Families

For the past three weeks, my family and I have been absolutely fascinated by one of God’s creations.  A mourning dove decided to make her nest and lay her eggs in the gutter outside our front door.  Day and night, without fail, she was there, protecting her eggs and then day and night, we were there, watching her through binoculars.  Then one morning as we passed by the front door, we saw 2 little heads popping up over the gutter at us.  What a beautiful sight!  This is God’s creation doing what God designed it to do!  And the dedication of these birds was a moving experience for me as a parent.  We read up a little on mourning doves and found out that each time we saw the mom up there (and wondered how she never left the nest to even eat), it was actually the mom and dad trading off and sharing the shifts–the male takes the day shift and the female takes the evening.  Again, fascinating!

Before long, the babies and all their fluff were up on the roof.

Then in another day or two, they moved to our backyard and we got to watch them survive the rain, survive the dog (!), and have daily feeding sessions with mom and dad’s crop milk, before becoming strong enough to face the world on their own.  It was an awesome opportunity to praise God for the way He made creation, how He provides for it, and how He designed the family with both parents to nurture and provide, care for and tend to.

Unfortunately, so many of those we help with Bibles through our partner organizations come from broken families. . .families that didn’t have both mom and dad taking shifts to love on and protect their children, and families that don’t have the security of knowing the “crop milk” would sustain them.  We live in a changing culture, one in which too many children struggle without a father’s presence in their life and single moms worrying every spare minute away about how they will provide.  The family has become broken in our culture.  A revival is what we need!

But as we pray for revival, we will continue to provide God’s Word to as many as are in need.  We know that whatever the issue is, Jesus is the answer, and that the victory has already been won by Christ on the cross!  May sound trite to the world, but it’s powerful to those who believe and live in it!