Category Archives: Children

Endless Ideas

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Emerald beach girlAfter having granddaughter Emerald with me for a week, my appreciation for children has had a fresh infusion of delight. The two of us fell into a happy routine of church day camp every morning and beach time every afternoon.

Between those events, we dug out the old craft bin and generated original artwork. We also refreshed our fairy garden in the front yard and arranged plastic animal families on the back deck.

 

Emerald's artwork

Whenever Emerald said, “Hey, I’ve got a good idea!” I knew a blessing was about to come my way. Parents frequently have too much to do and are flying fast through their days. But grandparents often have the time to say, “Good idea! Let’s try that.”

One evening while I was tidying up my sewing box, Emerald reached for my old pin cushion and said, “MeeMee, can I use this? ‘Cuz I’ve got a good idea!”

 

 

Pin cushion.I handed her the tomato-shaped ball full of straight pins. Without saying a word, she carefully removed all the pins and put them in a neat pile. Then, while softly singing a variety of songs, she began sticking the pins back into the tomato in what seemed to be random order.

When she finished, however, she turned the pin cushion toward me and said, “Wasn’t this a good idea?” I had to agree. My pin cushion never looked cuter.

Pin cushionI’ve used that tomato since it belonged to Mom many decades back, and never once did I think of making a face with the pins. Leave it to a child…

Sometimes God impresses us in a similar way — but better. And he seems never to do anything the same way twice. After all, look at his measureless originality in creating mankind. Even identical twins aren’t identical people. And because he never runs out of new ideas, he often works on us or leads us in ways we’ve never seen before… and may struggle to understand.

This might be why we sometimes resist what he’s doing. “It doesn’t make sense,” we say. “It just isn’t logical.” But God’s logic stretches so far beyond ours that even if we lived well into our 100’s and had the wisdom of age, we’d never figure him out.

So, when we ask God to guide us in some way, we can skip suggesting how he might do that. Instead we should leave the how-to up to him, while watching for something completely unexpected to happen. And that will most likely be related to our request…

…because when God says, “Hey, I’ve got a good idea!” it’s always a really good one.

“Call to me and I will answer you. I’ll tell you marvelous and wondrous things that you could never figure out on your own.” (Jeremiah 33:3, The Message)

These boots are made for walkin’ .

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Our son Hans, living in England with his British wife Katy, has a big family — eight in all. This gives me cause for great joy, because six of them are my grandchildren.

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Having all these youngsters, ages nine and under, demands tremendous organization. I’ve been repeatedly thankful that Katy has a knack for keeping their lives in order. That goes for shoes and boots, too.

BootsSince this family lives in north England, rain is plentiful, along with a steady need for boots. They call them “wellies” after Britain’s Wellington boots, popular in the UK since the early 1800’s — for farming, hunting, and, in this case, puddle-jumping. Of course as the children grow, there’s a need for wellies in virtually every size.

Little Jonathan, 15 months old, had just come into his first pair of wellies when I was there recently. Though the boots were still a bit big on him, he wanted to be like his older siblings and wear them out to play.

Every so often, though, his foot would slip half way out of a boot, causing his next step to be a big stumble. An ankle-fold-over was the inevitable result, along with a plunge to the pavement, accompanied by some level of damage – skinned forehead, chin, cheek, or nose, and sometimes all of them. This was especially true when he was trying to walk his wellies on bumpy pavement.

His wobbly walking reminded me of the Bible verse that says if we fully trust in God’s wisdom rather than our own, he’ll make our paths straight. (Proverbs 3:5-6) But it also reminded me of another verse that says the Lord can keep us from stumbling.

JonathanBeing new on his feet and new in his wellies, Jonathan sometimes did more stumbling than walking, suffering injuries and the tears that went with them.

How nice for us to know that if we do things God’s way, we won’t have to stumble through life but can walk on the straight path he promises to make for us. That’s not to say we won’t experience hardship, but we won’t have to suffer self-inflicted injuries or the tears that accompany them when we stumble spiritually, falling away from God’s straight path.

It won’t take long for Jonathan to grow into his wellies, and if we’re smart, we’ll waste no time letting God have his way in our lives. After that, our stumbling and the tears that come with it will be kept to a minimum.

“To him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy… be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord…” (Jude 1:24-25)

One Quick Question

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A few days ago, I returned from two lively weeks with son Hans, his wife Katy, and their six children, in England. They home educate these children and are doing their best to raise them to know and love the Lord.

British Nymans

Every evening, after baths/showers and just before bedtime, Katy finds her way to the piano bench and begins playing their “hymn of the week,” the signal to gather for family worship. The children are each given a paper copy of the hymn, even those too young to read, and by the end of each week, they’ve all got it memorized.

Jonathan and LizzieAfterwards, Katy removes the two youngest, ages 15 months (Jonathan) and 3 (Lizzie), taking them upstairs for a children’s Bible story. The others stay with Hans for a more advanced study time, taking turns reading verses out loud. Then Hans gives a 15 minute commentary on the Scripture, leads in prayer, and it’s off to bed.

The evening before I returned home, I was happily anticipating our worship time with Hans and the older set, eagerly looking forward to hearing his thoughts and sharing in the discussion.

Though the children (ages 9, 8, 8, and 4) were supposed to wait till after Hans had explained the passage before asking their many questions, on this night Evelyn shot up her hand.

“Please, Daddy, just one little, tiny, quick question before I read the verses.”

“OK,” he said. “One quick one.”

“What’s prostitution?”

I caught Hans’ eye and we read each other’s thoughts. “Little… tiny… quick?” But Evelyn had asked with sincerity and was quietly waiting for an answer. Thankfully she’d already been told about the birds and the bees, so Hans started there.

“Well… you know what we talked about between a man and a woman… when they’re married. And prostitution is when someone pays money for sex.”

Before he could fully explain, though, Evelyn put up her hand.

“Who pays the money?”

Hans forged ahead. “The man,” he said.

At that moment he decided to try a diversion, going back to the Garden of Eden to detail God’s plan for marriage.

 

EvelynBut Evelyn (at right) pressed her point. “So, is it not right to have sex if you have to pay?”

“That’s right,” he said, searching for a way to end this “quick” discussion.

“But,” Evelyn said, “why would a man pay a woman to have sex?”

Drawing a deep breath he said, “Because it’s fun.”

As Evelyn took in this new information, she repeated it, half to herself. “It’s fun?”

“You know what?” Hans said. “Your little, tiny, quick question has used up most of our Bible time, and we’re going to finish this discussion later. Right now, it’s time for prayer.”

“OK, Daddy,” she said, “but I’ve been reading in Song of Solomon that…”

At this point Hans interrupted her with a simple statement. “Let’s pray.” And that was that.

“Listen to your father, who gave you life.” (Proverbs 23:22)