"Faith "

For the first time in my seventy years of life I saw a situation where too much faith caused a disaster. There was a television show where a father lost his wife and youngest son when his oldest son shot them to death. Most people who knew the family thought they were a close, tight knit family. There attended church and contributed to the community. They were nice people. They had strong faith in God .
If you looked at their family pictures or talked to their neighbors you would only believe they were a wonderful family. Only after this disaster occured did some people speak of problems concerning the oldest son. The mother on occasion had voiced some concern about him. Some of his friends spoke of unusual
circumstances concerning the oldest son. The father when questioned about his oldest sons activities admitted there were some unexplainable situations concerning him. The son had been in college three years and his family thought he was going to gradate, they did not know he was not making it in school since his freshman year! Well, yes they saw some questional things but, had faith all was well. The son had spoken to people about killing his family. No one could believe it could happen. How many time have you heard it said that if a person says they are going to kill themselves or someone else to believe them. There were signs that this boy was in trouble. No one took it seriously, they had faith everything would be alright. The father a faithful weakling ignored his sons cry for help. The mother had questions and did nothing. We go to church and are nice folks and know there can be nothing going wrong in OUR family, with our hands over our eyes and our fingers crossed behind our backs. God expects you to use your head and if you suspect a child or anyone else is in trouble step in and do something. If you are the parent of a child that has been in college for four years and has actually not been in college four years, and you didn't know he was not in school for the last three years raise your hand. How many of you parents would not have known this? Would there not have been a signal or two or something that would have motivated you to check on your oldest sons activities? How could you not see something was wrong in all that time? You were not trusting your instincts, your blind faith that all would be well fell by the way. We cannot let our faith blind us so as to allow horrible thing to happen because we don't want to interrupt the comfortable feeling we have in believing somehow because we are doing everything right that everything will be alright if we just believe it will be right. Faith has to be backed up with common sense and strength to deal with the unpleasantness we want to ignore and not have to deal with because it will break what we think, but know is not so, the perfect bubble our life is in. This is the mentality that says, I don't want to know if my kids are taking drugs or are in some sort of other trouble. What do they spend the money on that I give them? If I know I will have to deal with it and right now all seems well, so lets not rock the boat. I would rather not know what someone is doing, so I don't have to deal with it. At least once in four years call the college where you child is a student and check and see if he or she is actually there. Pull your head out of the sand and know any child can get in trouble. Know they will hide it from you because they know it is wrong. If something is wrong you hide it. Just because you go to Sunday School and Church does not automatically mean all is well. Faith can be blind, God is not. He gave you instincts and intuition to see wrong doings. Trust yourself and know where you children are and who they are with. Now we all know this is not 100%, but do your best. God wants you to watch dog your children.