There's been so much written about new discoveries pertaining to DNA. They can now tell if you have a gene that will make you susceptible to cancer. They can determine whether you will struggle with obesity. What other things are found in our DNA?
I'm not a scientist but one of the things my sister-in-law, Jennifer, said while we were together at Thanksgiving sparked a thought. She described us as a "giving" family. I believe that is in our DNA. We see a need and seek to fill it. We give when the rewards are not always monetary. We give when some one needs to receive.
That, just like other traits of our families are passed down through generations. In my family we spent a lot of time outdoors doing yard work, gardening and just cleaning up. I thought I would die every summer when I had to spade up the garden by hand (no rototillers here!) I thought I was going to die of sweating when I had to mow the lawn. That's when starting a lawnmower was...pull, pull, pull...you get the picture.
But as I matured I began to love being outside. I still miss the mowing, weed-eating, cutting down trees and cleaning up brush that I did on my property in OH...and the properties of my neighbors if they didn't run me out of their yard.
The giving and the outdoor work is in the genes of my adult kids. They got a lot of it from their mom who has always traded, scratched together and bought flowers to plant. Both CA and Nissa like to plant flowers and work in their outdoor creations. We all like the smell of bark mulch as we spread it in the spring. CA has gone into her neighbor's lawns and cleaned up when they were unable to.
Ben's propensity for outdoors has come out in his gardening in the city of Chicago. He started out just cleaning up the vacant lots around his house. His passion evolved into first a 20 plot garden for the community at a vacant lot to a neighborhood garden project that now has 160 plots, has spawned more neighborhood gardens and won he and his colleagues a first place in the mayor's neighborhood garden category.
None of the giving my kids have done has brought them financial gain. In fact, if you garden you know what it costs to plant flowers. One of the times Ben was out cleaning up the alley behind his house his 15 yr old neighbor came out and asked if he could help...but he was expecting to get paid!
The genes I mentioned in the beginning that caused cancer, obesity and other problems for us lead us to know that there are other things that can be passed down to us that aren't good. In fact, again without being a scientist, I believe that the wounds of past generations can also genetically alter us and cause us to behave in ways that are "cancerous". We need to be aware of those genes and seek the Father's healing of them so they don't pass on to other generations.
Our family can attest to the surety of the Father's healing of old wounds and the Holy Spirit's help in changing behaviors that are "cancerous". We're not in our perfect bodies yet, nor do we act like it always, but the hope is there that He will continue to heal us of our broken genes and release us to function in our healthy, Godly genes.
May you experience that in your life today.
