Has The Recession Ruined Your Relationships?

Since our country's economic tsunami began about 3 years ago, families from coast to coast have literally been ripped to shreds.  From the suffering of job loss to enduring virtual homelessness, relationships have been squeezed, stretched and twisted beyond recognition. The lack of additional resources, if any at all, have caused many to now publicly display their abundance of personal inadequacy. Without their bells and whistles attached, people have become unrecognizable to their family, friends and shockingly even themselves.
I have witnessed brothers and sisters turn on one another, children rebel against parents who are struggling and striving to just keep a roof over their head, much less a Gucci on their arm and husbands and wives ripped apart over financial failures.

These observations have caused me to wonder whether the recession is really the cause for ruining these relationships or are people just being who they always were?  Was their much substance to these bonds in the first place?

Foundations made of sand . . . the only explanation I have come up with thus far. People who allowed money to make them . . . instead of simply making money work for them. Marriages that are founded on selective amnesia which conveniently forget the vow "for richer or poorer." Parents who buy love instead of giving and receiving love freely. In my eyes, this is what our society has come to embrace in our chase for money and false assumption that both more and bigger are always better.  Could it be that the only part the recession has played in this entire ordeal is exposing us for what we have allowed ourselves to become?

With the holidays nearing, my true and sincere prayer is that people will recognize that these times have come not to tear us apart, but to bring us closer together and help strengthen us at our core. Its time that we value relational wealth over just material possessions, for how we treat our loved ones in times of crisis reveals the authenticity of the foundation of that relationship.

Life is cyclical. This is not the first recession and it certainly will not be the last. Take a moment and reflect on how you've allowed the recession to affect the real you and the relationships with the people in your life. Remember that who YOU are in times of economic crisis or any other state of personal emergency is truly who YOU are.

Until Next Week,

Seek Wisdom, Find Wealth & Be Blessed!