Juno in Juneau

The political news of the day, other than the bare-bonesing of the RNC due to Gustav, is that Sarah Palin's eldest daughter, 17-year-old Bristol is with child. Rumors were making the rounds that Sarah's newborn Trig was actually Bristol's, so they came clean with the younger Palin's improprieties. Bristol is planning on marrying the father of the child and keeping the kid.

There are a number of good parents who had children "jump the gun" sexually. A set of  great-grandparents I know of were part of a shotgun wedding, as was an aunt and uncle. The great-grands had a solid death-do-them-part marriage, as have the aunt and uncle so far (47 years and counting).

A great Baptist couple from here in town has a daughter who's with child out of wedlock, they undoubtedly would be sending the right message about sex and marriage. Promise Keeper's founder Bill McCartney went through that years ago back when he was still football coach at Colorado, where he had his star quarterback get his college-age daughter pregnant outside of marriage, then (I don't recall this part before reading the linked piece) got knocked up again by a defensive lineman.

We can teach our children well, but they don't always listen. I recall my sister's pastor in Midland had a son that had a substance abuse problem and needed to go through the Teen Challenge Christian drug rehab program. Pastor Stocker wasn't a softy on drugs, nor was our Baptist friends softies on premarital sex.

Also, the mom of that Baptist family was a stay-at-home mom. You'll here some sniping  that Palin might have kept her daughter on the straight and narrow had she been home more and paying more attention. Even stay-at-home moms can see their daughters and sons not following advice.

Good families can produce unruly kids. There's a lot of pressure on kids from our culture to ignore sound Biblical advice on sex, and there's added pressure from the guys if you're young and pretty; if I recall the family picture, Bristol is quite a catch. Not everyone's going to stay as pure as we'd like.

We need to love the folks who do make those mistakes, and move forward from there. If we come down upon them like a ton of lead and slap scarlet letters on them, they'll start heading to Planned Parenthood at warp speed to "remove the problem." This is one that "hate the sin, love the sinner" comes in all too well, for there is a little one who didn't do anything wrong other than be conceived under less-than-desirable circumstances.

Comments

[don't eat alone]

Mark

Thanks for this thoughtful post. This is another one of those discussions, I think, that serves only to polarize and does little to further any hope of really talking about what we need to do together to heal our country. My wife and I hurt for the daughter especially. I find it hard to imagine accepting the nomination -- with the looking glass life that accompanies it -- knowing your child was pregnant and would become national news.

I pray for the daughter most of all.

Peace,
Milton

[don't eat alone]

Also -- best blog title of the day.

Peace,
Milton