So okay, I’m taking a new look at men & women relationships in the modern world and with grown kids looking to the future, and I wonder what’s in store for them.
As I attempted to sleep last night, I started thinking about the whole Adam and Eve scenario…but from a 21st-century perspective.
Imagine the complications…
God, Almighty Creator of the Universe, leads his charming beauty forward and—
Adam’s eyebrows furrow. “Hmmm, she’s got a rib there that looks mighty familiar.” He’d undoubtedly want to know if God got a legal release for the use of private property…and a few other concerns… “This a 50-50 deal or does she expect me to hunt all by my lonesome?”
Eve would eye the cave wondering if it would get cable, if the Internet could bounce through the thick walls, and how often Adam cleaned the gutters. “He wouldn’t expect me to grill one of those ridiculous woolly mammoths over an open fire, would he?”
Let’s hold off on serious family dysfunction issues for the moment. Even Adam and Eve had their trials.
Any words of wisdom?
Huh. I can hear your silence from here.
I did manage to fall asleep. But it took a while. When I awoke it was with the image of a child in my mind—a child disfigured by a facial wound, which hid his true features.
That image has haunted me all day. Now I’m wondering at my tendency to see men and women relationships as separate from our childhood experiences, though in reality, we are all children of God, still processing our own “child” within. Any wonder that people of very advanced age become as helpless as children?
Clearly, God could have arranged our life cycle another way…but instead, we start as helpless babies, grow strong (hopefully), and then grow weak and childlike again.
So how does that inform our most intimate relationships?
I realized some years ago that the only way to deal with people who make me angry is to lift my spirit to God and ask Him to help me see the other person as He does. As the child He created—innocent and full of glorious potential. When you’re looking at someone making an idiot of him or herself, or doing something so wrong that your whole body cringes, it’s mighty hard to picture them as glorious.
But that appears to be the key to long-lasting relationships. Not seeing what is…but what could be—what should be—and hanging in there. That hardly means we assent to Cain’s murderous actions or accept destructive behavior, but rather, though we may have to step away—we do so without wishing the worst for the other person.
When faced with bad behavior, I often think, “I’m not going to forget this.” Oh, I tell myself that I’ll forgive but forget? Why would I do that? Got to protect myself, don’t I?
Yet, I find that I can both forgive and forget the mistakes of children. They are just learning. They don’t know any better. “Father, forgive them…they know not what they do…”
Am I capable of channeling that grace toward the whole human race? To my brothers and sisters on this life journey? In up close and personal, even intimate, relationships?
I’m not claiming that I can. I’m just wondering aloud if that’s what it takes to make marriage and parenthood—even friendships—work.
The knitting of this country’s fabric is once again being tested to the breaking point. Like a marriage, we are bound together by ideals and ties that go well beyond our personal inclinations. We are more than an assembly of parts. Just like a family is more than just a room full of people. I doubt anyone is holding the US up as the picture of national contentment at this moment in history.
Our human progenitors may have had the first crack at the human family and the first experiment in designing a great society…but I doubt they had it easy. They had their trials too. Their kids probably didn’t exactly make them look like model parents.
Now when I consider my human relationships, I try not to demand an ideal scenario. Rather, I hope to look beyond the natural disfigurements of this imperfect journey and see the kid inside each of us
The one God loves as His own.
Novels by A. K. Frailey
Science Fiction
Last of Her Kind http://amzn.to/2y1HJvg
Newearth: Justine Awakens http://amzn.to/2pq0vWN
Historical Fiction
Melchior—Vengeance Is Mine http://amzn.to/2taeW2r
Historical Fiction & Science Fiction Blend
OldEarth ARAM Encounter https://amzn.to/2KLhlsN
OldEarth Ishtar Encounter https://amzn.to/2OAkDQF
OldEarth Neb Encounter (In production)
OldEarth Georgios Encounter (In production)
Children’s Book
The Adventures of Tally-Ho http://amzn.to/2sLfcI5
Inspirational Non-Fiction
The Road Goes Ever On—A Christian Journey Through The Lord of the Rings http://amzn.to/2lWBd00
