YOUTH KILLING YOUTH

Grant Swank* | February 15, 2008  |

J. Grant Swank, Jr.

“The gunman who fatally shot five students before killing himself in a Northern Illinois University lecture hall had planned his murder spree almost a week in advance, investigators said Friday.

“The graduate student bought two of his four guns at a Chmpaign, Ill. gun store Saturday —indicating that he had been planning his assault for at least six days, police said.

“Stephen Kazmierczak, 27, a one-time undergraduate and award-winning sociology graduate student at NIU who campus Police Chief Donald Grady said was ‘revered by faculty and staff’ and gave ‘no indication that this was the type of person who would engage in this activity’” per ABCNews’ Richard Esposito, Russell Godlman and Barbara Pinto.

I feel for the parents of the youths who kill other youths–in schools, shopping centers, you-name-it.

I truly know what it is like to be a parent who has no one to call, no where to go, when it comes to a child in the house who is out of control.

I, a minister, have delivered plenty of sermons on home and family. I have done my share of setting forth the sure-fire principles which, when worked, would insure a happy Christian home. I have pronounced with conviction what I would do if any of my children ever got out of line.

And you have done the same, if you are a parent.

Yet, reality has certainly set in with some of us, and it is has not been pleasant. The truth has come home that there are specific life situations which are simply out of a parent’s control. . .truly.

You cry out to God. You read your Bible. You play head games to get through the day. You talk with confidants. You cry.

You plan respites for breathers. You go another round of love-and-discipline with that child who could not care less if you lived or died. And in some cases, you become so embroiled in the mess that you and your spouse divorce, simply because the irrational pressures have ruined marital relationships, too.

With youth-killing-youth atrocities in the news, I have rethought my own experiences and decided that there are simply some myths that have to be wiped out once and for all:

(l) Christian homes don’t have real problems. Give me a break and fill in your own reality blanks to that one.

(2) Pastors’ homes WILL raise perfect kids. Give me another break and tell me why that
clergy’s children should be any different than laypersons’ children, except perhaps a bit worse since they grow up learning of all the betrayals endured by their parsonage parents.

(3) If you do the right things–love and discipline in perfect balance–your kids will turn out okay. Oh sure. Check out Prophet Samuel’s lifestyle–perfect in the sight of God. Then check out his three rebellious sons who drove themselves to hell.

(4) If you expose your offspring to all the Dobson videos and subscribe to all the Focus on the Family youth magazines and listen to Christian radio all day long as well as attend church services every time the lights are on, your children will not give you grief. Right. In some situations, it works beautifully. In others, it bombs terribly.

(5) If you write the house rules on your child’s retinas, he will get the clear message and live up to your expectations. Obviously, if you believe that eye surgery, you have not yet come
upon the offspring who rips out his own retinas and transplants those of his own choosing.

(6) If you give your darling all that her little heart desires, she will grow up to appreciate your kindness and live out thankfulness till you leave the planet in old age. Ah-hah. Need one say more?

(7) If you take in that adopted or wayward or deformed baby and give that precious life the best that you can offer in the name of God, that one will grow up to be a Jesus follower, determined to give back to you what you have invested in his life for good. Sometimes it works; sometimes it doesn’t.

And, by the way, about that myth that adopted children are a real genes / chromosomes enigma so as more readily to skip traces than biological children, think again. There are plenty of violent bio kids to prove that conclusion patently false. (Cain was not an adopted child).

Then what is the bottom line to all of this?

(l) We live in a spiritually fallen world where there are kids who can really get wasted. It’s been happening since nice-guy Abel fell to the ground in his own blood; bro did it.

(2) Each person has his own free will by which he can go right or wrong. No one can make another person do anything, finally, no matter what the positive influences.

(3) There are those children who grow up in the worst of circumstances, yet go on to produce exemplary, admirable adult lives, some of them even Christians.

(4) Having done our best as parents, we may still be driven to hell and back by our own self-driven, stubborn children.

(5) Having done our Christian best as parents, we can at least have the clean conscience by which to face God at the judgment, realizing that we have indeed seen through His agenda, no matter what the cost.

(6) There are some hell-cat children who do wise up later on so as to live for Jesus and go to heaven.

(7) “Train up a child in the way he should go and. . .he will not depart from it.” That’s true. Once you have lived out the Christian life before your children, even if they conclude to damn their souls, they cannot depart from that godly upbringing. It will haunt them even at the judgment. In other words, your hands will be clean.


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