Diversity in Families

Family and the Meaning of Family in a Diverse World

I love my family.  I am the baby in a family of five children.  I have a loving Father who provides and protects us.  He is an example of honor, strength, and service to God, and his role as a husband, father, as well as a grandfather.  I have a mother who loves, nurtures and supports me in all I do.  Her example of service and devotion to family is an example that I hope to follow.  I have one older brother and he is the best big brother I could ask for.  I have three beautiful older sisters who are all married now and raising beautiful families with their husbands.  I love my sisters so much.  Family plays a very important part in my life.  These individual relationships strengthen and help me become the person I want to be.  I haven't even mentioned, my extended family, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins who play a gigantic role in our family structure.  Of, course, not all families have two parents.  Some are composed of single parent homes.  There are mixed races and some with two adults of the same sex with or without children.  Which comes to my post about the diversity in families today.

 The question, what is meant by family?  In Marriage and Family, The Quest for Intimacy, chapter 2 it states, the way to define family is to identify its functions. Anthropologist have identified four functions that all families fulfill: sexual relations, reproduction, socialization of children, and economic cooperation, This view is somewhat lacking to me.  Another definition of family is a group united by marriage.  It's interesting to note that over 20 years ago, President Gordon B. Hinckley introduced The Family, A Proclamation To The World. Who could imagine how important it would become in defending marriage and family today?  Whatever type of family we belong too still needs some of the very same values to hold families together.  Love, respect, support, and sharing are vital in all types of families.  Every family has strengths as well as challenges. I know that diversity in families is a fact of life.  What matters most is love.

Consider Therapy

Some people are labeled because they are gay or homosexual, but I learned in class that you don't see them you see the label, which is kind of sad. You want to see any person as a child of God. I think that people are socialized as well as tempted to be gay. Whether that be through abuse, childhood experiences, or rejection from others of their same sex. I don't know all the reasons why people feel homosexual feelings, but I do know that these feelings have the potential to be overcome through therapy, like a porn addiction, depression, anxiety, or any other mental illness or addiction we deal with. Yes, it will be hard. And yes, it is a real struggle. I firmly believe that there is nothing the Atonement of Jesus Christ cannot heal. If we have the desire to change, and the desire to heal, he can heal us. But, we have to have the desire. This change could take a lifetime, some may never overcome homosexual temptations in this life, just like others may never be completely free from the temptation of pornography. I do know that we can overcome everything with Christ. Even if you still feel tempted till the day that you die, you can overcome the desire to act on your temptation, with Jesus Christ. He loves you, and anything is possible with him. I truly believe that Heavenly Father did not make people "gay" but I do believe that he gives us trials and that is a trial for some.

-"With God, nothing shall be impossible." Matthew 19:26