One of my readers gave me several different topics so I picked one and a favorite one at that.  This reader asked me to share about how it has been for me to be the oldest in a large family.  What I have learned from that experience.  So here goes.  I am the oldest of 7 kids.  I have 4 sisters and two brothers.  I love being a big sister.  It is an undescribable experience to those who haven't had the privilege.  What 's a little different for me (and several of you) than some is that I am the oldest.  That is a big responsibility and sad to say I have failed in many ways.  When I was younger I never realized just how much my siblings imitated what I did and my attitudes.  When I had a bad attitude it reflected in their attitudes.  The bad thing was that I was getting to where I had bad attitudes more than I had good ones.  Of course when you are spending a large portion of your life in a bad attitude, when someone makes you mad you NEVER think that it could be your problem.  You wonder why everyone has so many problems and why they aren't getting them fixed.  You sit there taking specks out of their eyes when you have a giant tree in your own.  And that giant tree is well rooted in pride.  When I finally realized my own issues it took quite some time to break old habits.  Even now I see those habits trying to creep back up.  When they do I can usually trace it back to not spending enough time in God's word and in prayer.  Let me tell you an important pieceof advice that applies if you are a big brother, or sister, the oldest, the middle, the youngest, or an only child. Making the daily habit of grounding yourself in the Word and prayer will be most important habit you ever form.  You will have a harder time starting other bad habits if you are in daily fellowship with God and if you are confessing your sins daily.  Satan has a harder time getting a foothold for an attack.  You don't have to do 5 hours of study just be faithful in small amounts of time and it will be easier for you to make it longer as time goes on.  When I finally started doing that the arguments I had with some of my siblings didn't seem to be such important things to argue about anymore.  The sad thing is that I didn't realize a lot of these things until the last couple of years.  So that means around 18 years of my being a big sister were wasted years that I could have been being a good influence.  Now I wasn't sitting on top of my siblings beating them up or anything like that but the issues of the heart I was miserably failing in.  They didn't see me modeling an attitude of joy when I was working, they didn't see me working as to the Lord not as to men and they didn't see me using my tongue as a tool not a weapon.  So if you are a big brother or sister I pray that this will help you to learn some things while you still have time.  God Bless:)