What's Under My Roof?

September 28, 2021

Do you ever watch any of the renovation shows? I think it’s kind of fun to watch Chip and Joanna on Fixer Upper or Ben and Erin from Home Town take prospective homeowners around to potential houses. Sometimes they like the look of a house from the outside, but when they get inside and see what’s under the roof, they say it’s just too much, too far gone. Or the opposite may be true. Sometimes when they see the potential under the roof, a house they thought was a complete no-go becomes very attractive. What’s going on under the roof is very important!

What’s going on under the roof at your house is more significant than you can begin to imagine. At NewPointe, we know that nothing will ever be better than the state of your relationships, beginning at home, so we want to help you see what’s there, what needs to be, and help you with any renovation needed.

Families have always been a mixture of the most spectacular opportunities for fulfillment and joy and also the most frighteningly available opportunities for conflict and struggle. The stress and challenges that have been part of every single family for the last 18-24 months are staggering.

In 1967, psychiatrists Thomas Holmes and Richard Rahe decided to study whether or not stress contributes to illness. They surveyed more than 5,000 medical patients and asked them to say whether they had experienced any of a series of 43 life events in the previous two years. Each event, called a Life Change Unit (LCU), had a different "weight" for stress. The more events the patient added up, the higher the score. The higher the score, and the larger the weight of each event, the more likely the patient was to become ill. These are the events listed and points given to each. A person with 300 points or more has a much higher chance of getting seriously ill in the next year. These things add tremendous stress to families and make the household liable to sickness as well.

1 Death of spouse (100)

2 Divorce (73)

3 Marital separation (65)

4 Jail term (63)

5 Death of close family member (63)

6 Personal injury or illness (53)

7 Marriage (50)

8 Fired at work (47)

9 Marital reconciliation (45)

10 Retirement (45)

11 Change in health of family member (44)

12 Pregnancy (40)

13 Sex difficulties (39)

14 Gain of new family member (39)

15 Business readjustment (39)

16 Change in financial state (38)

17 Death of close friend (37)

18 Change to a different line of work (36)

19 Change in number of arguments with spouse (35)

20 A large mortgage or loan (31)

21 Foreclosure of mortgage or loan (30)

22 Change in responsibilities at work (29)

23 Son or daughter leaving home (29)

24 Trouble with in-laws (29)

25 Outstanding personal achievement (28)

26 Spouse begins or stops work (26)

27 Begin or end school/college (26)

28 Change in living conditions (25)

29 Revision of personal habits (24)

30 Trouble with boss (23)

31 Change in work hours or conditions (20)

32 Change in residence (20)

33 Change in school/college (20)

34 Change in recreation (19)

35 Change in church activities (19)

36 Change in social activities (18)

37 A moderate loan or mortgage (17)

38 Change in sleeping habits (16)

39 Change in number of family get-togethers (15)

40 Change in eating habits (15)

41 Vacation (13)

42 Christmas (12)

43 Minor violations of the law (11)

I wonder what a pandemic and all the deaths associated with it would add. How about homeschooling your kids while you work, trying to figure out childcare and all the other ripples? How about the mask and vaccine debates and all the political conflict surrounding them? How about the racial issues and everything that has been stirred up to explosive proportions in this time? Our families are in danger of illness without recovery.

We all know the holidays are wonderful, but they add stress as well. We know that the family is God’s idea, and no one wants what is better and healing for the family than He does. We are with Him on that. At NewPointe, this week we kicked off a new series called Under My Roof to help us all grow toward the significant, secure, and satisfying families God has in mind. I hope you will make every effort to be there each Sunday. I know God wants the end of 2021 to be the start of better days under your roof.

Here is a link you can use to invite family and friends. This promises to speak to the needs that people are dealing with.