Case Study on Sharing Responsibilities in the Blended Family

Brenda couldn’t remember a more horrible day in her entire life. She got the call at work just after lunch from Tom Bradley a friend of Rogers who works at his office. “Brenda, you need to come to the hospital right away, it looks like Roger has had a massive heart attack and things don’t look good. He just left in an ambulance for the emergency room a few minutes ago.” Brenda immediately dropped everything she was doing and franticly drove herself to the hospital. When she arrived she found out Roger was in serious condition and he nearly died twice already. “No, no,” she kept saying to herself, “God, I don’t think I could bare it if you took him away from me.”

Within a few hours James and Keisha were at her side in the waiting room. Brenda was crying a flood of tears and both the kids held their arms around her encouraging her that everything was going to be okay. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, a doctor in pale blue scrubs came out from the intensive care unit. He sat down next to Brenda and told her that “Roger under went an emergency bypass surgery. Three of his arteries going to his heart were blocked greater than 90%. It’s a miracle that he’s actually alive.” He told them that, “Roger was still in very serious condition and he did not yet know what secondary conditions may have resulted from this attack.” Brenda just shook her head, “This is a nightmare, this can’t be happening to me, it just can’t.”

The next few days James and Keisha took turns staying at the hospital with Brenda. During this time Roger lapsed into a coma. But James and Keisha stood by Brenda’s side the entire time they would stop by the house gather the mail, check the messages on the answering machine even water Brenda’s plants and feed her cat. The competition and rivalry between James and Keisha disappeared in the midst of this adversity and even though they had fought with one another not that long before, it all seemed so silly and meaningless now looking back from their current perspective.

Brenda was a basket case over the next few weeks but she watched the kids do more and more things together witch touched her heart. James and Keisha would take turns shopping for her and preparing meals for her. They helped her with housework and screened her calls. Brenda was so proud of the way her family was working together and how much love they were expressing to one another as well as to her. With each new day James and Keisha took their responsibilities in stride and tried to help Brenda overlook her day to day struggles. If something broke James would be right over to fix it. If Brenda was especially down and out, Keisha would be there to lighten the mood. Because of James and Keisha’s constant support and attention Brenda began to find strength in the midst of her pain. She felt like she was starting to be able to let life’s frustrations slip past her. She stopped feeling so serious and urgent all the time and she started to show tolerance or patience for other people’s imperfections. She found herself at peace with both James and Keisha around and they kept her from becoming so easily agitated and annoyed.

Sometimes sharing responsibilities is about putting aside the years of personal pain and hurt in order to benefit the greater good.

Discussion Questions:

1. Are there people in your family that you have difficulty working with? What situation could you imagine might give you a broader perspective of what is really important?

2. What steps could you make to work better with people that are hard to work with?

3. What is Christ’s ministry of reconciliation? And what should Christ’s example teach us?