.

I don’t pretend to be an expert. I don’t expect to be a miracle worker (God does that anyway). I just learned some things along the way of family life, either by experiences, observations, reading, listening to others, or whatever—which I hope and pray will be helpful to readers and to whomever readers will pass on these contents. The Lord has changed me enough that it has become easier for me to calmly handle situations which in the past I would react negatively to—now at least I react negatively to a much lesser degree and frequency.

So as you read this book I hope you and your family are blessed, and all your relationships are strengthened or healed.

Here is my philosophy of relationships and life. I’m not one to give up on people easily, especially those close to me. I believe… where there’s a will, there’s a way. With God, all things are possible. Everyone has some kind of faith journey, and is at a different place of progress along the way. God has everything under control; with Him, everything will be alright.

Marilyn Baltrus

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am greatly indebted to all those who have been praying with me about this project, the patient staff of AuthorHouse, and my great friend Sue Worth, whose help, prayers, and computer skills I could not do without, and are greatly appreciated. Sue’s time spent checking for errors and correcting, typing, reading, along with her organization skills and guidance truly went beyond the second mile.

PART ONE

CONSIDERATIONS

Introduction

There are so many factors that influence how we relate to others, how we communicate. Some are simple and obvious; we are more aware of those. Others can be subtle, complicated, less conscious, even deceptive or misleading. Of those we may be less often aware, even oblivious to their presence. Yet they do influence us, and our relationships. Many of these influences trip us up when we communicate, causing much hardship through conflicts, misunderstandings, even to strained relations or estrangement.

Life happens! Things can change in a heartbeat, either with circumstances or people or both. That’s normal; to be expected; part of life. As we go through life with these changes, let’s study and consider how these influences interact in our lives and relationships. Let’s think about how they affect us, so we may work to make them positives rather than negatives.

Spirituality

Perhaps it would be helpful to begin our discussion with faith and prayer. A person’s spirituality is his center, his heart; what makes a person complete. One’s soul is his breath of life (Genesis 2:7). The soul is the part of us with the capacity for a relationship with God. Without God in that center space within us, we are, in a sense, an empty void. With God filling this space, the foundation of what makes us human is laid. Then begins the process of growth and maturity into the human beings we were designed to be. We have the capacity for relationships, for love, and to understand each other, in order to become community and fully function for each other’s well-being and holiness, for wholeness. Without God in the center of our beings, we are vulnerable to all the social maladies of our society, which produce all kinds of dysfunction and violence. This is the root of our present cultural crisis.

Since faith is the root of our relationship with God, and prayer is the heart of that relationship, prayer is also an essential influence toward our human relationships—prayer both for others, and for ourselves. Whether it is prayer for patience, wisdom, understanding, or any kind of need, prayer is the voice of the soul. However we pray we reach God, for He is there in the reaching soul. The important thing is that we just do it, either without ceasing (1Thessalonians 5:17), or at least often.

But not everyone has a relationship with God. So when we come in contact with those who are unbelievers, atheists, or just straying, struggling sheep with any special need—we may need to relate to them differently, if their spirituality is not the same as ours. In fact, in a sense we could say that is true of everyone, for all of us are at different levels of spiritual maturity and understanding; we’re all at a different place on our spiritual journey, even those of the same faith beliefs. This is where prayer really has particular potential to effect miracles of change. Only God fully knows us. So it simply makes perfect sense to talk to God about how to talk to each other. And so by praying to God for each other, we can help others in their needs, and understand how their needs affect them. We can also understand how their needs affect us, and our relationships with them.

Personality

Personality is an exciting area that opens brand new doors to understanding ourselves and others. There’s a wonderful, everybody-should-read book, called Personality Plus, by Florence Littauer (1992). She explains how God endowed each of us with one of four personality temperaments, or a combination of more than one, and the various personality traits included within them. She explores how these personality traits are organized, how they function, and how they help us relate. Littauer shows us why we are the way we are, how to make the most of our strengths, and how to manage our weaknesses.

By understanding ourselves we can better understand others, and be more successful in our relationships. Understanding each other’s personality temperaments can help us have more patience with each other. It also helps us not to expect others to be like us, or to think they are wrong if they are not like us. In reality they are thinking and acting the different ways God designed them to be. And we can be more appreciative of their strengths and talents. Knowledge of the personality types can help us accept ourselves and others, rather than trying or wanting to change them according to our own ideas—and especially avoid manipulation and being judgmental. We can avoid unreasonable expectations, and the frustrations of trying to change what we were meant to accept. An example could be someone who is very detail oriented being assigned to a task that requires meticulous work, rather than a task which is simple and very fast-paced. He will enjoy and prefer the meticulous job.

Our differing personalities are meant to complement each other, help us live and work together, and provide each other help and support. God created them to be useful to all of us, not divisive. That’s why, I believe, particularly in marriage, opposites attract. That’s why we all have different strengths and weaknesses, and God wants us to make the most of them (read the biblical parable of the talents Matthew 25:14-30). With such a diverse set of needs world-wide, God made us with many different talents to fulfill those needs.

I won’t go into detail here about the temperaments themselves, other than to say that they are groupings of our main characteristics which help us make the most of our lives and of the people with whom we have contact. My point is that understanding each other and our differences helps us get along with others and helps us help others more effectively. Again, I cannot over-recommend reading Littauer’s (1992) book.

Life Experiences

Our life experiences make a large contribution to the way we believe, and form our world view or general life philosophy. Areas of personal belief form habits, personal do’s and taboos, a degree of positivity or negativity, opinions about ourselves and many other things. But perhaps too often we don’t take this into account when dealing with other people. We tend to be self-centered, focused on how we feel, what we think, what we know or don’t know, etc.—at the moment we converse with another. We usually approach a person from our OWN point of view, not the other person’s view—or at least not enough, or inconsistently. We’re in too much of a hurry, not investing in the time to wonder what the other person might be thinking or feeling.

It doesn’t have to be an elaborate process. All we need is just enough awareness to realize the other person may not fully understand what we are saying. And we may not fully understand what the other person is saying. Or they might have hindering issues to contend with, that we are not aware of. And it may also help to realize