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Archbishop Gloria GraceTuesday, October 6, 2015
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USA

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RAISING GODLY CHILDREN SERIES (Part 10):
LEARNING TO LOVE OUR CHILDREN UNCONDITIONALLY

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Continued from Part 9

Higher than the mountains that I face
Stronger than the power of the grave
Constant through the trial and the change
One thing remains
One thing remains

Your love never fails and never gives up it never runs out on me x3

On and one and on and on it goes
It overwhelms and satisfies my soul
And I never ever have to be afraid
One thing remains
(Lyrics by Jesus Culture)

he very words of the above song that keeps ringing in my heart is: One thing remains, one thing remains: Your love never fails and never gives up and it never runs out on me. As the songs continues to sing in my heart over and over, I continue to see the reality of the unending and consistent love of God towards me and mankind as a whole. This love is there in spite of the pains we inflict on Him moment by moment in our disobedience, in our wrong choices, yet His love, continues to be the reason for our being. We continue to meet with his loving kindness each morning, and His whole heart desire continue to be for our salvation, for our total union with Him. The mystery of His love is deep, beyond our comprehension; deeper than ocean, higher than the sky, and wider than the earth. His love compels Him, and keeps us safe even in our rebelliousness and in our ignorance. His love caused Him to allow Himself to be accused, assaulted and to spread out His hands on the wooden cross and allowed nails to be driven into His wrists and into His feet. He hung out there for six long hours of agonizing, painful death bleeding all over Him including from His sides, where they pierced Him.

On daily basis, as we fail Him or make mistakes, His tender and compassionate love continues to carry us on. A shaking reed He not not break, and smoking flax He does not quench. He continues in His lovingkindness and mercy always looking out for the best to bring us to glory because He did not create us for wrath, but for His glory. He will do anything to save us from destruction. As I continue to grasp this understanding, He continues to train me on the love parents are supposed to have on their children, including the rebellious ones. For me, He continues every day to teach me how to bear and forbear, yet carrying them along even when they don't understand. I remember Miracle once saying that no matter what I do, she understood that my motive has always been for the best.

Parents are the arms, the heart and the face God uses to raise the children. God's love on us is full of patience and longsuffering. We continue to break His heart and yet He continues to bear and forbear with us, and keeps us going. In the same way, He expects our love for our children to be carried out like His love for us. I feel like crying as I continue to understand the heart of God for man, for me, in spite of me, my failures, my weaknesses, and impatience. When I fall, He raises me continually, dusts me off and tenderly pushes me on; when I am completely discouraged, He is there to gently spark some fire and gently breathes in me the breathe of life to keep me moving. He is my very life, my very breathe, my very existence and I cannot do without Him. He's all I've got.

It is difficult to cope with most teenagers, or young adults. Most of our children, in spite of all we taught them and expect of them, they turn out differently through the choices they make. Most parents have died from heartbreak, are disappointed, are angry and frustrated. Some parents, in reaction, take on abusing the children on daily basis: fighting, using verbal abuses, curses, and so forth. Raising children and watching them grow unto adulthood with the total package of what we deposit in them is not very realistic, but when we walk with the Lord in these experiences, we will walk with Him through the thorny roads we may encounter in the lives of our children. When we play our part well in spite of our pains and frustrations, God will give the growth and increase in His own timing, not our timing. The seed you sow in their lives will germinate. That's why we are encouraged not to be weary in well doing or in due season, we shall reap if we faint not. Also in Psalm 126: 5-6, it is written:

They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.

As you stand up each night/day, crying out to God on behalf of your wayward child, your rebellious child, your prostitute child, your sick child, your disabled child, your runaway child, or even something worse; your tears before the LORD on behalf of that teen, child, adult are the deposits of your blood in God's bottle. Blood speaks. Your tears contain your DNA, your blood. As you pour them on His feet. The Father sends His angels to collect them in the bottle and store for you. Those seed of love therefore, which you sow in spite of your own agonies as they curse you to your face, rebel against your authority and so forth, yet you tenderly ministered to them in love, in prayers, in the word…they are the seeds of love you are sowing in tears. The word of God assures you that you will come back rejoicing, brining in the sheaves. This is because as you your tears passes through the intercessory altar of our Lord Jesus Christ, whose Blood speaks on your behalf. Your prayers shall be answered. Don't ever give up on your children, no matter how hard, and quit fighting and cursing. It is the work of the flesh and the flesh profits nothing.

NEVER, EVER GIVE UP ON YOUR CHILD

I watched Team Hoyts, the father's love, the story of Rick and Dick Hoyt. Rick was born with umbilical cord wrapped over his neck, and so he had brain damaged and suffered paralysis for life. He could not talk, walk or express himself. The doctor asked the parents to forget about him, but the father's deep love for his son would compel him to do the impossible: give the boy a normal life.

With the help of a special computer that could let him express his heart, the boy at the age of 15 was able to express through the special computer asking the father if he could run marathon with him. Don't forget he is paralyzed and disabled. The father was a retired army officer with a heart condition, but since his son has expressed his desire (which means that the boy would have been into sports if his condition was alright), he began running marathon, triathlon and all other races, with him. Putting Rick on a wheel chair, he would push him along these races. For more than thirty years including this year. Altogether they ran 950 marathons and some other races and Rick expresses total fulfilment in spite of his disability.

https://youtu.be/ax4VIVs-qsE

https://youtu.be/Adubrj3yya8

https://youtu.be/xBXy1EH4nYc

https://youtu.be/2GphmdhLMGE

Rick also graduated both from High school and University and now lives on his own apartment, in spite of his condition, with someone assisting in caring for him. Their story has touched so many lives across the globe that there is nothing impossible no matter one's condition. It was the a selfless and sacrificial love of a devoted father (Dick) that compelled him to do what he was not planning to do all his life. He started running Marathon races just to fulfil his son's desire to run marathon and triathlon races, even without any physical ability to do so. He became his son's feet, hands, and heart and continued till date. That is what a father's unconditional love can do to a child. This also gives us a glimpse of the love of God for us who loved us and sacrificed His life for us even when we did not know about Him. He first loved us and gave His life for us. When He was led as a sheep to the slaughter and was brutally crucified, Isaiah asked: …who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken (Isaiah 53:8). That is the pattern of love God demands for husband to love their wives, and parents to love their children.

While Rick's situation is physical disability, which he overcame through his father's unconditional devoted love, many parents are struggling with other forms of disability with their children such as I mentioned earlier which include mental sickness, waywardness of the teen, run away teen, prostitution, school dropout, early pregnancies, drug use, name them. In all these, the Lord continues to teach me on daily basis how the sacrificial love of a parent can help the children/teen/young adults in spite of their rebelliousness in their conditions to overcome their situation. Those bank robbers, kidnappers, drug pushers are all people who have parents, and they are also souls that will perish in their sins without divine intervention on their behalves. The divine intervention could come through you and a lost life will become a testimony that will help change others. Listen to Helen Baylor's Testimony below (The praying grandmother).

What matters to God is salvation of souls, and for people to live out their divine purposes on Earth and to live with Him unto eternity. We are expecting the return of Christ to Earth any moment from now: how much do you demonstrate your love to your child. Recently, before Pope's visitation to America to give his speech for "Climate Change", the beginning of New World Order (because they want to make the world a better place through One world everything, whereas God Himself is saying that the very present Heaven and earth shall pass away giving way for new Heaven and Earth according to 2 Peter 3: 10-13), I had a dream and saw rapture. As I was being taken, I remembered that my seventeen year old daughter was standing close by around me before I was taken, so right in the midair, I turned round and looked down calling my daughter to come up, it's rapture. I froze in midair.

….to be continued.

https://youtu.be/cIV7tkMWlAE

Continued from Part 9

© Archbishop Gloria Grace

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