A Change We Initiated

Posted: September 16th, 2011 Category: Christianity, Common Sense

Nostalgic? How well can you remember your childhood? I recall my Gramma, regularly asking us if we wanted a pie after supper? Yeah! Her pies and breads were legendary, tradable for other goods all over town. “Good” she’d say “go out in the garden or orchard and pick us some nice “apples, cherries or strawberries and rhubarb. Maybe even some elderberries.” Or if shortcake was on her mind it might be off to the blackberry or raspberry bushes for us. We grew, dried and “rubbed” our own popcorn, picked our own veggies, cut grass with a push mower and slept under handmade patchwork quilts, near wood burning shoves. No, I’m not that old, I’m just in love with the simple things and ways and I always have been. Everything about my grandparents home and life was to become one long episode of nostalgia for me. And it didn’t end there, when my friends weren’t around, I’d sometimes put away the Beatles or Ronstadt and listen to my Dad’s Al Hirt, Boots Randolph or Glen Miller albums. I also preferred my old fat wheeled J.C. Higgins bike and Flexible Flyer sled to the newer models the other kids wanted. I didn’t think to ask what’s for dinner (why bother, we ate what was served), I learned to ask “what do you need me to do for dinner Mom”? Like my siblings and friends, I always had chores and did them without complaining, not in ways that anyone would notice anyway. I thought a lot about God too, but I rarely ever talked about him to anyone. Churches were respectfully quiet, so was I when it came to God. I’d spend late afternoons in the cold autumn grass, beneath hardwoods which grew faster than me, and wonder what Jesus had in store for my life? “Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it“. (Proverbs 22:6 ESV).

There are some parts of life that are very different now. With over 50% of all marriages and families breaking up, there is too little positive precedent around. Fewer models of a comfortable good available for us to follow. When the family is devalued and individual happiness is prioritized, society will change. When children feel more hate than love between their parents, they withdraw into their own world. Scratching our heads in wonder won’t help, we’ve set a selfish example and lost our way. God told us this would happen and even faster than ever before, we’ve proven Him right. When asked about divorce, Jesus replied; “… Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so.” (Matthew 19:8 ESV).

JC Calkins with COMMON SENSE 4 UNCOMMON PEOPLE (share)