How many people in today’s world would you call ‘damaged?’ Or does life itself just pre-conclude that by the time you leave it you’ll have been damaged in some way?
Life is difficult. For many, it is sometimes dangerous. It doesn’t seem like a gift, but something to get through. Of course, that’s a depressing view–but many people, especially some children, hold it.
Countless children are born into circumstances they did not create, and under circumstances that cause them great pain. Others have been taught to have no faith in anything except themselves, a ‘self’ that is blemished and marred: Trust no one. Somebody’s always out to get you. Take what you can before it’s taken from you. Grab. Steal. Even kill.
None of us choose the circumstances of our birth, but some appear to be luckier than others—I’m not talking about the amenities money can provide–I’m talking about strong families who support their children. Yes they make mistakes, but they confirm their children as being valuable, and patiently direct them onto non-destructive paths.
I’m talking about one father per family, not a father of ten by ten different women. Appalling? Yes. Yet those young lives are no less valuable in the eyes of God than are the more fortunate children. But how can they know this when their parents slap God in the face with their own selfishly stupid behavior?
There is no all-encompassing solution to changing this. More parental responsibility would go a long way, with fathers who not only see life as a gift, but their child and his mother as a gift, rather than a notch on his belt of so-called, ‘baby mamas.’
Every parent is human and often makes poor decisions. There’s no getting around that fact. And sometimes it takes tragedy to see what our mistakes as parents have been. When that happens, we can either fall apart or try to rectify it however we can.
Because life IS a difficult journey for each and every one of us; no matter our parents, no matter our circumstances.
Maybe we don’t honor our children. Maybe they don’t honor us. In the frustrations of life, we say things we don’t mean. Sometimes we even forget HOW to love them.
But we can get that back –in little steps, one foot in front of the other without giving up–and all the while thinking of ourselves and our children not as victims, but as victors, the way God wants us to be.
In order to do this, we have to know exactly what it means to love someone. Not how it feels–that will come later— but the actions we have to take.
Loving someone means losing ourselves enough to put our self in the hands of another, and give ourselves away for them. And that means sacrifice and certain suffering. The hardest things in the world to do. Except we have been shown how to do it, through the victory of the Cross.
Translating a World on the Edge 