#family tag

[angelsdean]

people might not like it but dean really is the father jack idolizes and admires most. yes he chose cas, cas is the father he chose to be his protector and angelic guide, and yes he loves him and learns from him too. but jack literally imprints on dean like a baby duck, starts mimicking him immediately, and generally thinks he's cool and fun. they do most of their bonding off-screen, but based on the references to their movie watching alone it's hours and hours of bonding. (jack has watched the lost boys with dean 36 times!! and that's just one (1) movie!!). like their love language is quality time !! when jack's dying what does dean do? he gives him a perfect day. he spends time with him. and they do very dean things, which jack loves: driving, eating, fishing. dean is the cool, fun dad and jack wants to be just like him and that probably scares the shit outta dean, but yea like most kids and young people on spn, jack is drawn to dean immediately.

[goddamnshinyrock]

raccoon update: they are outside

[keepingupwithzaynmalik]

It’s past her bedtime. She doesn’t come to the studio, but she’s starting to understand that Baba sings and Baba does music. She asks everybody, whenever there’s a song on the radio, “Is my Baba singing?” But in front of me, she kind of gets shy about it. Khai has a lot of natural ability herself already. I know, it sounds ridiculous because she’s three, but her retention for language, especially when it’s formatted in a musical sense to her, has been amazing. She'll remember every lyric of every song that she likes. She remembers chord progressions and notes. She can do runs that have, like, three, four notes already. I look forward to seeing what she’s going to be capable of doing as she gets older.

Zayn on Khai being in the recording studio and her musical skills for L’OFFICIEL HOMMES.

Read the full interview here.

[nonbinarycharmybee]

[ashleyjohnsonoftheday]

Day 600

[manycoloureddays]

our friends’ have left their things in our house. their favourite snacks are in our pantry, their puzzles and books and scrapbooking things are on our tables and shelves. we have their photos and art displayed, their heights marked on our walls. they helped choose our couch and our rug & organise our books & curate our gallery walls & i can see them everywhere in our home.

our friends’ have left themselves in our house and sometimes i can’t believe the love i get to live with

[blessedarethebinarybreakers]

Hi, I hope you're having a blessed Good Friday and Holy Week. I have a heavy question that may be difficult to answer but I'm hoping you could provide some insight.

How do I lean on Jesus to keep me strong in an abusive situation? I am a closeted trans guy living with alt-right conservative family. I am doing my best to escape the situation but for now I'm stuck. It feels impossible to stay strong knowing these people already hate me, and would hate me even more if they knew my true and actual self. They're supposed to love me, we're family, but they never have. I want to be like Jesus and love them no matter what, and I want to forgive them, but I don't know how. I feel like I can't forgive what they do when it's continuous and they are not sorry. Can you point me in the direction of any verses or lessons that can help me stay strong in the face of pain and hurt?

TW: unaccepting family, conservative family

Ach, so sorry I didn't see this till now. My heart aches for you in this painful situation. I will be holding you in my prayers; may God enfold you in love and courage to get through this time, and send support your way to help you out. If there is anything I can do to help you get out of this current living situation, please let me know.

The fact that you want to show forgiveness to people who have failed to give you the love and care you deserve shows what a big heart and courageous spirit you have. It's a powerful thing to go through hurt and still seek grace even for the ones who hurt you. That kindness is a rare and precious gift; hang on to it for the future, when there will be people in your life who are actually open to receiving and responding to your kindness.

In the meantime, you are correct in pointing out the impossibility of forgiveness when the ones who hurt you are still hurting you, probably have no plans to stop any time soon, and haven't shown any remorse. Despite how mainstream Christianity has watered down the concept of forgiveness into an abstract statement, to a one-off, simple "forgive and forget :)" attitude, that is not actually the kind of forgiveness that Jesus instructs us in.

Mainstream Christian culture has warped forgiveness into a weapon against the wronged, pressuring them to "just move on" so we don't have to live in the discomfort and challenge of dismantling the kind of power dynamics that allow for harm to take place.

Meanwhile when Jesus taught forgiveness, about reconciliation between a wrongdoer and the one they've wronged, his challenge was to the wrongdoer. It was up to them to show remorse and seek forgiveness, to show they'd actually changed by lowering themselves to an equal field with the one wronged so that the harm can never happen again.

In this post, I talk more about Jesus's idea of forgiveness, and discuss how one might "love one's enemies" as Jesus instructs even when forgiving them is not possible.

One thing that has stood out to a lot of people is that when Jesus was going through his greatest agony, being tortured and murdered on a Roman cross, his words of forgiveness are not "I forgive these people who are in the midst of murdering me" but "Father, forgive them." When we are unable to forgive for any reason, that isn't sinful or a sign of weak faith or any such nonsense. It's recognizing the complicated realities of relationship, where reconciliation isn't the responsibility of the person being wronged. And we can let go of any sense of burden on us to do the forgiving — ultimately, that's not our job, but God's.

___

As you survive this difficult situation, I think about Jesus' fraught relationship with his own biological family. His situation was much different from yours — we know his parents did love him, as did his cousin John, and presumably other family members as well. But they didn't always understand him, and they didn't always accept him. They wanted him to be what they expected him to be, not live into who he truly was.

In Mark 3, as Jesus is gaining steam as a teacher and healer, some of his family gets worried about the fame he's gaining — they say, "he's out of his mind!" and seek to "seize control of him." They think what he preaches is some kind of mental illness, and they're either embarrassed of or scared for him. Jesus, come back home! What will people think?? Don't you know what they're saying about our family??

When people tell Jesus his mother and siblings have arrived, he retorts,

“Who is my mother? Who are my siblings?” Looking around at those seated around him in a circle, he said, “Look, here are my mother and my brothers. Whoever does God’s will is my brother, sister, and mother.”

Jesus recognizes that family is much deeper than blood; that family is about who supports you in your God-given identity and gifts, and helps you grow into the person God created you to be. When biological family fails to do that, your family becomes anyone who does not fail you.

Jesus knew, at least to some extent, some of the pain you are going through in being misunderstood by your own kin. I pray that one day you will be surrounded with an outpouring of love, with people who celebrate all that you are. For now, know that God is that supportive presence holding you close, even when you can't feel Them.

As the psalmist in Psalm 27:10 says, "Even if my father and mother left me all alone, Holy God would take me in." To me, that whole Psalm can be read as a message of encouragement to those currently in the closet — the psalmist experiences God giving them shelter in God's own dwelling place, tucking them away "in a secret place in God's own tent."

One day, you'll be free; for now, I hope you take comfort in knowing God is with you in the closet.

Sending you love and solidarity, anon. May you find moments of joy in the midst of this pain; may God lavish you in love and courage until you're able to leave. <3

[misslydian]

My sister (after we watched a fan video of Loid and Yor fighting together): Man, they could be so powerful together.

My dad: IF THEY WERE ONLY HONEST WITH EACH OTHER

[major-knighton]

Tonight, I was browsing through @gallusrostromegalus' Family Lore tag having a great time, when I got a phone call to announce the birth of my baby cousin, my first ever female cousin (I have six of those), and it reminded me that I, too, have a Weird Family Story that some people might be entertained by. So, this is the story of

How my birth solved a 7 decades old mystery

First, the setting of our story's first part. Rural Picardy, France, 1940s. War has just stopped, the Germans and Americans alike have left, but things are still A Mess. Lots of buildings and crops destroyed by bombings, everyone is poor and traumatized and lots of people have just disappeared. Still, life goes on.

My great grandmother, who in my mind will always be my beloved Mémé, is a young woman of 18 or so, works in a broom-making factory and lives in a tiny village at the foot of an old castle. She is also pregnant.

But wait, that's not a problem, a strapping young man of 20 wants to marry her, he's also a factory worker, and more importantly he's a delightful man and wonderful cook. Mémé is a sensible girl, she's very charmed and soon wedding bells are a-clanging.

Here's the catch : the baby she's pregnant with is not her husband's. This is not public information in the slightest, so the couple can live their life without scandal, but it's a sort of hushed up semi-secret within the family. Who is the actual father of the baby? Nobody knows. Maybe Mémé does, it's even likely because everyone in the village knows each other, but if she does, she doesn't tell. Doesn't talk about it, and those in the know know better than to ask.

I sincerely hope it was a sort of one-night-stand and not something more sordid, but that's something we'll never know.

Anywho. Mémé and Pépé have a very happy marriage, and go on to have another child, and they raise the half-siblings as full siblings, never treating the eldest any different. Pépé loves his daughter even if she's not his blood, and she returns it fiercely. As far as my Grandma is concerned, Pépé was her true father, the one who mattered.

Skip forward in time. My Grandma has four daughters, who of course know Pépé as their grandfather without question even after learning The Secret after adulthood. Blood is thicker than water but not as thick as the blackberry jam that Pépé made while you played in the pond during the summer holidays. The youngest of Grandma's four daughters is about to give birth to her first child, and Mémé and Pépé are delighted to welcome a fifth great-grandchild.

Traditionally, a birth is a moment of joy and happiness. I'm sure mine was too, but it was also rather chaotic, as my first action was to karate-kick my mother in the stomach to herald my imminent arrival, therefore making her spill her recently eaten pasta on my dad's shoes. My triumphant entry into this world did not stop there, as my poor beleaguered mother was told, right after delivering a baby of nearly 4kg, that this massive chunk of flesh and screams had Something Wrong With It. Not the best thing to hear after giving birth.

The Something Wrong, as it turned out, was a specific type of hip dysplasia. That means that my hips were not properly finished forming around my femurs to lock my legs to the rest of my body. A slightly too enthusiastic pediatrician demonstrated this by pulling on one of my pudgy little baby legs to show that it would go as far as the stretching of my muscles and skin would allow. My mom, lifelong rugby player nicknamed McGuyver by her friends and toughest person I know, proceeded to burst into tears.

Other than being a sure way to traumatize young mothers, hip dysplasia is not an irreversible problem. Several weeks of wearing solid diapers that were a bit more like a plaster cast than an article of clothing, my bones were set with nothing more than a slight crookedness that would result in mild scoliosis. I learned to walk and sit straight perfectly well, and all was well.

Except.

The pediatrician with very little tact remarked, in passing, how this specific variation of hip dysplasia is particularly common in Brittany, but not so much in our region. Bizarre, thought my mother, we have no Breton relatives or ancestry. But some weeks later, while she was watching baby me wiggle around making a lot of noise, she remembered that in the family village, there had been a family of Bretons.

To be fair, seeing as we had no contact with that family, and I was only told about all this after Pépé and Mémé's passing, we'll never have absolute utter certainty that Unkown Breton Man is the biological source of our very extensive family. But it seems hella likely.

I don't mind the uncertainty very much. I know who my great grandfather was : a very funny old man who kept pigeons, cooked like magic and flipped the table after losing at Scrabble to amuse his many grandchildren and great grandchildren, DNA or no DNA. I keep a picture of him, black and white, marching on strike with a cigarette in his mouth and a béret on his head. My eldest cousin is named after Pépé's father. He's the real family.

But knowing the history of dysplasia in the family is useful. Tonight, Pépé's first great great grandchild is born. Without dysplasia, but the doctors knew to look for signs of it in advance. So, I'm glad to welcome this little one. I'll sit her in my lap in a few years, and tell her how her great great grandparents loved each other deeply from 20 to 90.

[iammyownsaviour]

What I like about Gen V, especially about the main team, is that yes they're all fucked up in some sort of way and they've done wrong so many times before and they still do it from time to time even now. But Andre, Marie, Cate and Jordan are all trying to get better because they love each other and they want to protect not hurt each other. They genuinely want to be good people not only for themselves but for their friends, for the family they chose, for the only people in the world who understand them and still love them.

[andhumanslovedstories]

I just think me and my brother have never taken a better pic

[angelsdean]

final entry--written by DEAN--in Supernatural: Bobby Singer's Guide to Hunting 😭😭😭

[goddamnshinyrock]

my father has discovered unauthorized tenants

[keepingupwithzaynmalik]

Zayn installation at Bradford’s City Hall (via Safaa Malik’s instagram stories)

[nonbinarycharmybee]

team chaotix is so funny vector's really like "yeah i make sure this kid brushes his teeth and doesn't hurt himself playing with scissors and held his hand as he took his first steps and was there when he said his first word and tuck him in at eight pm almost every night. we're coworkers <3"

[ashleyjohnsonoftheday]

Day 608