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"You kids need to pick up your stuff, and..."

"But, Mom, I already did mine."

You know how it is. Amidst those who hadn't done their chores, there's one who's ahead of the game.

"So, I guess I'm not talking to you if you've finished, am I?" Sometimes people put the shoe on when it doesn't fit.

One of the reasons I wish people and parents specifically would listen to what God has to say about parenting is because I see where much of our society has lost the pattern of being a family.

Like many things we have no idea what a good family would look like, or what good parenting looks like. Two people living together and having children, a home and family does not make.

When Old Fuzzy and I threw our matches in the kettle together we had some idea of commitment and laying our lives before God. Old Fuzzy's family had been much more together than my fragmented one.

At least I had my grandparents example, and my mother did have her strong points.

When coupled with our Christian faith, and what I had seen when growing up I knew what I wanted. We also had a general idea of family life. And that's what we aimed for.

It was during some of my self-examination over my relationship with my mom that I made several observations.

My mom passed from this life when she was fifty-eight years old. I was at that time twenty-eight. We had five children, the youngest being an eight month old baby. At that stage in life I had to confront the specter of traumas past.

One can only imagine some of the feelings and emotions from my youth, but what it finally came down to the nitty gritty I was blessed with a revelation from the Lord.

At least I'm going to credit Him with it. It went like this:

At one time my mom was the very same age I am today. She was young, had to make decisions and she didn't have scripture and/or God's counsel to fall back on.

She was out there making decisions that seemed 'right in her own eyes'. Of course she had left school in her early years, maybe as young as sixteen. In our family that would have meant finding a way to support herself.

At some point she hired out to help a farm wife, perhaps with the canning of produce. After that job was done she hitch hiked between one to two hundred miles back home.

She also lived in Des Moines, our capital city for a time and worked for a name brand department store. Sometime she worked in the the small town north of my grandparents farm, and at the war plant. The gist is she learned to hustle to pay for necessities. Sometimes it was easy, most times it wasn't.

She met a man several years older than her and fell for his sweet-talking ways and they were married. In the progression of time they had one cute as a button child, then there was a divorce and she had one daughter.

It wasn't long before she married again. They lost a baby boy then had a rambunctious baby girl. Within three months she was by herself with two girls.

Alone and in a far state away from family, she was pulled to come back closer to home. There wasn't such a thing as daycare back then, and she must have reasoned at least she could leave her girls at the farm and they would be safe.

She married one more man—twice. That probably took her into her early to mid thirties. I'm sure that wasn't how she had envisioned her life. And thank God we girls had our grandpa and grandma and the farm.

Even though single parenting is cited as being one of the worst things for children, in our society it is rampant. It isn't always what people envision for their lives, but it happens.

Death of a marriage partner isn't planned either, but it happens. This is part of this fallen sinful world. If Adam and Eve hadn't fallen for Satan's original lie, death wouldn't have entered the world nor would have sin.

Back on Jordan Peterson's '12 Rules...', Rule 2, Treat yourself like someone you are responsible for helping. Peterson is not the only one who uses the R word in the realm of this life.

There are those who scoff at the idea of prayer, but it does and will help. Every day we need to buck up and look up. If we live as if we're trying to do what's right and walking in prayer with God that's more than half of the way.

1 Peter 1:3 "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4) To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you..."