Friday, January 20, 2023, January 20th, 7:13 a.m. after an emerging family crisis had become known to a young mother and me.)
:Correspondence from Cathy Byrd to a Christian friend-
“Good morning, I am humbled by your family’s kind response to my request for respite care assistance with ministry to a family. This young mother has said she desires a better life for her children than she and her sibling knew. I told her that I believe that is a desire that mirrors the desire of God’s heart and that if she is obedient to her own work of life recovery that God will honor her heart’s desire. This truly has the capacity to be a seed that can transform not only a young child’s life but the lives of 3-4 generations, from this child’s grandparents to his own children and grandchildren some day.
God bless your family for your hospitality and generosity.
This mom and a sibling of hers have pretty much raised themselves while divorced parents argued over discipline, child support, parenting, etc.
No discipline, no structure, no stability, from what I have observed. Both of these young adults need stable support and examples of how “family” is designed to work to move forward into adulthood and the challenges of another generation of children getting sucked into “the system”. i.e. state dependency.
Thank you for recognizing what the bigger mission here is with this young mother, a mission field for multiple generations through one person, and for your prayers with me for healing and redemption of their story.
As I reread our messages I was reminded of scripture.
Numbers 14:18
‘The Lord is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but he will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, to the third and the fourth generation.’
Exodus 20:5
You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me,
Exodus 34:6-7
The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.”
I had just been reflecting a few days ago on the blessings in the life of my great grandson who is 18 months old. His parents are a loving and God-honoring young couple who will welcome their second child in July. Both parents were raised by God-honoring grandparents of their young son. And Bill and I both came to deeply transforming commitments to Christ through some devoted church pastors and the Emmaus Movement when our children were youths, still at home. Although we had been “churchians”, attending weekly, all their lives, the mature commitments to Christ that we made had also made a significant difference in our lives that they witnessed and understood. It was impressed on me that maybe, just maybe, the curse of consequences from sinful behavior and dysfunction in our respective families’ past and my own and Bill’s lives has been broken in the 6 generations I have been privileged to observe, alcoholism and family conflict having been present in my own and my husband’s grandparent generation. I always thought the wrath and justice of God to 3rd and 4th generation for iniquity of the fathers was a “forward-from-this-point” thing and bringing redemptive blessing to thousands of generations also was only forward from a specific point of one person’s coming into the kingdom. But I can see God’s hand in each generation from my grandparents’ forward, making small adjustments, teaching lessons from one to the next, so that now, my great grandson’s generation …. the sixth generation forward in the purview of my own personal observation during my lifespan, is truly experiencing family, community, and spiritual blessings to an extent the previous generations, before his parents’ had struggled to attain!! And the shame, trauma, secrecy, embarrassment over family histories and reputations, the obvious and urgent need for an outpouring of God’s grace and mercy aren’t just the things I personally experienced. It is the baggage that is increasingly carried from one generation to the next.
It gives me hope that this mother and her children can be the generation that begins to transform the family history of generational dysfunction of her own parents and grandparents. I met this young woman’s grandmother. She struggled with mental illness and was herself a child of family conflicts. I also witnessed seeds sown into her and her adult son’s life through the final years of her life while he was living with her as a caregiver.
Strange how time, age, experience, and perspective give new nuances to the the Word of God, removing us from our chronological blinders and giving us eyes to see God’s kairos timing that transcends ages and ancestry and His timelessness as well as His patience in forebearing with us weak and broken vessels as long as is necessary to bring about good. As one popular song currently says, “If it’s not GOOD then God’s not done”
I hope this makes sense. With this perspective I can see the value of the biblical emphasis on Jesus’ lineage and the many family stories from Adam and Eve forward…. I can also see how perversions and fixations and even worship of ancestors, like practices of the Mormons and others, and even the Pre-Reformation Catholic perversion of selling family “Indulgences” can become warped attempts to influence and manipulate God instead of trusting God and celebrating His faithful work, small though it may seem, in each generation side by side every other generation as each enters and exits the stage of “LIFE”, even permitting repetition of destructive generational patterns until someone cries out to Him, “Enough! Help me change this in my life and the life of my children!”
Therein lies at least a bit of the answer to this verse…contained within a chapter entitled “Renewal of the Covenant”
Deuteronomy 29:29-
29 The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to US and to OUR children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law.”
Every generation must study and observe God’s work through the generations to recognize the value of embracing His will in our own generation for the sake of ourselves and our children…… and our children for their children and their children’s children….. and their children.
Each of us individually cannot redeem our family’s past, but when we come to Christ we may be sure God has been planting the seeds of future harvests, the ones that will mature and bear fruit in our own generation. The fields are always ripe for harvest. But generation after generation we struggle to make progress in bringing laborers to the task that lasts and sustains the kingdom in perpetuity.
My friend replied: “That’s absolutely beautiful and I will pray those scriptures for this family.”
I was reminded of this reflection in my blog from several years ago and my recognition of the healing power of recognizing and correcting dysfunctional familial patterns!
Recently, I became interested in what seems to be a therapeutic fascination with the enneagram. I had been offerred an enneagram session by a Catholic Christian counselor in 1997 and, after researching it, said “No, thank you.”. When I saw a trusted Christian friend’s confidence in it and another trusted Christian friend’s certificate as an enneagram coach, I thought I’d revisit it. So I took the test 2 times over a course of several months. One scored out “7”, one “8”.
I don’t know what it means in the enneagram interpretive matrix. It may provide insights or help me and others work better in teams but i know who I am and more importantly, whose I am. This link reflects how I have felt when reflecting on the enneagram in the past. Snd continues to be my thought:
Whether it’s familial repetitive behavioral patterns, spiritual bondages, or just the curse of the human condition upon broken humankind, God is the Healer. Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Son of God, heals those in His own brief generation and in every generation, and His Holy Spirit administers the Balm to our sin-sick souls that transforms the world and brings the reign of Christ in the Kingdom of God on earth as it is in Heaven ever closer.
God is always GOOD! And God can be found working in the details in every work of man, whether we can see it or not!