starting with the married couple, man and wife... connected by unconditional love and respect, becoming one...
and then, the baby.. , making it a family...
the family, husband / father and wife / mother and the child or children...
by God's design intended to be a safe place to model God's love to the children and to bring them up in the knowledge of the Lord , guide them and nurture them so that they will be able to make an impact in this world for God.. and will know how a family is meant to function...
what a great plan... too bad that we humans just mess it up left, right and centre...
God has given us not only the design but also the guidelines of how to love well, nurture well, discipline well... He is our Father and He does not leave us out there without instruction, love and the strength to do it..
having spent some very taxing time over the last few years trying to prevent my birth family to go up in flames, having had to live through my own family breaking apart, I am even more convinced that it needs a strong foundation, strength and wisdom from God to have a family that will live up to what it is intended to be....
dealing with the clients at Hope for Life so far, they all are living the nightmare of families that are not intact... families where children have been abused and tossed out... women and girls that are so craving for the love of a man that they engage in dangerous activity and end up facing such life altering decisions as : will I keep the baby or have an abortion... without any support of the fathers...
children are a gift from the Lord, they have been given to us for safe keeping, they are not our possession... they belong to God... they are coming into the world not by their own choosing but by the choices the parents have made.. they deserve to be treated with respect and with love... they have a right to live... they have a right to know how much they are loved by their Father in Heaven and this love needs to be portrayed by the earthly parents..
if I could, I would want to make it mandatory to go through in depth counselling, dealing with your own baggage and intense training in parenting before you could have a licence to "Become a Parent"...
SERIOUSLY... in the meantime I am going to continue to try to be a good daughter, a good mother, a good counsellor, and I will try to educate those that are becoming mothers and fathers by leading them to the One who has all the answers and all the help we need...
