Fatherhood and Marriage

I have just put down a book by author and pastor Robert Lewis, called Raising a Modern-Day Knight after an hour's perusal. Or flicking through and reading the bits that caught my eye.
It's all about talking to fathers and trying to guide them on how to relate to their sons. Showing them how much their sons need them to look up to; how much they need to be there and give love and support and affirmation and identity to their sons. At least, that is what I took from it.

Why did I pick it up? Because. I was in one of my own usual moods; I was sitting next to my own dad and listening to some remarks between my parents - and I leaned back in my chair at the table and cast my eyes up at the bookcase next to me. This caught my eye, and I reached up and pulled it down, smiling satirically. Now, this should be interesting to see. What Biblical men really should be like, huh? HAHAHA. Because, as I've mentioned before, I have a pathetic amount of distrust, dislike and disrespect for most guys.

I finished my rough perusal, I put it down and I cried. Because long ago, that idea had passed from my mind. I cried for my brother, who has never been able to reach his father although he has tried so often and so hard. I cried for my half brother, who never in his life has had a man to look up to - and the two Christian men he found in his later teen years completely destroyed his view of them. I cried for my father, who pulled back from my half brother and my brother because he himself never had that love and affirmation from his own father. I cried for three generations of men that have never had a father-son bond. And I vowed that it will stop here, right now, with me.

So help me, God, I will not marry a man I cannot see trying to provide support and encouragement in Christ for the guys around him. If he cannot be an older brother or even, young father in Christ to the younger guys around him, as well as a younger one to older guys, how can he ever make a good father to my sons? And to be party to bringing up a fourth generation of hurting sons is completely against God's will and therefore mine.

Without a man to look up to, no wonder that they cannot be proper fathers to their own children. No wonder that three generations of my family has ended up with permanently damaged marriages. With children out of wedlock.

Can things so small as this cause a hang up of over 50 years? It seems to be so. How small. How infinitely large. How much effort. How much value. Oh God...I don't know what to pray. But I pray for them. For my father. For my brothers. For my brothers in Christ who may be going through the same. And for my brothers in Christ who experience a father's love and guidance, and do not realise it fully or accept it at half the value it is worth.

Of course. This lead onto marriage - a subject I was going to post on anyway. I was awed as I looked at the responsibilities for a guy in a marriage. In fact, the whole subject has me awed, it's so scary. And frightening. Because one tiny step out, one tiny thing wrong, can wreck lives completely.

A guy needs to be in complete touch with God. In complete love with his wife, by choice. And be able to be a father figure - a knight, if you will - a protector and some one to lean on for his daughters, as well as someone to respect. And for his sons, to be able in all of his other busy life (for after all, this is only the family sector, never mind work or church!) to be there for them, to be someone for them to admire and look up to, to be humble and strong, to admit faults willingly...in fact, while one knows that Christ is the only perfect Husband, one begins to think He probably should be the only one! ;)

And the topic I was looking at anyway was, girlies, what would be mine and your responsibility in a marriage. And to do this from my point of view...is definitely scary.
To be able to love God with all of my heart and be devoted to serving Him and His will, and consistently spending time with Him.
To constantly put God before myself and not lean on a husband - as we would be so very apt to do.
To be able to recognise the limit on how much support and affirmation we should take from husbands and fully rely on God for it. My, that line would be a hard one to trace!
To be able to be supportive, always respectful, always cheerful. Even though we have independant minds and won't completely agree, but to actually bypass that and accept that what he says goes. OW. Yeah.
Not only that, but our lives should be partly wrapped around our children. We need to be the kind of woman that our sons should look to to define what wife he would want. We need to be able to be there and devote our time to building close relationships with daughters so that we are their best friend and imput wise advice to their lives. All the time recognising our own frailty and that we are human, and trusting God to give us the words to say even while recognising that we may still say the wrong things.
Of course - add to this running a home, physical needs, daily living, schooling.

WOW. How many people are actually ready for marriage? I'm looking at that and thinking - I wouldn't ever be!

Am I cheating taking the single way out? :) I don't know. Giving my life completely to serving God without the distractions all this would entail seems to me a wiser choice.

God bless,
~ Janie