Susan Beckett | Dwelling Place City Church
A horrific event happened two weeks ago – a deranged 18-year-old killed 19 children and two teachers at a Texas elementary school. They say hurt kids hurt people. Apparently, this young teen was in a world of hurt, as mentally healthy teens don’t shoot grandmothers in the face and then storm into schools to shoot more innocent people! Of course, this has devastated the Texas community.
So, what’s going on across our nation? These shootings are no longer a surprise – horrific, yes – but not a surprise! I personally believe part of the problem is in the breakdown of the traditional family.
I recently read about a gentleman who wanted to marry a single mother of a 7-year-old boy. The problem? The man said he didn’t want to raise her son. Not to worry, she said – she would send her son to summer camp, to his father’s or grandmother’s for weekends & holidays, and to boarding school during the year.
An attorney in San Diego spotted five preteens ripping down Christmas tree lights one December evening. He caught the pranksters and took them home. To his dismay – at all three homes – not one father was home (at 10 pm) and not one mother even knew her child was out of the house.
It’s a challenge raising children, but it seems these days that parenting has become a lost profession. Mistakes can destroy any family and not even the best efforts will guarantee success, but are we, as a society, really giving it our best?
Years ago, I received an invitation in the mail from a local department store for what they were billing as a “Family Event.” Included was a coupon for a discount on any item. But, looking closer, I noticed that this “family event” was on Sunday morning when many families were in church! Geze, I thought – couldn’t they have held this on a Friday evening or Saturday morning? Yes, of course, they could have. Why take families out of church?
There has been an assault on the traditional family for years. In Kate Miller’s book “Sexual Politics” she says, “The family must go because it is the family that has oppressed and enslaved women.” Is she kidding?! Women have never been freer – it’s our men who are under attack with TV shows & ads feminizing our men and downplaying their masculine roles in society. Men aren’t girls and we need a culture and family structure that supports their manhood and role in the family.
David Cooper, in his book “The Death of the Family” tells us, “The best thing society could do is to abolish the family altogether.” No more moms and dads? No family unit? Who then will raise our precious children? The government? Government schools? The neighborhood – or maybe the mall?!
None of the above is acceptable to me! The family is the foundation of society, and as someone once noted, “The family is one of nature’s masterpieces.” God’s masterpiece really! Research shows that none of the alternatives to the intact traditional family performs well the task of rearing children!
Mary Karr is quoted as saying, “A dysfunctional family is any family with more than one person in it.” That’s a great quote and so true! Family is where you learn to share and compromise – to engage in conflict/resolution! Family is where you learn to love others – no matter what. Family is where a child learns to act like a civilized person preparing to live in a civilized world.
The late great Erma Bombeck described her family this way: “We were a strange little band of characters trudging through life sharing diseases and toothpaste, coveting one another’s desserts, hiding shampoo, borrowing money, locking each other out of our rooms, inflicting pain and kissing to heal it in the same instant, loving, laughing, defending.”
People need thriving families to flourish. Without that, society suffers – we all suffer! We think our community will be spared; our schools won’t be hit, our churches and homes will be safe. But that isn’t how it works, so we need to do all we can to support and safeguard our families – they are instrumental to a healthy community! As Confucius said around 530 B.C: “The strength of a nation derives from the integrity of the home.” Long live the family!
Bob and Susan Beckett pastor The Dwelling Place City Church at 27100 Girard Street, in Hemet, CA. For more information, you may contact them at DPCitychurch.org
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