"That's Where the Crazy Comes From" - Removing Family Chaos for Generations to Come

During a recent trip to North Carolina, my sister, Bonnie, and I discovered a box of photographs, most of which we had never seen.  We spent an entire afternoon looking through hundreds of pictures, some dating back to the early 1900’s. We laughed, questioned, and even cried a little, as we pieced together our relatives’ lives. During the process, it became evident that photographs are powerful…and revealing.

My favorite discoveries included pics of my Pa-Paw Newton playing college football for Trinity (now known as Duke University) during the 1920’s, MaMaw Little with her teenage girlfriends in their 1920’s clothes (loved that!), as well as pics of her with my PaPaw, in their swimsuits.  (I didn’t know they EVER showed that much skin!). We also found photos of our parents on their wedding day, when they were only 15 and 19. (They were babies!) We had entered into a time warp of priceless discoveries.

We later found photographs of two distant relatives, which evoked a different type of response, causing me to stop, pause and consider.  I had never met them, as they had long passed away by the time I came along, but I had heard many stories. From what I understood, they were hard-working, loveable, God-fearing individuals. But I also knew there was another side. Apparently, they very openly showed extreme favoritism to certain family members, while discounting others, resulting in rejection.  One of them once locked a young family member in the barn. When the little petrified girl yelled, cried, and screamed to be let out, the only response she received was laughter from the other side of the barn door. There were even accounts of what seemed to be a practice of subtle black-magic, disguised in the form of providing a good service for family and the community.  Remembering these stories, accompanied with the faces looking back at me, suddenly caused them to seem very serious.

Pointing to the couple in the photograph, I looked at my sister and said, half serious, half joking, “That’s where the crazy came from.”  Laughing, she responded, “Yep.”  We both knew…although we had received a blessed godly heritage from both sides of our family, there were also some skeletons in closets, resulting in very specific struggles, challenges, and even sins being passed down through the generations. There was possibly some more work that needed to be done.

Before I go any further, I want to clarify, when I say “crazy,” I am not referring solely to mental illness, reducing this very real sickness to a flippant vulgar term.  Rather, I am describing the various dysfunctions in our family lines – such as emotional unhealth and/or instability, deception, manipulation and/or cruelty, addictions, apathy, divorce, cancer, bad health, lying, abuse, or cut-off relationships – basically anything that is not of God and results in chaos and dysfunction. In most families, the chaos passed down through generational lines was never intentional, but rather, behaviors accepted and learned from previous generations, ultimately resulting in these dysfunctions becoming a family’s “normal.”  

Although our immediate and extended family has come a very long way, Bonnie and I began to discuss the subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) struggles experienced in the generations that followed.  Some of these struggles have even been evident in our own lives, causing us to cry out to God for healing, freedom and restoration. Sometimes He meets us immediately, and other times He takes us through a process, as He has great truths to teach us.  Nevertheless, He always comes through. 

The beauty of recounting the “crazy” in our family, is that it gave both Bonne and I great opportunity to recognize all that God has done through the years.  Only His redemptive and restorative power can make it possible for an entire generation to walk a new path – one of peace, love and order, as opposed to the previous path of chaos. We know that we had been given a new family bloodline, made possible through the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ, forcing the “crazy” to lose its grip over us, our children, grandchildren, and those who are to come.  We delight in the fact that past sins of previous generations no longer have the ability to curse or control our family, causing us to know that when “crazy” reappears, we’re no longer helpless, as we have a new bloodline – that of Jesus Christ.

But receiving and walking in this new bloodline has been a bit of a process for us as individuals and as a family.  We’ve learned that in order to receive the new bloodline, or move forward, as unpleasant as it may seem, a most necessary action is to first go backward to identify and acknowledge the “crazy.”  Stan and I have been working on this for many years, through a combination of discovery, asking questions, creating genograms, tracking generational bondages and curses – then bringing them before the Lord, breaking curses, seeking freedom, and learning how to live a new way. As with most good things, it’s taken a long time and we are still in process.  But we’re willing to do the work, as we want to do all that we can to help our future generations to walk in freedom.

“Don’t we automatically receive a new bloodline when we come into relationship with Jesus Christ,”  you may ask? The answer is, “Yes!”  But we still must LEARN how to LIVE as children who belong to the bloodline of Jesus Christ, and that doesn’t happen by accident.  It's a journey. To quote a powerful truth from Peter Scazzero (Emotionally Healthy Spirituality), “Jesus may be in our hearts, but Grandpa is in our bones.”  This means that after receiving Jesus into our lives and hearts, we have to learn the truth of a God-breathed normal. What does it look like?  We have to learn how to operate in the Fruit of the Spirit, how to live free, and how to diminish the disconnect between how we love God and how we love others.   And it all starts with discovering the crazy.

So what’s your “crazy”? If you believe you have no “crazy,” can I respectfully challenge you?  All families have some crazy because we’re human and imperfect. By taking the time to identify the crazy, we can take it to God, allowing Him to heal and restore – showing and enabling us to live a new and better way.  It is then that the power of the past, even if it is that of our great-great-grandparents, and beyond, is broken.

I encourage you…discover your crazy.   Let’s not allow our past, or that of our ancestors, to have a grip on us, our children, grandchildren, and generations to come.  We have a say in this matter!  We can do something! We can change the future for those we love.

Thank you for reading.  I pray you are blessed and that God shows you the crazy!