Love Your Son's Mother

I was asked by a man expecting his first child, a son, what how he could prevent tragedy from befalling his child. He wasn't speaking of accident, disease or crime, these things are far outside our limited control. He asked, fretting, about self-inflicted tragedies that strike young people adrift in a social ocean teeming with icebergs on which to wreck themselves.

I told him first to love God, then to love his son's mother without condition.

Only relationships can fulfil the need of the human heart. You can't buy enough junk, eat enough food, have enough parties or engage in enough sex to be happy and at peace. It is not good for a man (or woman) to be alone, and peace comes from looking into the eyes of an intimate and knowing that you are known.

Marriage is the penultimate of these relationships, although not the only one. Close friends, brothers and sisters, an uncle or a mentor - people you can love and love you, who will be your companion and whom you can accompany - can meet this need. However, marriage is where relationships are first modeled. A child who grows up where the father first and foremost nurtures his faith, and in response to God his wife's needs*, is far less likely to be seduced by the narcissistic abyss that leads to self-destructive behavior.

A boy who lives in a home where one or both parents are selfish, constantly asking the question "what's in it for me?" is being set up for harm. His parents are training their child to live for themselves, a social and spiritual condition that cannot possibly lead to emotional fulfillment, much less spiritual.

If a man loves God, and seeks His wisdom, he will have the strength to love his wife, and the emotional devastation divorce visits to a child is off the table. Broken families are the number one corollary to troubled children, a truism I have witnessed in my own life and in my ministry to young people. A man who loves his wife like God loves the church will not be comfortable with discord, and will work to resolve conflict. He will soften, he will be tender. That man's son will in turn learn to be open to the best sort of relationships.

Good people without faith have great marriages and great kids, but I wouldn't count on that. Past irreligious folk have had the advantage of behaving like those who believed, and reaped the benefits. We live in a post-Christian society, and many of those protective social dogmas about relationship virtues, such as loyalty, patience and perseverance have been ground under the heel of popular culture.

God is the source of perfect love, and He administers His love through His children. This last is difficult for my friend, he has good, sensible questions that fuel a robust skepticism about God's nature and work, but that's my advice. Trust God, love your wife - the rest will follow.

*I focus on the role of a husband for two reasons. First, I think a woman will respond to love naturally, and the reciprocation (particularly with my friends wife) will flow without a challenge. Men of my generation need to be charged, to be intentional about showing love. Second, I think that God holds husbands primarily responsible for the success of the marriage.

Tim McNabb