Like a Good Father

Cherokee Indian youth's rite of Passage 

When the child enters into puberty, his father takes him into the forest, blindfolds him and leaves him alone.

He is required to sit on a stump the whole night and not remove the blindfold until the rays of the morning sun shine through it.  He cannot cry out for help to anyone.  

Once he  survives the night, he is a MAN.  

He cannot tell the other boys of this  experience, because each lad must come into manhood on his own.

The boy is naturally terrified. He can hear all  kinds of noises. Wild beasts must surely be all around him. Maybe even some humans might  do him harm. The wind blew the grass and trees, and the earth shook his stump, but he sat stoically,  never removing the blindfold.

It would be  the only way he could become a man!

Finally, after a horrific night the sun appeared and he removed his blindfold. 

It was then that he discovered his father sitting on the stump next to him.

He had been at watch the entire night, protecting his son from harm.

We, too, are never alone.

Even when we don't know it,

God is watching over us.

Peace