You don't choose your family. They are God's gift to you, as you are to them.
Interpretation
Family is a precious gift from God, and we are also a gift to them.
Desmond Tutu's quote highlights the idea that we do not have a say in who becomes our family, emphasizing that the family bonds we share are divinely ordained. It suggests that we should cherish these relationships as mutual gifts, where each member brings value to one another's lives.
In practice
In a discussion about the value of family during a community event.
The fossil reserves that have already been discovered exceed what can ever be safely used. Yet companies spend half a trillion dollars each year searching for more fuel. They should redirect this money toward developing clean energy solutions
As much as the world has an instinct for evil and is a breeding ground for genocide, holocaust, slavery, racism, war, oppression, and injustice, the world has an even greateer instinct for goodness, rebirth, mercy, beauty, truth, freedom and love.
When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said 'Let us pray.' We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land.
Children are a wonderful gift. They have an extraordinary capacity to see into the heart of things and to expose sham and humbug for what they are.
Religion is like a knife: you can either use it to cut bread, or stick in someone's back.
Gaza is going to test who believes in the worth of human beings.
You have to really respect what your kids are doing with their kids and how they're raising them. You can't push your way into areas where you shouldn't be saying anything. You have to always remember they're not your own kids. Play with them, love them, spoil them to death - then hand them back.
My mother taught me to always be strong and always work hard. She's been working hard her whole life for me and my brother. I'm a lot like her in that I work hard for what I want. She taught me that.
I know my father and my mother, but beyond that I cannot go. My ancestry is blurred.
I think our family is like a lot of families. We had no vocabulary for mental illness
I tell the kids that, even in a childhood marked by despair and deprivation, I knew that no matter what happened, I still had my family, or at least the remnants of a family ripped apart by divorce and then glued back together in various odd arrangements through a series of ill- advised remarriages. It was good to know I had a solid foundation.
You don't have to get rich to have [fewer] children. It has happened across the world.
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