A House Divided

The last couple of weeks have reaffirmed an important message from the Bible for me.  Mark 3:25 says "If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand." Now, the ways I have felt this perhaps aren't as it was biblically meant, but the basic principle is the same. Whether at home, in the church, or at work, if those within that environment can't work for a common good, it's divided. United we stand, divided we fall.

In our house we've been fighting four sick kiddos. Sick equals no sleep. Lack of sleep means score keeping. Keeping score leads to division. See resentment is easiest found when your exhausted. Faults are easily found and nitpicking becomes easy. It's easy to count how many times you've gotten out of bed in comparison to the other. It's easy to notice that extra twenty minutes the other was in bed while you were up. It's easy for the milk in the bottom of the glass, the hair in the sink, and the Cheerios on the floor to send you over the edge. These things, just trying to survive each day, and keep seven different meds in four different kids make division easy.

At work the atmosphere is changing. Hard decisions are going to have to be made. Over the last several years we as an entire unit have been working to prepare should tough times come. The time has come. We are all aware. Working together to achieve the goal of saving money and jobs is the ultimate goal. Words get said. Works go unnoticed. Division occurs.

We have to be a team. We have to remember that we're working toward the same goal. Whether that goal is surviving crushed Cheerios and coughing until there's puke or saving jobs. The "we" has to be there. If we aren't working together, what are we doing? We simply become a house divided against itself. We may reside under one roof, but if we aren't on the same page working with mutual respect and understanding, it's never going to work.

My hope is that the words said out of exhaustion are forgiven. That the stones cast don't have ripples that last forever. That amends are made and working together for a united house resumes. We can no longer be a house divided, we have to be a house united. So here's to wiping out the sink, dumping out the milk (which despite what my husband says, I do), Cheerios getting eaten by the dog (hey he's indoor for a reason), budgets being made, and division being a thing of the past. Because a house divided against itself cannot stand.