By Jamie Ivey
Someone once told me that your longest relationship on earth is with your sibling. This might not be true for every situation, but for the most part, the person who will be in your life the longest is your sibling. Think about it: You’ve known your sibling longer than your spouse. You’ve known your sibling longer than your children, and your sibling will also likely be around longer than your parents.
My brother and I weren’t friends until I moved back home after two years of college. It was then that I began to see him as a real person and enjoy his company. Before that he was always that pesky brother that I didn’t want in my room, much less to even look at me. I was so mean to him, and I never saw any value in our relationship.
After I moved home, something changed and we began to be friends. It was a beautiful thing and looking back now, I wish that we had been friends forever and not just after I grew up and got over myself. He had so much to offer me and I never gave him a chance to shine as a brother.
There are so many things that I want for my kids and their lives in this world, but one of the main things that I want is for them to be friends with each other. To truly like each other, and not just love each other. That they would hold close the ones that God has given them to have for the longest. I hope that they would lean on each other now and in the future. That they would see the treasures that they have in each other.
I believe that having a larger family helps instill this in my children because they truly are each others’ playmates. They are together a lot, and that forces them to figure this friendship thing out as they go along. Some days I feel as though this will never be accomplished because everyone is fighting and bickering and seeing how they can manipulate each other for their own good. My heart sighs and I wonder if this dream of mine will ever come through.
Then there are those moments when they love each other so well that I think my heart might burst from pride over them and the way they are loving each other. When one of them is gone the others miss him. Recently, Story was gone overnight and Cayden informed me that even though she drives him crazy that he really missed her being around.
I pray for my kids to love Jesus with all their heart, and to love others with all they have as well. This includes their siblings. One of our family mottos is that we are a team and that the Iveys stick together. So among the hundreds of other things I want for my kids, I’m passionate about them loving each other well today and for a lifetime.
Jamie Ivey lives in Austin, Texas with her husband, Aaron, who is the worship pastor at The Austin Stone Community Church. They have four children with three of them joining their family via domestic and international adoption. Jamie blogs at DreamingBigDreams.net and talks a lot about parenting, marriage, adoption and loving Jesus more each day. Jamie loves reading good books, vacationing at the beach, being alone anywhere with Aaron, and eating chips and salsa every day.
