The Daily Paine

Christmas is a time when you get homesick–even when you’re home.”
–Carol Nelson

“There has been only one Christmas–the rest are anniversaries.”
–W.J. Cameron

We are just a week removed from Thanksgiving, so it is only right that I mention two people that I am thankful for, as today would be their birthday.  They were two people that had a profound influence on my life.  One is my mom, Marguerite Jones, and the other is my aunt, LaVern Adkisson, who helped raise me. 
I think at times we take for granted those that God puts in our lives.  Some have a direct influence, others only partial.  There are friends for a lifetime, and there are friends for a season.  Do we take what they give us of themselves and use it to become a better person?
——————
The pastor where I go to church preached a very important message last Sunday.  It most certainly would not, or is not very popular and in our society today would be rejected, yet the truth resounded from it.  I have been saying similar things for three decades now; C.S. Lewis wrote a book alluding the it, “The Abolition of Man.”  I’m going to use some of his thoughts and mix in a few of mine.
Perhaps you did not realize that the term “family” means “Father’s House.”  Just take that one little idea and ponder it.  Let it roll through your mind, or if it is muddled, let it float through.  I was told later in life, maybe in college, that I came from a dysfunctional family.  Now you surely could have fooled me, for I thought everything was good.  Looking at it from the eyes of this ol’ fence post, there were probably two reasons that I didn’t see it as dysfunctional.  One was that I had never heard of the term before and therefore didn’t know what it meant.  The other is that there were still two man-figures there, my Dad and Grandpa.  Did they have faults, absolutely, but they still gave the proper role model.
I have had several parents over the year go almost into depression when they get a point in their life when the children are to leave home.  Society has placed an added burden of the two parents by giving a name, “Empty Nest Syndrome.”  Listen!  One major purpose of the family is to prepare children for life.  To teach and train them to handle responsibility and to overcome obstacles that may be in their way.  But more and more parents cannot cut the apron-string, and the kids, themselves, actually tie it tighter. 
Back to my initial idea–where are the fathers in the family?!!  There are dead-beat dads, there are absentee dads, there is a high level of divorce (even in the church.  One of the things that the Lord says He hates is divorce, yet today little is thought of it).  What is the role of the father in the “Father’s House?”  Notice, it is his house.  He is the protector.  He is the provider.  But if he is not there what happens to “Father’s House”?  There are so many homes, if I can still use that term, where the may be a father, but he is not really involved.  He is more of a person who appeases the kids from time to time.
One more thought for today.  Where there is a father at home what would he do if he saw his wife being raped, or children beaten and mutilated?  Hopefully there would be swift action of some sort.  Yet, we allow the rape and mutilation of the family in a spiritual sense.  What is on TV?  What kind of games, music, and other forms of entertainment do we allow in the “house”?
Our heavenly Father gave us the most wonderful gift that we celebrate at Christmas, the birth of His Son.  This would sure be a good time for fathers (and mothers) to give the gift of themselves to their family.  This is to be done, not only at Christmas, but everyday of the year.  I don’t have the time to go into a discourse on the theology of the family, but just look at the one aspect of being the spiritual, emotional, mental, and physical protector/provider of the “house.”

“Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and shall become united and cleave to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.”
–Genesis 2:24 (AMPC)