Family Trees & Olive Branches

Book excerpt: Families are equal parts blood, duty, history, fights, and future. Families are beautiful, complicated, and infuriating. Pastors' doors revolve with families looking for healing from one another. Siblings hold grudges for years. Parents stop speaking to their kids. People want to escape their families and fix them, celebrate them, and never speak to them again. But what can break our generational curses? What can shine bright light into our dark hearts? What can change everything - even our ugliest family feuds? God's grace and His forgiveness. Family Trees and Olive Branches points readers to the authority and comfort of Scripture as they seek to repair and improve their family relationships. Inspired by Matthew 18:22, Family Trees and Olive Branches is a conversation about grace, the oil that unsticks fighting families. No matter how black the sheep of your family is, how hurtful your parents can be, or how long it has been since you've spoken to your brother, God's answer to family fallouts is always grace. In this book, readers will look at the different types of olive branches in the Bible with the purpose of opening their hearts and minds to spiritual transformation through the work of the Holy Spirit. Each chapter offers lessons of forgiveness, tips on reflecting God's grace in our toughest relationships, journal and prayer prompts, and discussion starters.