“Why we do what we do as house parents?”
A Romanian saying says: “Sometimes we can’t see the forest because of the trees” and this happens to us quite often in our daily life as house parents. It is like looking closely at a painting – in order to have a better view of it, it is necessary to step back a little bit and see the whole picture. The same happens when parenting children in a family. We, as house parents, are so focused dealing with the ongoing life’s issues which need to be solved, that many times we get caught in the daily routine and miss the big picture and forget the main reason why we do what we do.
Talking about “the picture” of bringing up the children God has gifted us with as house parents, the Scriptures give us the right size of it and reminds us when we read the Word of God the reason why we do what we do.
From the very beginning of the mankind, God created the family. The Garden of Eden was not just the perfect place to live for man and his wife, but it was the cradle where, first, the relationship between Lord God and the man created by Him was born, and secondly, where the relations in the family were born, as a reflection of the very first relationship which God has stated. That is why, when the sin crept into the world, the first thing it attacked, in order to destroy, was not just the man as individual, but the family and its essence – the relationships. But right at that moment, the Lord God Almighty brought the solution which was in His plan before He even said “Let there be light!” and His solution was a Person, the solution was His beloved Son, as the history will prove it.
God’s promise had walked through history, from a generation to the next one, until a dark night, when, on the field of Bethlehem, “with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host were praising God, and saying: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.”
Everything changed with God’s only Son coming into this world and with the pure life He lived among impure people! Through all He did, Jesus Christ redeemed man from his iniquities and restored the relations, not just by turning “the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers”, but by turning the heart of “the lost son” to his father who was waiting for him for such a long time…
So, why we do what we do as parents for the kids with whom God gifted us? Because through everything that we do for them every day, from administrating the house to the most sensitive issues which could show up – health issues, school problems, emotional struggles, spiritual challenges – we show and set for them the path to become someday, according to God’s grace, from kids of our families to people of God’s nation and turn their hearts to their Godly Father.
May God bless all the families to see someday this becoming a reality in their children’s lives
Paul & Dana Luncan, parents at Caminul Felix, village 2