The most current statistics on marriage and divorce in this country come from the Center for Disease Control. They are quoted by Focus on the Family ministries as having reported that somewhere between 41% and 43% of all marriages in the U.S. will end in divorce. In the city of Monticello it is a fact that nearly 57% of all children in the public school system live in either single parent or no parent homes. The state of the family in America is alarming.

The health of the family unit in America has reached, in my opinion, critical mass. Let’s not generalize. Let me point out one particular family to you. The husband has a wonderful job. The mom gets to stay home and does not have to work. They have the perfect situation. Everything they have wanted is at their fingertips. They had one problem. Both had a temptation to gamble. They had property, job security, everything you could possibly imagine but they couldn’t stay away from the thought that with one roll of the dice that might actually acquire more. And more is what they wanted. So they rolled the dice.

You have to give them some credit. They didn’t make this a long process. They liquidated all their assests and gambled them on one roll. You guessed it, they lost it all!! They were forced to move out of their beautiful surroundings, forfeit their jobs and their livelyhood and they had to resort to manual labor. But they were blessed with two boys so at least they had eachother. The two boys, however, inherited their parents problem; at least one of them did.

The younger of the boys was always wanting more. His older brother would have shared everything he had but the younger never gave him a chance. There was an argument at work. The younger lost him temper and in an act of senseless rage he killed his brother. It’s horrible. Unbelievable. But you can bank on it being the absolute truth. I wouldn’t pass on a rumor. Just to prove it I’ll give you the names so you can discover the truth of it for yourself.

Adam and Eve. Cain and Abel. If the first family was this dysfunctional, why do you think that any family is going to be perfect. Dysfuntional is the norm when it comes to all families. I’ll tell you why; because families are made up of imperfect people who tend to be dissatisfied and sinful and stubborn and selfish and the normal bent for such folks is selfdestruction. And so it is with me and you and every other member of every other family. The point is not that we must guard our families from sin but that we must run to the savior for grace and mercy and practice the same among ourselves.

There are no perfect families. There never have been. There are only families who live in and practice grace and those who do not. So don’t feel sorry for yourself if your family is falling apart and don’t panic because the state of the American family looks dismal. God’s grace and forgiveness covered the sin of the first family on this planet and sustained it through the tough times and it is good enough to cover us and sustain us through the end of time.