[ampaterry]

Today is the 19th annual celebration of Parents Day. Bill Clinton signed the resolution into law that designated the fourth Sunday of each July as Parents Day, beginning in 1994.
A few days ago, I had a message on the importance of the marriage bond, and the responsibilities one has to their spouse. I have thought on it a lot, and I simply cannot decide whether one has a greater responsibility to their spouse or to their child.
On the one hand, you chose your spouse, and swore before God to be true to them, making you two into one flesh:
Mark 10:8-9 (KJV);
“And they twain shall be one flesh: so then they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.”

On the other hand, your child is born of the flesh of this union. Your blood and the blood of your spouse, genetically different from each other, has been united and flows in the veins of this child, and is spoken of as a reward to you from God:
Psalms 127:3 (KJV);
“Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward.”

I will grant you, there are times in the raising of a child – especially in the teenaged years – when it seems they are more a curse than a blessing, and the direction of their origin is somewhat lower than Heaven. Thankfully, though, these times pass, and the child that thought you were completely ignorant when they were sixteen is surprised by how much smarter you have become when they reach thirty.

Raise them well, teach them the truth of God, prepare them for life, and your reward will be the time when they choose a spouse and leave you to join them, as Christ said in the previous verse to the above:
Mark 10:7 (KJV);
“For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife;”

They have not deserted you; they have graduated into the next phase of their life, the one you spent years preparing them for. Do the best job of this which you are capable of.

May God bless each one of you -