Perfection Through Parenting

God designed the family to be where parents live for others. Parents give endlessly to their children, who take it all and want more. Jesus said that such love is the path to perfection. So the family is the place parents are perfected and children learn the power of selflessness.

There are variations on how parents play out nature’s design, but its essence is based on psychology and anatomy. The husband tends outward as bread-winner; the wife tends inward as homemaker. Theology meets biology.

The husband sacrifices to provide his family food and shelter. The children steal his paycheck and get off scot-free. If he were working for himself alone, he would have a private jet and penthouse, but he’s got a minivan and bungalow.

The mother sacrifices to form new human beings. Pregnancy leaves her deathly ill for weeks. The baby tears open her body to enter the world. It steals her breastmilk, and doesn’t dream of paying for it. The child is a chick in a nest with its mouth open . I watch the chicks in a nest outside my back door. The chicks’ mouths are open . They present an incessant demand:

And then children become teenagers, and Jesus’ words apply: “But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven.” (Hey, I was a teenager too.)

God designs parenting to be a path of sacrificial love. The cross and Heungnam Prison model this sacrifice indelibly in history. “The Principle is truly simple: If we invest completely with love to live for the sake of others, whatever we give is bound to return. This is the starting point of the heavenly law. …When we act upon this principle, the output is greater than the input. …As an inmate in Heungnam Prison, I fought on the frontlines to love a wide variety of people, not only my fellow inmates, but also the communist prison guards. …The one and only path was the path of loving and sacrificing. It was in prison that I discovered this truth.”

The Messiah went to the cross and Heungnam Prison to liberate us, so that we can reach perfection through parenting.

(References: Mt 5:43-48; pp. 745-6.)