Jamar (J2) who is 10 and Jermaine (Main) who is 9 were born on the exact same day, June 29th one year apart. They instinctively defend each other outside the home, but they get into it a lot at home. Their parents Amour and Jamar the first, lived together but never married and separated last year. Their father, Jamar, whom people refer to as “J” was in and out of jail when the boys were very young, but he always remained active in their lives from the time they were born. His sons were his pride and joy and they stuck to their dad like a stamp to a letter. It was because of them that he made a decision to turn his life around.
The bond that J2 and Main had reminded J
of his relationship with his younger brother, Mason (Mace). As kids they were at each other too, but they
defended one another instinctively. Their
parents instilled the love of God, family and each other in them from the time
they were toddlers. As they got older they grew closer and to this
day as grown men, they are best friends.
There isn’t anything that they wouldn’t do for each other.
Mace is just as close to his son, Pop
(Mason, Jr.) who is 9. He is no longer
with his baby’s momma either, but they a unique co-parenting relationship. For example: Avalon, Pop’s mother, went to
jail when he was five years old for a few months. Mace not only cared for Pop, he also became
the caretaker for Avalon’s oldest son, Tank. He ensured they were on time for school, he
cooked, cleaned, made groceries, bought their clothes, signed them up for
basketball and football, made sure their homework was complete and went to
school functions. He put the boys’ needs
before his own with no regrets at all.
J was concerned about J2 and Main’s
constant bickering and fighting.
Whenever they got into it, J would fuss at them and depending on how bad
it was they might get more than a talking to.
J and Mace decided to take the boys on an outing, which wasn’t rare at
all except this time, they decided to do some male bonding away from the house
and the urban jungle. They decided on
the Scandia which had go carts and arcades.
When they arrived, the Dads laid out the rules, gave them their arcade
tokens and let them explore on their own under their watchful eye. J and Mace were big kids at heart and they
had just as much fun as the boys, competing with each other and competing with
their sons.
When they took a pizza break, Mace and J
told the boys a bible story they learned from their childhood: After David had finished talking with Saul,
he met Jonathan, the king’s son. There was an immediate bond between them, for
Jonathan loved David. 2 From that day on Saul kept David with him and
wouldn’t let him return home. 3 And
Jonathan made a solemn pact with David, because he loved him as he loved
himself. 4 Jonathan sealed the pact by
taking off his robe and giving it to David, together with his tunic, sword,
bow, and belt. 1 Samuel 18: 1-4 (NLT)
Mace interpreted the story like this:
“There was a youngster named David who loved God with all of his heart. He was in charge of his father’s sheep,
making sure they were able to eat the grass in the fields, he protected them
from wild animals like bears and lions and if any of them got lost he would
look for them until he found them. He
did a really good job because he never lost a sheep. This is the same David that killed
Goliath. Not long after killing Goliath,
King Saul’s son, Jonathan, became best friends with David. They hung out all the time and Jonathan
started teaching him all kinds of stuff about the new lifestyle he was living in
the King’s home. Jonathan and David were
so close that they loved each other more than they did their own brothers. They had each others back all the time. To prove their loyalty they swore that they
would never betray each other and no matter what, they would never hurt each
other or each others families. To seal
the promise and prove how serious he was about his loyalty, Jonathan gave David
some of his royal clothing. David was a
poor kid from the ghetto, he didn’t have anything to Jonathan except his word
that he would never betray him, lie on him or cheat him or his family in any
way.
Good friends like that are hard to find
so when you find someone that’s got your back, you need to make sure you
protect that friendship. That’s how close
yawl need to be to each other. You need
to have each others back. Don’t let
people come in between you guys because you are family and family comes first,
just like me and J. We are brothers, we
are friends and we love each other hard even though we are men. We don’t fight each other, we don’t disrespect
each other. If I can’t depend on nobody
else, I know I can depend on my brother.
It don’t matter if it’s holding his money, watching out for you guys, or
handling our business like we did back in the day. We don’t get down like that no more, but you
know what I mean? You understand what
I’m saying? It’s not cool for you guys
to fight each other, yawl are blood, brothers and cousins. We not havin’ this drama with you guys fighting
no more. You’re gonna have to learn how
to work it out (whatever it is) without fighting. It stops today. You hear what I’m saying to
you?” The boys knew exactly what he was
saying.”
J continued story time by telling the
boys about two brothers, the story went like this: “Ok, yawl heard the story about Jonathan and
David who were real tight. Now I wanna
tell you about Cain and Abel. They were
brothers and they loved God, but Abel loved God way more than Cain. One day Abel brought God a gift that really
made God happy. I’m not sure if Cain was
ear hustling or what not but he decided to give God a gift too, but God didn’t
receive it because Cain didn’t give God the entire gift like he knew he should
have and he wasn’t being sincere. Cain
was furious when he found out that God accepted Abel’s gift but reject
his. He became jealous and envious of
his brother so he came up with a plan to kill him. He tricked him into meeting him somewhere and
then he killed his brother for nothing.
These
brothers loved each other but Cain allowed envy and jealousy to turn to hatred. To be jealous means you want something
someone else has on 10 and you’re willing to do whatever to take it. Cain’s selfish thoughts (jealousy and envy)
drove him to kill his brother. God wants
us to love each other. He doesn’t want
us fighting and arguing over stupid stuff, like video games, toys, money, clothes,
girls, friends, etc. You should love
each other enough to walk away and count to 10 or something before
fighting. You can’t use violence as a
way to solve problems. You are all
smart, we expect you to use your brain instead of your fists. Pop looked at his dad and Uncle J and said
“OK. Can we have some more tokens now?’”
In
closing, let’s be found over-loving people; killing them with kindness and
filling the needs of others where we can as long as we are staying within
healthy parameters. We have to make sure
there is balance so that we are not so heavenly minded that we are no earthly
good. Let’s be found encouraging one
another instead of tearing each other down; working out our soul salvation with
fear and trembling, in the center of God’s grace instead of living on the edge
of His grace about to fall off into the abyss of sin, shame and death.
You were
cleansed from your sins when you obeyed the truth, so now you must show sincere
love to each other as brothers and sisters.
Love each other deeply with all your heart. 1 Peter 1:22 (NLT)
In
His Eternal Love
Tan
No comments:
Post a Comment