In studying out various characters of the Bible over the past several months, I have begun seeing a pattern of family messiness and dysfunction. There are some severe dramas going on within some pretty important Biblical families. Today's society and the social media influencers are going viral trying to convince the world that the vast majority of families and/or parents are toxic and dysfunctional based off of their self-imposed definition of those words. If you pay any attention to any of the circulating videos that address this issue then you will see a trend of teens and adults alike convincing you that you more than likely grew up in a dysfunctional family, or that you supposedly had toxic parents. Most of them make their case based merely on “if you ever heard these phrases” or, if you ever had to deal with any of the very many named toxic traits from your parent. It is a good thing none of these folks lived back in Bible times. 

While I certainly do not deny that there are dysfunctional and toxic families out there, chances are that you will find some degree of “what’s not normal” in nearly every home across the globe. And this is where the problem lies….the majority of these videos are just random people trying to convince you of what is normal and what is not.

I have personally dealt with dysfunctional people in my life and have had to learn that there comes a time when you must create boundaries to keep that mess out of your life. It is such a dangerous thing for these “influencers” to use words like toxic and dysfunctional to make one feel less than normal. While a truly toxic family may occasionally be the case, more often than not the only thing being accomplished is causing discord among parents and adult children and among siblings. The degradation of someone’s family and/or parents merely because someone out there in social media land are so desperate for likes and shares has got to stop. The creators of these videos and posts are only dramatizing normal everyday things that are a part of nearly every family on the planet. I, for one, would like to know what makes them an expert. Why do they get to decide what is dysfunctional? And why are we as a society allowing them to get to be the ones who decide?

I wonder what their thoughts would be if they read the Bible stories of Joseph, and of David, and Rebekah, and so many more. The Bible is full of “dysfunctional” families. Afterall, the very first murder that occurred was between brothers. If you need to feel like your family isn’t so abnormal, pick up your Bible and nearly every story there will show you that we are all humans. We all (even some of the saintliest folks) make mistakes. Sometimes if we quit trying to live up to what we see as “normal”, we would find so much more peace. We would be so much more content with our families and our homes. And then we would notice that maybe everything wasn’t as dysfunctional as that person in that video was trying to convince us.

Families are being torn apart by society from every direction. Why don’t we lift families back up to the level of importance that they used to be, back when the world was a better place. Maybe, just maybe, the world started falling apart when the sense of family began to disintegrate. So, while you are dreading your next family gathering because someone on social media has convinced you that you are walking into a lion’s den of toxicity, just remember that they are just what they are called….”social media influencers”. Trust God with the well-being of your family and if your family does have fractures ask Him to show you how you can help to start a healing process. He is, after all, the very designer of the family. He is so much bigger than creating a video. He is the creator of all the world and everything in it!