Grieving over Our Children
As parents, we have a very strong love for our children that begins even before their birth. We want what is best for each one of them. We desire for them to be happy and successful in their lives, and we do what we can to lead them to accomplish the right things. As Christians, we teach them about the Lord, and we lead them to accept Jesus as Lord and Savior. However, sometimes things don't go the way we hoped they would go. That is what happened to Ephraim. (I Chronicles 7:21,22) Two of his sons were killed when they were trying to steal livestock from the local farmers near Gath. Ephraim mourned for them for a long time, and his relatives came to comfort him. Ephraim suffered two blows, the fact that his sons were thieves and seeing them die early in life. These things could happen to any of us, and maybe they have already happened to you. There is grief and shame that comes when one of our children turns away from the Lord and His will for their life. We grieve because we lose...