Armenian Love Relationships

[Garcia Miller]

My boyfriend and I recently broke up, he is Armenian, and I am Latina. He told me that it was too much for me to ask to continue being together, he would rather be single than deal with the pressures of his family for being with me. I have already made it clear I am more than willing to learn how to speak Armenian, cook Armenian dishes, and learn about their culture. But he still feels that we can't be together. I truly love him but I want to know if he is telling the truth when he says that biracial couples are just not possible with Armenians.

Of the many talks I frequently give, there are two which have received themost favorable response and the most fruitful application among young and oldalike.The first is "How to Be Free from Bitterness" and the second is"Relationships with Parents." Right now I am sitting in a study roomat the Illinois Street Residence Hall at the University of Illinois. Last week,at Urbana '93, I conducted a workshop on "Relationships with Parents."Only about 50 students attended the workshop (both sessions). The shock, theincredulity, the rebellion, and the impossibility of putting this teaching intoeffect showed in the tears, the questions, the comments, and the follow-upconversations. This is why I am here writing it down.I would first like to draw your attention to two passages in the OldTestament. I will first comment on them and then I will make a few suggestionsfor applying these Scriptures in your life.

You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to thousands who love me and keep my commandments. (Deut. 5:8-10) Yet you ask, "Why does the son not share the guilt of his father?" Since the son has done what is just and right and has been careful to keep all my decrees, he will surely live. The soul who sins is the one who will die. The son will not share the guilt of the father, nor will the father share the guilt of the son. The righteousness of the righteous man will be credited to him, and the wickedness of the wicked will be charged against him. (Ezek. 18:19-20)

armenian love relationships

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I have heard the following many times. "I had decided I was not going tobe the kind of father (or mother) who raised me. I would become a Christian,marry a Christian, and do it right. I became a Christian, married a Christianand I am doing it wrong, just like my parents. I am in the second bad newsgeneration; do I have to wait for two more bad news generations before there isa possibility of turning this descent around?" No, you do not have to wait,but unless you change your relationship with your parents and grandparents youwill have to wait two more generations. Becoming a Christian and preaching thegospel to your parents does not change the relationship. Home, with parents, isone of the places where Christians think that they are allowed to lose theirtemper. The relationship then gets worse.About 400 years before Christ, the prophet Malachi gave a negativeconditional prophecy. It is found in the last two verses in the Old Testament. See, I will send you the prophet Elijah before the great and dreadful day of the Lord comes. He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers; or else I will come and strike the land with a curse. (Malachi 4:5-6)The angel Gabriel alludes to a portion of this prophecy in Luke 1:17 - And he [John] will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.Notice: To stop the curse from happening, hearts must be turned both ways.Although most of my illustrations are speaking to and about children, I amreally speaking to parents about their relationship with their own parents. Ifyou are a Christian parent, turn your heart toward your parents, and turn yourheart toward your children.Now we will look at the second instance in the Ten Commandments where we readof generations. Honor your father and mother, as the Lord your God has commanded you, so that you may live long and that it may go well with you in the land the Lord your God is giving you. (Deut. 5:16)Application is next:

• Love God (Deut. 5:9)
• Obey God (Deut. 5:9)
• Honor your father and mother (Deut. 5:16)
• Turn your hearts to your fathers (Malachi 4:5-6)

Because we have not obeyed the two passages in the Ten Commandments, we may bein the third-and-fourth-generation promise and we will not live long on theearth (cf. Eph. 6:1). The land is in danger of being smitten with a curse. TheMalachi text is a call to repentance - a turn-around of the heart.I will now offer a few suggestions on how to have a heart repentance thatwill

• stop the curse
• cause long life
• turn the three or four generations of bad news around to a thousand generations of good news.

First, there are a few things that are very important in this turn around, butthey alone are not sufficient for true repentance. Though they are necessary torepentance, they alone bring no automatic guarantee of halting the curse.

• Become a Christian. Without a conversion to Christ, it is impossible to love and obey God.
• Marry a Christian. Without a Christian marriage you have no assurance that you will have Christian children.
• Stay married: "To the married I give this command:...A wife must not separate from her husband... And a husband must not divorce his wife" (1 Cor. 7:10,11).

Without these three you can expect more bad generations. However, with them, thebad generations may still happen. Why? Because your prior generations stillaffect you and your children. Leaving your father and mother and cleaving toyour wife does not mean that you have turned your heart to your father. Untilthat happens you are asking for another generation of bad news. You cannotexpect to be a good husband or a good father if you have not turned your heartto your father.In turning your heart to your father, four elements are necessary. Preachingthe gospel to him is not one of them; do no do so, for this subverts hisauthority over you. Instead, you may write a letter to him that conveys each ofthese four elements. I recommend covering one element per paragraph as follows:1. If you have confessed to God your previous rebellion to your fatheror mother, then also confess it to your earthly father with no excuses oraccusations.2. In this letter tell your father how much you respect him. If you donot respect him then of course you cannot write it without being hypocritical.But you must write it. How? First confess to God this disrespect for yourfather. "Why should I?" you ask, "for he has not earned it!"The Scripture says, "Honor your father and mother." It does not say,"only if they deserve it." Your father is to be honored because he isyour father. You are commanded to honor him. This is not optional. If you do nothonor him, then you have sinned. The same is true with your mother. Sin isforgivable and repentance is required.
After you have confessed your disrespect or lack of honor foryour father and you are sure you are forgiven, then choose to respect him. Youmay ask, "How? He is not respectable?" Respect has nothing to do withthe respectability of the person to be respected. It has to do with therespecter and the respecter's close fellowship with and obedience to God.
Now with freedom and sincerity, write to your father how muchyou respect him in this second paragraph.3. In the third paragraph you tell him how much you love him. If you donot love him then that has to be corrected first. Your reply may be, "Hedid not love me so I do not love him." If this is the case, it is true thatas a father he should have loved you so that your response would have been aloving response. But we cannot go back to childhood and start over. Even if wecould, that does not mean that your father would do it any different the secondtime. We address the problem from where we are, not from where we should be. Youare now an adult, and as a Christian you have an unlimited access to love andforgiveness. If you do not have this access there is a very real possibilitythat you are not a Christian. As a Christian you may have to confess this lackof love for your father to God. Is it sin? Yes, it is sin. It is disobedience tothe command of God. We have been commanded to love our neighbors, love thebrothers, and love our enemies. If you do not think your father fits in one ofthese categories then perhaps you should study the unconditional quality of loveand the biblical relationship of obedience and love.
After you have confessed and have been forgiven then chooseto love your father. This love requires expression, so tell him in thisparagraph.4. The next paragraph is the place to express your gratefulness to him.If you are not grateful, then as with respect and love, it is your problem, nothis. The procedure is the same. You confess your un-thankfulness to God. Whenyou are forgiven, express your thankfulness to your father.
These four elements are necessary and required. The next two are suggestions forfurther ways to convey respect. Ask your father to tell you or write to you hisautobiography, his life history. He might not do it, but he will be glad youwant to know about him. Ask him for advice and counsel, in general and specificmatters. This is part of honor.Also write the same kind of letter to your mother, but with one change. Thefirst paragraph should express your love to her and the second paragraph shouldcommunicate your respect for her. Both sexes of the human race need love andrespect from both sexes. Of the two, women need love more than they need respectand men need respect more than they need love. However, each needs both and theyshould not have to earn it in order to receive it.This letter should be followed up with other kind personal letters, hugs, andother physical expressions (e.g., handshakes, if they are warm, firm, andexuberant).The letter can be followed up with an explanation so long as the explanationdoes not include excuses and accusations. Here is a suggestion: "Dad, Iknow that you love me very much. You have not been the best expresser of yourlove. So growing up I did not think you loved me. Even now I have had to take itby faith. If you wondered why I was boy crazy from junior high through college,I think it was because I was looking for male affection. Of course I did not getit. I was getting taken. Now you are wondering about my letter to you and all ofthe hugs you are getting from me when I come to visit. Although I now have ahusband and children, I still need my father and you need me. That's why I amhere hugging you. I thought I would prime the pump. I'm giving to receive."Adjust this example to fit you.When your parents receive these two letters, several things will probablyhappen.

• The letter will be read more than once.
• It will not be thrown away.
• You will receive some sort of favorable response.

If you do not receive a response, do not think that you did something wrong. Bepatient and keep on giving. Some cultures are not expressive with theiremotions, except for lost tempers (e.g., those of Northern Europe). This kind ofexpression from you may be embarrassing for your parents. But they still want toreceive this expressed love even if they do not know how to return it.One man in his late fifties wrote this kind of letter to his father. Hismother replied, "I have been married to your father for sixty years. Whenhe read your letter, it is the first time in our marriage I saw tears in hiseyes."In the early 1980's we held a summer school of practical Christianity atDelta House of the University of Idaho. About 40 students attended. Respect forparents was one subject that was taught. The following fall in a noon Bibleclass at Washington State University I was teaching on the same subject again.One of the students spoke up. He gave us a story that went something like this. "I learned this last summer at the Delta House. When I was sixteen my father kicked me out of the house and told me to leave, saying that he would never see me again. I left home. I later become a Christian and married a Christian. Now I am a graduate student in economics at WSU. In the meantime I had not seen my father. My parents were on the brink of divorce, living in separate bedrooms at home (in one of the Great Plains states). When I learned this I wrote two letters, one to my father and one to my mother. It took me several days to write each one, so they were sent several days apart. For some reason the letters arrived on the same day, and both my parents were at home. Seeing that the letters were addressed separately, my mother took her letter to her room and my father took his letter to his room. After reading the letters, they exchanged them and went again to their separate rooms and read. When the came out my father had tears in his eyes and said, 'I'm flying out to Pullman to see my son.' I have seen my father since last summer and my parents' marriage has been saved."There are two problems, the heart problem and the action problem. The heartproblem is first. Your unlove, your disrespect, your ungratefulness has to betaken care of in repentance toward God. To write a letter without being forgivenby God only means that your letter will be insincere and hypocritical.You may have a long wait if you wait for your father to turn to you first.You cannot afford the wait.After you are clean, write the letters. Then continue letter writing,telephoning and visiting, expressing respect, love and thankfulness.Doing these things will change you. You will become a better husband, son andfather and a better wife, daughter and mother. Your love and obedience willbring love for a thousand generations.

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