Journeys With Jani

Let’s Talk About It…

All families have stuff. The difference is back in the day, there was no social media. Unless you were famous, nobody knew your mess… except the local Baptist ladies who met up once a week to “pray.” And by “pray,” I mean they had a full report, names included.

We also didn’t have cell phones. Or caller ID. The phone rang, you answered, and if a relative made you mad… there was nothing more soul-satisfying than slamming that heavy receiver down on the base.

BAM.

“End call” doesn’t hit the same. It’s like trying to win a fight with a sticky note. You can throw your $1500 iPhone into a brick wall but then the only person you punished is your own wallet. Apple is not moved by your emotions.

But here’s what I was thinking about today: people are different.

Even inside the same family, raised in the same house, by the same parents, kids can come out wildly different. Like straight from the womb. One is cautious. One is fearless. One is tender. One is a tiny CEO with opinions and a five-year plan.

And before anybody gets their feelings hurt… none of those personalities are wrong. None of them are right. They’re just different. Different wiring, different strengths, different ways of moving through the world.

Some people are regimented. They stick to the plan. They don’t veer. Those are the steady ones. The dependable ones. The ones you can count on to show up, handle it, keep the wheels on the bus.

And then you’ve got the “fly by the seat of your pants” folks. They go with the flow. They hate boxes. They roll with change like it’s their natural habitat. That can look like chaos to the structured people, but it isn’t always. Sometimes it’s creativity. Sometimes it’s adaptability. Sometimes it’s survival. Sometimes it’s just how they’re built.

Neither one is better.

The steady ones give the world stability. The flexible ones keep the world from breaking when the plan goes sideways. We actually need both. Families need both.

And it’s not just work and church and social circles where we run into people who are different than us. It’s in our own living rooms. At our own tables. In our own bloodlines. The people we’re tied to whether we like it or not.

Me? I’m somewhere in the middle as an adult.

What I know is the people who truly loved me made room for me to be me. And I’ve always tried to make room for people who aren’t like me.

Because we have got to learn to be gentle with each other.

Not fake gentle. Not “bless your heart” gentle while you silently judge somebody into the ground. Real gentle.

We’ve got to stop labeling people like they’re either “the good kind” or “the bad kind.” We’ve got to stop acting like different automatically means difficult… or wrong… or less-than. It doesn’t.

It just means different.

And yes, sometimes the differences are annoying. Sometimes they clash. Sometimes you want to go outside and scream into the wind like an 80s music video. But if we can learn to pull the positive instead of hunting the negative, we’ll see something else: most people are just doing the best they can with the tools they’ve got.

And sometimes… family isn’t just different. Sometimes it’s painful. Sometimes it’s wounds

Not just Sunday God.

Everyday God.

The God who shakes His head when I’m driving down the road and somebody is going slow and I say all the bad words. Yep. Same God.

And let me tell you something else I know for sure… I’m real glad He doesn’t treat me the way I’ve deserved over the years. Whew. If God loved me only when I earned it, and handled me based on what I “deserve,” I’m pretty sure I’d already be sitting in the hot place with no sweet tea.

But He doesn’t.

He keeps loving me anyway.

Can I get a HALLELUJER!

I 100% know me and God are different. And yet… there He is. Loving me anyway. Handling my craziness anyway. Laughing at my fourteen prayers in thirty-one seconds anyway.

So as we walk into 2026, can’t we just TRY to be better to each other?

In our families. In our friendships. In our churches. In our workplaces. In our daily interactions with strangers who might be carrying more than we’ll ever know.

Can we pause before we react? Can we assume there’s more to the story? Can we choose grace even when it’s not convenient?

As I sit here writing this, tears have started streaming down my face. I usually take hours and sometimes days to write a blog. Today was just a pouring out.

If someone out there needed this today, I’m glad it found you.

This is Journeys With Jani and I love you.

XOXO and Goodnight