What to Do When Family Gatherings Are Stressful

A 2024 survey found that 40% of American families

report disagreements at holiday gatherings, and a third of those

conflicts produce lasting rifts that outlast the holiday by or

years. The number one trigger was politics. The number two was

old family wounds. Julie Plagins knows both of those from the

inside. She grew up in Dallas in a home that looked like it had

everything figured out spiritually. Her father was a

well-known Texas restaurateur who had a dramatic conversion to

Christianity in the 1970s and spent the next 30 years as

associate pastor of two Dallas Her mother served alongside him

for many of those years. They were, by all appearances, the

poster family for Christian households. And then Julie and

her husband walked away from all of it. Every professing

Christian, every burned bridge, she said she thought it was the

right thing to do at the time, but it was heartbreaking. She

harbored bitterness toward her parents and toward God. She was

so knotted up on the inside that the stress showed up in her body

and she was diagnosed with Crohn's disease and came close

to losing part of her colon. She spent seven years away. Then,

after all that time, she felt called back. But by then, the

bridges were already burned. Too much had been said. Nobody was

willing to budge and she couldn't see any way in. We'll

come back to what she did next. But first,

welcome to Daily Devotions for Busy Lives. I'm Bart Leger. And

if there's a family gathering coming up that you're already

dreading, I want to give you something better to do with that

dread. I'll be straight with you about where I'm coming from. My

own family gatherings have mostly been calm and good. And I

count that as a gift that I don't take for granted because I

know it isn't everyone's experience. What I do know is

the other side of the counseling chair. I've talked with a lot of

people who love their families and still walk into the holidays

with their stomach in a They're bracing for one or the one topic

that turns dinner into a minefield. I haven't lived your

version. But I've counseled plenty who have. And I've

watched what changes things. Here's the truth greeting cards

leave out. Almost every family has at least one person or one

dynamic that makes getting together more stressful than the

photos suggest. The brother-in-law who needles you

about politics until you say something you regret. The

sibling you haven't spoken to in years now sharing a kitchen with

you and pretending that it's normal. By the time you sit down,

you've already braced. You've run the scenarios and decided

which comments you'll let slide. That's an exhausting way to love

your own Jesus spoke a blessing over people who step into

exactly that kind of Next question. Listen to Matthew 5: 9.

"God blesses those who work for peace, for they will be called

the children of God." Notice the word that he used. He blessed

the peacemakers, which is a stronger word than peacekeepers.

Peacekeeping is what you've already been doing, biting your

tongue and managing the room so nothing blows up. It might maybe

keep things calm, but it's pretty fragile and it costs you

something just about every time. Peacemaking though is active. It

means moving toward what's broken to put it back together,

which is slower work and far more like what God does. Here's

what you need to understand: your brother-in-law probably

won't change because you hold your peace one more year, But

the dynamic between you might start to shift if you did

something different on your end. If you started praying for him

instead of dreading him. Something happens in you when

you pray for a person by name. "It's difficult to keep seeing

someone as the enemy. When you're asking God to bless

them." "The dread loosens and your guard comes down."

Sometimes the other person feels the change before they

understand it. And that's the work that Jesus blessed and it

usually starts on your knees before it ever reaches the

dinner table. Julie Plagins decided to fast and pray for two

days. She didn't know what God would say. She later wrote that

she trusted a God who could raise the dead to breathe new

life into a relationship that seemed finished. But she also

said she didn't know whether that healing would come on this

side of heaven or the other. Two days after she started fasting,

her father and extended an olive branch. "She and her husband

moved slowly toward reconciliation, extending grace

one conversation at a time." Two and a half years in, she

described the relationship as significantly restored. And she

even wrote a book about it. And her mother wrote the afterward.

"Here's the thing about that survey: 40% of families argue at

holiday gatherings. A third of those arguments produced lasting

rifts. family was in both categories and the door back in

came through two days of fasting and a phone call she didn't even

make." Matthew 5: 9 says God blesses those who work for peace.

The "working" is the thing. Julie worked and God made the

call. Here's today's challenge. Think of one family you're most

tempted to dread. Before the next time you'll see them, start

praying for them by name every day until you do. Pray for God

to bless them and make you a peacemaker in that relationship.

And if the rift runs deep, like Julie's did, consider doing what

she did. Set aside a day to fast and pray over it. And then watch

for the door God opens. You do the work of peacemaking and let

God do the rest. Father, you know the family gatherings to

people listening or dreading right now. And you know the

names and the wounds behind that dread. Thank you that you bless

the ones who work for peace and that you call them your children.

For the person braced for a tense table this year, do

something in them first. Take the dread and turn it into

prayer. Make them a true peacemaker, the kind you bless,

and go ahead of them into the rooms they can't fix on their

own. Where there are rifts that look finished, breathe new life

the only way you can. In Jesus' name, amen. This podcast runs on

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Every contribution helps keep these devotions coming every

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dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/support . Thank you so much. And thanks

for joining me on Daily Devotions for Busy Lives.

Remember, you can't control how everyone behaves around the

table, but you can be the one who works for peace. And that

work usually starts in prayer long before the gathering does.

Come back next time for more encouragement to help you live

grounded in God's truth. Until then, God bless and have a great

day.