The Purpose

The title of this blog, which I think is quite clever if I do say so myself, is “Family Facets”. I will be using this blog to explore the many diverse facets of FAMILY through exploring my thoughts, opinions and experiences along with those of others.

To get this thing started, let’s begin by looking at and exploring the words “FAMILY” and “FACET”.

Above is the dictionary definition for the word family. At it's most basic level a family is a group of parents and children living together in one household or the descendants of a common ancestor. But for most, that is not what we think of when we think family. When I think of family I think of my mom and dad, my seven younger siblings, my grandparents, and my aunts, uncles and cousins. When I think of my family, I think of joy - good times and bad times - but an overarching senses of joy. However, when you think of family, you might think "oh, those are the people who betrayed/hurt me", or "my friends are more family then my so called real family will ever be" or "family can be whatever you want it to mean, the traditional concept of family is outdated and irrelevant".  To say the least, the word and concept of FAMILY is one that is highly charged and many sided. 

That leads us to the next word: FACET. As we can see above, the dictionary definition is: "one side of a many-sided thing, or a particular aspect or feature of something". "Facets" is just the plural of "facet", and as we have already established, there are many, many FACETS to FAMILY. 

If you have been following the news, or if you just walk down the street, it is plain to see that the traditional view of family, and what it means to be a family is being stretched and challenged in today's society. The family, being the very unit or molecule of society (we all come from a family whether we like it or not), must be examined because it is critical for our society to survive and thrive. 

I know that I am not alone in this opinion: 

In our world today, there is a war on the basic unit of society - the FAMILY. There are attacks coming from every side: drugs, violence, alcohol, divorce, technology, money, abortion, same sex "marriage"... just to name a few. 

With this war on family going on all around us and effecting everyone of us, I think that it is important that we look at our own families, our experiences of family, and what we know to be true about family so that we can learn from our experiences and those of others and put an end to this war. 

So that is the very thing that this blog is going to do: talk about the many FACETS of FAMILY, so that we all may grow and better understand what God intended family to be and work towards protecting and preserving the FAMILY.