Relationships are a raincoat during the storms of life. When friends or family members are going through a storm, you help each other. People committed to one another protect each other in the storm.

Ecclesiastes 4:9 says, “Two are better off than one . . . If one of them falls down, the other can help him up. But if someone is alone and falls, it’s just too bad, because there is no one to help him” (GNT).

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Life brings all kinds of storms when you’ll need to protect your loved ones. Sometimes life brings storms of change; at other times it’s a storm of harmful ideas.

But the most painful storm of all is rejection. When your friend, your children, or your spouse feels rejected, you—and others close to them—need to rally around them and be there as a raincoat in the storm.

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Many years ago, my oldest child, Amy, was in high school. She tried out to be a cheerleader. She went to practice after practice for the tryouts. Eventually, her friends got accepted, but she was rejected—and it broke her heart. When she came home, she ran into her room, went into her closet, sat down on the floor, and burst into tears.

Everyone in our family could hear Amy crying. And one by one, all on our own, we ended up walking into her room, sitting down on the floor in her closet with her, and crying with her.

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We didn’t give her any advice; she didn’t need advice. We didn’t say, “Don’t worry. It’s not a big deal.” It was a big deal! We didn’t say, “Don’t cry!” That’s an insensitive thing to say to somebody who’s grieving. Instead, we all sat there for about 30 minutes and just cried with her.

Our family will never forget that incident. Why? Because, at that point, we were being a raincoat for her. We were being a storm catcher. We were being a protector. Somebody in our family had been hurt, and we weren’t demeaning it. We weren’t trying to talk her out of it. Neither were we trying to cheer her up. We just wept with her.

Awesome families—biological, adoptive, and spiritual—protect each other in the storm.