So I Have Pioneers in My Family...

... and granted, the relationship is fairly distant (my great-grandfather's uncle's grandson, I think), a lot of things in my life are starting to come together (sort of).  It explains a lot about my thinking as a boy, attending a Lutheran church.  This isn't some "recovered memory," it's a long held set of beliefs that just happened to be significantly different than what I was learning from my beloved Pastor Zeltin.  Make no mistake, the Reverend Pastor John Zeltin played an enormous part in the development of my spiritual nature.  His pronounced Russian accent, although clearly understandable, made me listen more intently on what he was saying, to try and find his meanings.

It was because of this that I discovered a dichotomy that even Pastor Zeltin couldn't explain.  This was my thinking (and it holds to this day):  If God was, indeed, our Maker, our "Heavenly Father," as He instructed us, how was it possible for Him to come "with hate," and "with vengeance," against his more wayward children?  When I was young, even though our family wasn't very demonstrative, affection-wise, I knew that because I was his son (Charles Scott Martin), he would do anything, even if it meant his own life, to save me.  My dad never had to say it (although in retrospect, it would have been pretty cool), it was understood.  Simple fact.  Done deal.  When I became a father, I knew I would do anything to save one of my children.  I also know the pain of having one turn his back on me, but I would still do anything to save him, if he would just say he was sorry... to his mom.  Theme sounds kind of familiar, huh?

I couldn't get that idea out of my head, other ordained ministers, like Cotton Mather, write epistles like, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," and I wondered how that could be.  Yeah, I made my Earthly Father angry a couple of times... you buying that?... but never to the point of wanting to inflict any actual harm on me.  Yes, my children have made me angry as well, and it isn't any shock to them, either.  Yet I would do whatever I can possibly do to help them.