None of us gets to choose what we inherit from our families - the wounds, patterns, attitudes and ways of relating to one another. But we do have a choice about what we pass on. Reuben shows us that sometimes doing the right thing is the hard thing. It means refusing to simply go along, speaking up when something is wrong, and choosing love even when it costs us something. Even when it comes to the cycles we adopt, Reuben teaches us to stand against them. Brokenness has a way of reproducing itself - but by the grace of God, it doesn't have to continue through us. We don't have to simply repeat the patterns we've inherited. In Jesus, we are invited into a different way of being human: humility instead of pride, forgiveness and reconciliation instead of resentment, peace instead of violence, and love instead of self-interest.

If I try to love people out of my own capacity, eventually I will run out. Because I am finite. But God is not. His love is wider than my capacity to understand it. It is longer than my patience. It is higher than my expectations. It is deeper than my failures. God doesn't ask us to manufacture that kind of love on our own. He invites us to receive it. And when we begin to experience the infinite love of Christ—it starts to change the way we see others… We see them as someone who bears the image of God. Someone whom God loves. Someone whom Jesus died for.