# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1983_S131
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

ADDRESS: FOCUS ON THE CHRISTIAN FAMILY 133

pain of losing a child, his third child, a daughter who
died in his arms. Yet, weeping bitterly and suffering
greatly, he could say as she was laid in the coffin:
“Darling Lena, you will rise and shine like a star, yea,
like the sun. ... The parting grieves me beyond measure.
_...] have sent a saint to heaven.” (Quoted in Theodore
Jungkuntz, “The Man Luther: Father,” The Lutheran
Witness, June 1983, p. 7).

A friend of mine recently said much the same thing
about the birth of her 10th child. “Well, it was a bit of a
surprise, but I believe God was saying when you get to
heaven and see all of your children there, your regret is
going to be that you didn’t have more of them.”

The family—father, mother, and children—belongs
to God, so it is not surprising that the world will ignore,
ridicule, abandon, and try to replace it, but none of those
is an option for us. If the family is weak, we must
strengthen it. If the family is fractured, we must heal it.

For the Christian family the way to survive and
overcome the current crisis is simply for its members to
live a Christian life—to live daily in our baptism—that
through Christ’s men and Christ’s women, through
Christ’s boys and Christ’s girls, through Christians the
world might clearly see that even in our families—
especially in our families—it is HIM WE PROCLAIM!

Jean Garton, LL.D