Possibilities for a Dysfunctional Family – A Word Study

• Dysfunction – impaired or abnormal functioning
• Functioning - serving
• Dysfunction – impaired service
• Dysfunction – abnormal service
• Dysfunction - serving in a broken state
• Dysfunction – inability to contribute to the development and maintenance of a larger whole
• Dysfunction – a breakdown in unity due to a failure of relationships
• Dysfunction – a weakening or failure in culturally and socially interdependent relationships
• Dysfunction - connected with, but not fulfilling the expected service of a person associated with their special relationship to others
• Dysfunction – impairment in fulfilling the acts or service expected of a person
• Dysfunction – a breakdown in fulfilling ones duty
• Dysfunction – impairment in usefulness
• Dys – bad, impaired, difficult, abnormal
• Dysfunctional – bad service; impaired service; difficult service; abnormal service
  

Those aspects of our lives that cause us to be dysfunctional should remind us daily of our need of grace, forgiveness, and God’s mercy. It should also remind us of our need to forgive others, to offer mercy and grace and to bear witness to the never failing, never dysfunctional love of God who calls us to move past the dysfunctions of our lives toward His divine purpose. When we discover in Christ the power from above -- and in turn begin to move and to act and to live in His strength, there are no dysfunctions that can prevent us from serving and honoring Him. To bring that relationship with Christ into the center of our families – at home, at church, and in community, is to discover the enabling power of God to transform circumstances broken by sin into places of forgiveness, places of love, places of upbuilding, places of positive influence, places of relationship that bear witness to the power of God at work in us.