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.
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.
Afterwards, 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.
But 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)
Since the early 70’s when we had our first babies, the topic we most talked about (for the next 45 years) was mothering. We shared the highs and – more importantly – the lows. We hashed over problems, exchanged solutions, and recognized God’s ongoing partnership.
Thankfully, Mary left behind many of her opinions and ideas about mothering, and recently I found a sampling. During the years we worked together in the Moody Church nursery, our Nursery Committee put out a quarterly newsletter called the Crib Sheet.
