blood brothers

There are days I wonder if Eve felt like this.

Boys who yell and fight and scrap for power can turn a house upside down, and leave a mama disillusioned and broken-hearted.

The same family blood runs through all these boys' veins, but sometimes it seems like they flow with fire and gasoline.

I send the offenders to separate corners of our house-made-boxing-ring, and these words are what ring in my head:

"The Lord said, 'What have you done? Listen! Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground. Now you are under a curse and driven from the ground....You will be a restless wanderer on the earth.'"

-Genesis 4:10-12

I hope and pray that they will not burn the ties that bind them together, and then wander all their lives.

How did Eve bear the sight of one son murdered and another wandering alone?

Drawing these future men to my side, I speak of another Son who clings more closely to us than any brother ever could. I tell them of cheeks turned when struck, nails that pierced hands to bring us peace, and a love that wins souls.

I tell them that to love God as they ought they must learn to love one another. God's standard for every relationship is always unselfish love. 

"Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in the darkness. Whoever loves his brother lives in the light, and there is nothing in him to make him stumble. But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness; he does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded him."

-1 John 2:9-11

Our family sits at a crossroads, waiting for grace. You can't force a heart to love someone. Some people must stumble a few times before they learn to lean on God.

Like their parents, our children fall many days. We are all learning how to help pick one another up, dust each other off, and try again.We trust that our failures weave into God's plans, too.

God has a knack making a mess into something more.

"Adam lay with his wife again, and she gave birth to a son and named him Seth, saying, “God has granted me another child in place of Abel, since Cain killed him.” Seth also had a son, and he named him Enosh. At that time men began to call on the name of the Lord."

Genesis 4:25

Jesus came from Seth's line. God's redemptive seed flows from Eve's pain straight to my own heart.

I look at my boys and I call on the name of the Lord.

Eve and I, we are both mothers looking for redemption. There is only one way for that to come to any family, and the blood of that sacrifice cries out to God, too. This time, though, it cries out

"Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing."

-Luke 23:34

These blood brothers of mine, they are learning together to live the gospel. They are learning forgiveness. They are learning grace. They are learning how to be mad yet not sin.

The lessons are all being hashed out in the boxing arena called brotherhood. They have many years ahead of them to figure it all out.

And this mama can learn to wait patiently for God's miraculous grace.