Doing Better: A Letter To Parents

Makeda, also known as the Queen of Sheba, heard about King Solomon from afar. She knew he was married to hundreds of women and was also a concubine to hundreds of women. She left her throne and brought herself with the fullness of her royal entourage to the palace of Solomon. When she got there, she revealed herself in her glorious beauty to the King and stole his heart. Solomon wrote about her over and over again in the Song of Solomon. Then there was Ruth, a Moabitess who was previously married to a Jew. Her husband dies, and she had to relocate from Moab to Israel with her late husband’s mother. She needed a husband, but had no dowry to offer or the influence of a throne or even a surname. Her mother-in-law told her to surrender herself under the influence of Boaz so that she could have a voice to plead her case. She obeyed and, with the help of Boaz, she was able to get the life satisfaction she craved.

Rachael was a beautiful, sprightly, and impulsive young woman who met Jacob by the well one morning. After a brief exchange with Jacob, she realised they were relatives and she took him home. Once Jacob settled down with Laban and got a clear direction as to how to live his life, the first thing he asked for was to marry Rachael but there was another daughter of Laban called Leah she had crossed eyes, and this diminished her marketability considerably she wanted to be married, and she wanted to have children of her own Laban was one of those parents who knew that getting a husband for Leah was probably an impossible task (In today’s Christianity, we don’t say this out loud or think of how to solve this issue practically. We will just tell the lady who wants to get married but nobody is coming to ask for her hand in marriage to keep praying and keep trusting God. Laban knew he would either have to give his daughter to one of his slaves to make children with her outside of wedlock, the children would bear his name, and she would continue to bear his name. This was the last resort in her case, the more royal option that would cast no aspersion of inequality on Leah and her children would be to marry her off to Jacob of course, it would be scandalous and some people will frown at it, but he had the right to help his daughters negotiate their marital settlement (Another thing most parents in today’s Christianity don’t get involved in outside of prayer). How can I have the resources to attract a suitor for my children and I will not use it? I will tell them to keep praying, and I will keep praying too. Wow! I can’t,can the thinking of many who claim to be wise and elderly. If a young lady can’t attract a husband by herself, instead of leaving her alone to harbor all forms of evil thoughts and depression which will later turn her to a feminist witch and a professed man hater (This is usually not true, most professed man hater are insecure, loveless, lonely, unpicked ladies who hide behind feminism in order to deflect from their inability to get a good man). Once any one of them manages to get a man, you see how quickly they delete accounts and stop being feminists.

It is Hypocrisy, and our society ought to stop taking them seriously. Once a daughter or a son indicates that he or she desires to be married but has a bit of a challenge getting a suitor, the next action for the parent is not “Go and pray”. It is to sit down and get a marriage broker or act as a marriage broker.” You interview your daughter or son objectively and decipher the kind of man or woman he or she will be happy with, then you search for that man or woman and incentivise him or her to get married to your son or daughter. You do all the necessary pre-marital classes and preparations thoroughly. A night before the marriage, you call your son or daughter aside and tell him or her the plain truth. This is an arranged marriage, the two of you can hit it off and fall in love if you give this a chance, outside of all the brouhaha of the wedding feast. If you apply all the principles of friendship, openness, submission (if your daughter is the wife-to-be) and (Love if your son is the groom-to-be), sincerity and you accept this union in good faith, your marriage will be the very best of it in the days to come. However, there may be flaws that have been hidden from us by the other side or incompatibility issues that may become obvious after the two of you have gotten married. Remember, this is not a do-or-die affair, but make sure in all sincerity you give it your all. If however, it proves too difficult for you to cope with it, come and report this to us, your parents, and we will do a proper meeting with the other side and get you out of it. Everything does not have to be messy and tangled. An arrangement can easily be unarranged, with both sides keeping their dignity intact.

Senegal once got married to Gambia, and they became Senegambia. When the marriage did not work out, they didn’t become enemies; they simply unarranged the arrangement.
The United Kingdom once joined the European Union, but when they realised that the marriage was not good for them, they got a divorce called Brexit and everybody went their separate ways. Saul gave Michal to David legally as his wife David paid the full bride price, and he became a son-in-law to the King then the king decided to kill David, and the same Michal saved his life while helping him to escape. She could have escaped with him, but their marriage was not a marriage of that kind of love. David left and started all over again with another woman by the time he returned to Judah, he had two wives and five children then he became the King. He reached out to Ish-Bosheth, the son of Jonathan and the head of Saul’s family, to negotiate a covenant that would make Ish-Boisheth a member of the nobility of Israel, but in exchange, King David said he wanted Michal back He knew she had been given to another man (Palti) in his absence, and the man had married her legally, but it was a power play he didn’t want anyone to claim that he was married to David’s first wife in the Kingdom God has given him to rule over.
It was recorded that “2 Samuel 3:12 Then Abner sent messengers on his behalf to say to David, “Whose land is it? Make an agreement with me, and I will help you bring all Israel over to you.” 13 “Good,” said David. “I will make an agreement with you. But I demand one thing of you: Do not come into my presence unless you bring Michal daughter of Saul when you come to see me.” 14 Then David sent messengers to Ish-Bosheth son of Saul, demanding, “Give me my wife Michal, whom I betrothed to myself for the price of a hundred Philistine foreskins.” 15 So Ish-Bosheth gave orders and had her taken away from her husband, Paltiel, son of Laish. 16 Her husband, however, went with her, weeping behind her all the way to Bahurim. Then Abner said to him, “Go back home!” So he went back. This is my point: Laban did the right thing by considering the future of Leah and Rachel outside of emotions and sentiments. He did what any right-thinking father who has not been dumbed down by religious dogma ought to do: He negotiated a husband for his daughters, and the two of them were able to have children that became the twelve tribes of Israel. I know that in today’s selfish and politically correct world, freezing eggs and IVF and surrogacy and single motherhood, and all forms of fringe solutions are being advocated by many who refuse to see or believe, or even consider that nature is sorting itself out regardless of all our objections and hypocrisies.

I was on a date with my wife last Sunday, and while we were waiting for our order, we saw this fine man sipping a drink. A few minutes later, we saw his babe arrive. It was obvious he was married, and his babe was a single lady. I turned to my wife and whispered, “I bet that lady’s number one prayer point in church was for God to give her a husband.” My wife looked at me and almost choked on her drink. As a society, we see but pretend not to see, and we know but act as if we don’t. I have travelled to many nations of the world, and sometimes all I do is sit down and watch their human-to-human interactions and relationships there is no difference in human nature, even though there is a big difference in ideologies and religions and cultures, and languages human nature is the same, and this will always be a constant. A thinking woman or a thinking man will take his or her own destiny in his or her own hands and write his own fortunes in BOLD LETTERS. Many reading this will wait for God to write it, and when he doesn’t, they blame God for not doing for them what they ought to do for themselves. It is time we walk out of this great delusion and sort out horizontal issues rather than push them to God while we watch things go so wrong all around us. The Elders at the City gates sorted out issues in Israel with practical solutions. Today, all the elders tell the young ones to go and pray. They also then step out, not in search of practical solutions, but they start running from pastor to imam to alfa and to spiritualist over a horizontal issue that has no spiritual leaning We ought to do better! The daughters of Zelophehad went to Moses to resolve a horizontal issue. Moses gave a practical solution, he didn’t tell them to go and pray. Jesus handled all the cases brought to him and resolved them he never gave any man three days fasting, read a psalm, go to this mountain or go to that pastor. We are dropping the ball by leaving our duties for God to do we must do better.
PS: Some young men and young ladies will never search for a husband or a wife, as I write this, they have met the one. Some have too many asking to marry them, but they are choosing to focus on their career and other plans at the moment some have three or four asking to marry them, and they are praying to be able to choose the right one among the lot. Some have nobody Some are beautiful and have nobody some are not so beautiful, and they have nobody. Some are beautiful, and they have one, but hoping to do better than that one. Some are beautiful, and they have one, and they are willing to do life with that one. Some are rich, and they have the means to help themselves cross this bridge. Some are not rich, and they have no advocate to help them through this process. Fingers are not equal, but every finger can wear a ring if given the right support by the brain. Let us put that Mind of Christ to work and heal this world instead of asking God to come and heal it for us.

-GSW-