Taylor - Made

I have been hearing the term broken home quite a lot recently. Personally, I do not like the term “broken home.” If a tree were to fall on your house or a tornado were to take off your roof, THAT is a broken home. If your family composition is anything other than the man and woman who birthed you, that is not broken, it is simply different. A home is a place where family (blood or not) resides, where children can feel loved and safe--where you can count on each other. If the aforementioned are not present then it isn’t a home, it is just an address, and if they are present then why call it broken?

If we hold ourselves to the challenge of maintaining a “perfect” family, we are setting ourselves up for failure, seeing as how none of us are perfect. By virtue of being human and being sinners, we are all in our own way “broken.” Sadly, there are families where the parents are not divorced and the household is in complete disarray, yet these homes are not called broken.

Growing up in a “broken home” I used to look at other families, seeing the parents and children together at the store or a school function, and wished my family were like theirs. Now as an adult, I realize I could not have been more wrong. While some families appear to be intact on the outside in public it does not mean that they have it all together behind closed doors. In one way or another, we all have brokenness in our household. We all have somewhat of a mess, but messes can be cleaned up. Broken tends to imply that something cannot be fixed.

When I look back at all the growth I have done, and all the growing I still need to do, I think of all the those who are inhibited; the ones who are not able to see a brighter future. The saddest thing to me is when parents – divorced or not – do not try to furnish a good, stable and secure life for the children.

I am divorced, but I am no less qualified to be a great parent. My kids have just as good a chance as any to turn out to be great people. My parents did not do everything right, and neither have I.

Despite coming from a “broken home”, I am a whole person.