Family Love Forever

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Family Love Forever

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When I was crying, sick or just couldn't fall asleep, I remember the lullabies my dad sang softly to me in Ukrainian. He hugged me to his chest or sat next to me, gently stroking my back until my breathing slowed down, and then he tucked in my covers and let me drift off to sleep.

At times like these I felt safe and loved. Whatever was bothering me didn't matter anymore, even after my father left the room.

It wasn't just my father though. My mother, brother and sister shared laughter and words of encouragement when needed. My family's love provided me with the example that helped me develop a healthy understanding of the love of God and the relationship He desires to have with us, His children.

Fondly remembering my family experience, I recognize that it wasn't perfect. But clearly, many have not been blessed with any kind of strong family love.

A tragic family story

Loving families are harder to find in the world as we approach the time foretold by Jesus Christ that would lead up to His second coming. He warned that "the love of many will grow cold" (Matthew 24:12). How well this seems to describe our own time when reading news stories like the one about Karen Kahler and her children Emily, Lauren and Sean that took place near Topeka, Kansas.

Last November, Karen and her three children, at the time aged 18, 16 and 10, were attacked at the home of Karen's grandmother, Dorothy Wight. Karen and her two daughters were shot and killed and her grandmother died a few days later. Sean, the youngest, fled the home and survived.

James Kraig Kahler, Karen's estranged husband and the children's father, was charged with the murder of his own wife and daughters. Nor had life been pleasant or safe before the killings, with increasing domestic violence leading up to and following a filing for divorce.

Hope for all of God's children

Can there be a happy ending for Emily, Lauren and Sean? What about for all people, children and adults, whose families didn't offer them love, but served them evil instead?

God's Word provides answers and comfort for those who had little or none in their families—and it reveals our marvelous human potential to be part of the divine family of God after Jesus Christ returns. "Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is" (1 John 3:2, emphasis added).

All humanity will then experience that kind of perfect, selfless love of our wonderful Creator. The Bible paints an incredible picture of our amazing future when our Heavenly Father will comfort us as my human father did for me when I was a child. VT