Mar 24, 2014

Honor Your Father & Mother

If you're familiar with the Bible, you know that Ephesians Chapter 6 tells children to honor their parents so they will live long and well. How does an adult child honor a father who allowed them to get sexually violated by a relative when she was young? Fathers are admonished to be providers & protectors of their families. Being a protector means shielding your child(ren) from all (un)seen dangers. I was watching Iyanla Fix My Life when the Pace sisters were featured. One of the sisters revealed she was violated at a young age, and she held onto that secret well into her adulthood. As I got into the show, she mentioned that although her father was flawed (as all people are), she still respected him because that's what she was taught by the Bible.
That was big of her to continue respecting her father even though he knew who violated her daughter and did nothing. Maybe she didn't tell because he wouldn't believe her, maybe she didn't want to cause a family split, who knows? Not too many adult children would have respect for their parents if they failed to protect them while they were little. Whether that's right or wrong is left to interpretation. Because of a fallen world, this monstrosity happens. It's not right, but it's the truth. I will never understand how parents can fail to protect their children from the predators of society. Once the child gets grown and able, (s)he can protect themselves.
The toughest thing to do is to find it in your heart to respect your parents, even if they allowed unfair things to happen to you on their watch. If you're a Christian, you're supposed to do this even if it it hurts: Do I honor my parents? Of course I do. If I was violated as a child, and my parents knew who did it, but did nothing..I couldn't look at them in the same way. I'd respect them, but it would be tough to be close to people that were entrusted to protect me and they let me down.

Fix Yourself Before Fixing Others

  I’m a proud American, but our country has too many issues to police another country. We have no business telling another country how to li...