Today, I want to speak about the gift of family (familia in Spanish). I am not speaking only to husbands or wives or children or what some of us may consider the traditional family. You may be a single parent, have children, siblings or not. So, when I say family, it should apply to you, whatever your current reality may be.

Have you thought about your family as a gift? “Depending on the time of the day or what they are doing or not doing,” you may be thinking. I won’t argue with that, fair thought.

I know family can sometimes be aggravating and feel more like a curse than a gift. In the family, we can feel all the love and support or a great deal of frustration and disappointment. But none of this happens without our input and participation. After all, family is us together, and what we bring to one another is what ultimately defines it as a gift or not.

I believe God designed the family to be a blessing, a gift, but we must be intentional about doing our part because if we neglect it, it will suffer. For example, if we focus more on the traumas and imperfections, if we fail to talk and listen to each other, if we don’t show affection (hugging, kissing, and laughing together), and we relinquish being happy together doing fun stuff, then what is left? A crumbling home (familia).

I am confident that none of us want a crumbling familia. Instead, we want and pray for a happy and fulfilling one despite the challenges and chaos we may experience.

So, how do we get it and keep it?

There is a movie that portrays this very powerfully (and entertaining!) and offers us very good insights into the subject. This is the Encanto movie, a Disney movie released on November 24, 2021. (WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD!)

Encanto, whose Spanish title translates as “charm” or “spell,” is already one of the greatest and most watched Disney family movies in recent years.

The film begins with the Madrigal family, Pedro and Alma, and their three babies, Julieta, Pepa, and Bruno, fleeing their home alongside other families to escape danger. Pedro ultimately sacrifices his life to save his family as they run, leaving Alma a widow and single mother of the three.

However, immediately after Pedro’s death, Alma discovers that the candle she carries miraculously becomes a source of magic. Before her eyes, the candle casts a powerful spell, making the mountains rise around them to protect them and provide a safe place to start again, their casita (little home in English)

But the magic did not stop there. When Alma’s three children turned five, each received a gift to help their family and community: the power to heal, control over the weather, and foresight.

As the family expanded, the grandchildren received their own gifts, including superhuman strength, the ability to communicate with animals, and shapeshifting. All of them received a gift, except for Mirabel—Alma’s granddaughter.

This leads Mirabel to feel constantly neglected and even rejected by her family, especially by her Abuela Alma (grandmother in English). As Mirabel grew older, the struggle to belong only worsened as she tried to prove herself as a worthy Madrigal family member.

Mirabel’s experience is captured in the song “Waiting on a Miracle,” in which she describes her yearning to belong. Here, she pleads for a miracle that would make her like the rest of her family—having a gift of her own. In essence, she is asking to belong in her family as much as the others. (Watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKKrfr4To14)

Did you notice in the video when Mirabel said, “All I need is a chance… Open your eyes (telling Abuela).” Mirabel is struggling with her purpose and place in her family because she is not being seen, heard, or understood. As she desperately wants to help her family, Abuela dismisses her. That was painful heartbreak, ultimately happening to both Mirabel and Abuela, leading to the crumbling down of their familia and precious casita. They lost everything because they forgot how much they loved each other.

How can something like that happen? I mean, forgetting they loved each other? Can it happen to us? Let’s answer this by examining what the Bible teaches about family.

The concept of the family goes back to the origins of creation. When God created Adam and Eve, God told them, “Be fruitful and multiply.” (Genesis 1:28) As a result, the first family came into being, and even though it got off to a rough start, families have been the basic building block of humankind ever since. In other words, God wants us to be a part of a family.

Families are a gift from God and are important in our lives for they help us understand who God is and what God values (people and community—think of the theological understanding of God as triune, for example). Without a family, we wouldn’t be able to understand love and companionship or even have an identity as people. (Ask the audience about their “last name,” why/where/whom they got it from, and who else shares it.) All of us came from someone and belong to “someones”—a family. 

Ideally, our family is a blessing to us by loving and caring for us and giving us self-confidence and self-esteem. But we know, like with Mirabel, that that is not always the case. Families can be mean and cause traumas. Like Abuela, she was channeling her grief and fears of losing everything through her disregard of Mirabel.

I know this happens in our families too. Even though we love each other, sometimes we get so overwhelmed with what’s going on in our lives that we take it on the people we love most. And it is not because we don’t care about them; we simply get so overwhelmed by challenges and duties that we forget how much we love each other. That is one of the main reasons why marriages grow apart and end up in divorce; why children stop talking to their parents or why parents upset their children and distance themselves from each other. Families could be very strong or fragile; it all depends on the kind of nurturing they receive.

How are you treating your familia? How are you nurturing it? If there is one thing I want you to remember today, is that your family is the most precious gift you will ever have. Don’t lose it.

So, here is what we can do to keep our family healthy and strong. (I will keep it simple, there will be two more messages where we will expand on this.) Proverbs 24: 3-4 offers us a concise advice, “By wisdom a house [family] is built, and by understanding it is established; by knowledge the rooms are filled with all precious and pleasant riches.”

The writer is talking about the building, establishing, and fulfilling of a household, and he explains that for that to happen, wisdom, understanding, and knowledge are needed.

What does this mean? When it comes to wisdom, do you remember when Jesus said that when we listen to his teachings and do what he says, we are like a wise person that builds his or her house on the rock, and because of that, it overcomes the storms and remains safe and strong?

So, if Jesus is the source of wisdom, then families committed to God are more likely to be healthy and strong and stay together. This is true because the wisdom of God teaches us to love and respect each other, giving us a Christ-like character, which is critical in our dealings in every relationship we have. This is what Abuela Alma forgot and what led her and Mirabel to heartbreak. Abuela Alma was not wise for a long time.

In addition to wisdom, Proverbs mentions understanding. Understanding means comprehension by observing, paying attention, and relating. This makes me think strongly about communication.

Has it ever happened to you that someone is explaining something to you and at the end asks you if you understood, only for you to have a confused face because… (uh?) because you were not paying attention. Would that be frustrating if someone else did it to you? How can we talk about understanding each other if we are incapable of communicating and listening first?

Without good communication, it is practically impossible to nurture healthy, strong, and loving families. It is almost as if when the communication stops, love begins to fade, and relationships wither away. I have seen it happen.

In order to have a good understanding, we need to communicate often, honestly, and clearly. A family that talks to each other and sees each other (even though not perfect) will overcome whatever comes at them.

The last part of our Scripture says, “by knowledge the rooms are filled with all precious and pleasant riches.” While wisdom is acquired through insight and reflection, knowledge is gained through studying and experience. In other words, knowledge is intelligence learned by paying attention, listening, and observing.

Why was Abuela Alma not aware of Mirabel’s struggles to find fulfillment? Because she did not know what was happening to her, because she did not ask her, because she was not paying attention. That is why Mirabel begged her to notice her; all she wanted was to belong. Belonging was her fulfillment, what she considered her “precious and pleasant riches.”

Who is the Mirabel right now in your life? Who is the Abuela? Who is begging to be seen and understood, and who is the one blind and deaf to see and appreciate the true gift of a family?

My friends, wisdom, understanding, and knowledge are what build, establish, and fulfill a family. Like in the Encanto movie, the real miracle of a family blessing is not superhuman strength, the ability to communicate with animals or shapeshifting, but the coming together, talking and listening to each other, and not forgetting how much we love each other. This was the greatest miracle at the end of Encanto when Mirabel and Abuela Alma realized that the true miracle is not the supernatural gifts their family has but how they love, care for, and support one another.

Here is the good news and invitation for us today: God created the family, and family is a gift. So, talk, listen, and understand one another so you would know how to care for and express your love for each other. And build your home on God’s wisdom.

Try your best to be a gift and not a curse!