Dinah and Jacobs Continued Journey

Jacob bowed down and asked for forgiveness to his brother Esau by calling himself "Your Servant" as well as begs God to help him with the situation with his brother. When Esau and Jacob finally meet up once again Esau forgives Jacob for his wrong doing. What a brother! We all have to remember this one. When we want to counter our fear all we have to do is to remember God's wonderful grace.

How I feel so sorry for Dinah. Here is this beautiful girl and she gets violated by this man. I can not imagine how Jacob must have felt about the situation and his daughter. But no matter what he felt inside, he remained calm and collected. We need to take a lesson here from Jacobs words and mannerisms. He was so calm about it and instead of flying off the handle and doing something rash that he would later on regret he calmly rationalizes and makes a deal with the perpetrator and his family. Unfortunately her brothers did just the opposite by killing all the Canaanite and Perizzite men. How unfortunate for their rash decisions that later they will regret!

Right before Rachel dies she gives Jacob just one more son. Now Jacob has his 12 tribes complete. Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah. Issachar. Zebulum, Joseph, Benjamin, Dan, Maphtali, Gad and Asher. Whew, what a family. Plus lets not forget the girls he also has. Now with the 12 tribes in place God changes Jacobs name to reflect this new nation that will now be grown and known.

You can plainly see that our own experiences and our own actions can surely influence our family and others. As I have pointed out over and over again about how much this family lies. Each one learning from their father. We need to remember that this still applies today. Our children look at us daily. Even more so for those of us who homeschool. We influence our children even more because we are around them 24 hours a day. For those who go to school, the influence changes more towards peers, but our influence is still there. How we react towards situations and how we may tell those little white lies... the kids pick up on it. Next time you are yelling at your kids for something they did or their attitude, you have to ask yourself where they learned that action or response etc. School or more likely you?

The one thing this family really has understood is that knowing God gives your life a sense of meaning, a senses of peace and sense of calmness no matter what the circumstances are. Even if that means the experiences in life are tragic.