During my early years, Mam would ask me, in my father's presence, what I thought of his demonstrations of ill temper. This usually got the effect she was looking for   to humiliate him   but served an undesirable outcome. Because she knew Dad was quick to take offence, she merely exploited his weakness. But attempting to diminish his authority in the family made him angrier still.

Peace became an increasingly scarce commodity in our family. Mam should have been a complement of him, appealing to his better nature as a loving helpmate. But sadly, even life's lesser problems grew out of all proportion. He could find no place within himself for good-natured conversation, so he became a cruel man. Mam would praise him one moment, and mock him the next     until he assumed that outbursts of anger were what were expected of him as a father. But her indignation at having her deceitful motives exposed usually aroused an immediate diatribe, often ending with:  'I love your father,'  and  'I am the one that has to put up with him.'

But true love means "following the commands of God" ⁽⁶⁶⁾ under God's family headship arrangement. ⁽⁶⁷⁾  I have seen male heads of families beg off with innumerable excuses for their disobedience to the Creator's moral and spiritual requirements. Very few have come to know the holy requirements of God and carried them out. For this reason, when God brings to an end all rebellious dispositions of sectarian religion and commercial "Babylon", they will wake to pangs of spirit desolation. As an example of this:  Because Ethiopians today carry on offences against God excessively, even worse than their forefather Manasseh, Almighty God has sent them "four families" of destruction to strike them with plagues until they cease. ⁽⁶⁸⁾

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