This is a young man with two biological kids and an adopted child from another country, ages twelve and under.
As I listened, I kept hearing this phrase in my mind:
Rally your kids as a sibling group.Was God trying to tell me something?
I realized my friend's story was concentrating on his oldest son's turmoil--there seemed nothing amiss about that.
But the phrase kept coming.
I heard once that the value of siblings is that they have a sort of shared venture mentality--whatever the family obstacles, there is a sense that the pain is carried by all.
But that must be cultivated by the parents or the siblings or both. It doesn't just happen. If God wants to rally the siblings, you can be sure there is a force operating to divide them.
So, several times in our conversation, I reminded my friend to rally his kids as a sibling group.
I said, "At the end of the day, the family group that will carry on is your three children as a group. Make sure you rally them together often and strategically. There will be attempts to divide them. Their strength will be in their shared camaraderie to get through the pain."
We feed the strength of our children in many ways--include rallying them as a sibling group.
