Generational Patterns

About 20 years ago my good friend and fellwo therapist Steve Griebling began to teach me about a different approach to counseling. He had been working with addicts and their families for about ten years when it occurred to him that he was seeing a lot of brothers, sisters, children and cousins.

This came to Steve one day while he was looking at his old file cabinet and happened to see several folders with the same last names. Gene Johnson, Joe Johnson, Jim Johnson, Mike Johnson and Jane Johnson were all clustered together. He wondered why similar problems as well as similar strengths seemed to flow from generation to generation.

Steve was a strong Christian so he knew about the biblical descriptions of "Blessings and curses from generation to generation" but he, like most of us, had no training to discern how such things actually went down the genetic line. Then he met a teacher who taught him about genograms and family maps as a way of looking at multi-generational transmission of family traits. Steve taught me about genograms and I jumped in and read everything I could on the topic.

Now it is my favorite course and my favorite way to help people look at themselves and their family issues. For example Hebrews 12 says:

Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. 13 “Make level paths for your feet, so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed.

14 Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. 15 See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.

I believe scripture and take its promises and warnings seriously. If there is a possibility of having bitter roots come upon me and my offspring I want to stop it. But how? Once I learned about multi-generational transmission of patterns and spiritual characteristics I discovered how it can happen.

1. Fail to obtain and rlease God's grace to myself and others.
2. Roots of bitterness develop from a lack of grace.
3. Many generations can inherit bitterness from my lack of grace.

This makes me want to give myself and others plenty of grace. What is grace? How to I release it? How do I grow in grace?