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Sirach 7:25 "Give a daughter in marriage; you will have finished a great task. But give her to a man of understanding."

 

This is good advice, but what do we do when our daughters are not particularly interested in men of understanding, or even, sometimes, men in general? And what if men of understanding are scarce on the ground? Having both a daughter and sons, I see both of these problems in real time. My children have been convinced that what I believe (actually, what I know) to be good, is bad or wrong, and what I see as wrong, bad, troublesome, or indicating a lack of understanding, is good. I blame myself somewhat for this state of affairs, I was not nearly as faithful nor as in pursuit of the truth when I was raising my children as I am trying to be now. I naively tended to trust that our children would adopt our way of seeing the world, and that the world would, in general, support that point of view. I have come to realize that I was greatly mistaken, especially about the world. The world was just waiting for an opportunity to pump all kinds of lies into my children's heads, and for some reason they were ready to receive those lies.

 

I love my children immensely, and pray for their salvation every day. As much as I want them to be happily married, though, I don't want them to get married in their current states. I want them to become people of understanding first, so that they will seek spouses of understanding, not ones who have also been corrupted by the lies the world is telling right now. Fortunately, my children are thoughtful and moral people, so I trust that this change will happen. And God is answering my prayers for them now by telling me to wait. Things will happen in the right time, and, with God's grace, my husband and I will have finished a great task, even if we didn't start out too well when we took it on.