And the truth shall set you free.

I’ve said this all my life long with great satisfaction and with very little evidence. I’ve thought that the truth could set us free to choose something and oppose something else. We can choose good in all its forms, or evil in the multiplicity of its seductions, and the temptations of compromising evil spirits. It is a lifetime’s work which will continue throughout eternity. We will not be good in a flash. I remember attending the funeral of a prominent member of another denomination. It was said in the eulogy that what he was most looking forward to was sharing in Christ’s glory. And I thought, ‘No, no, it doesn’t work like that.’ And I was happy that we had doctrines to protect us against such distortions of the truth.

What I had not anticipated was the unwelcome intrusion of pain, and its entitled claims on my life. After all, we are born, not for ourselves, but for others, and here was my pain , insisting on its claims to my time and attention. It was alarming, to say the least.

Let me explain. Two years ago I had a foot reconstruction. Doesn’t sound like much, but it involved four operations in one – one to insert a stainless steel plate with eight screws, one to fashion a bone bridge on the top of the foot, and one to cut chips of ankle bone away to insert in the bridge to keep the foot steady. The fourth one merely cut and extended a tendon. This all took two and a half hours to make me a new woman. I woke with a woozy hoorah that it was all over and stepping it out would be my new normal. Wrong! The surgeon performed a very good operation, but he was no match for the arthritis and gout that attacked the damaged bones. He admitted to me afterwards, ‘I can do the operation, but I cannot control the healing’. He is a lovely man and most times he wins through. But this time he didn’t. I confess that I entered the ‘poor little me’ zone and succumbed to that most unpleasant zone of being – self pity. 

My sister recently had her first baby and it was deeply powerful watching a younger sibling step into that new role of mother. The birth of a baby is inevitably miraculous–how could it not be? But when it’s also the birth of loved ones into parents, I found that to be so much more powerful and inspiring than I was expecting. 

Watching my sister and brother-in-law go from expecting parents to parents in reality, and seeing the love for this new tiny person blossom into something tangible and tender and primal and beautiful–it’s just profound. And it brings me back to the way the Lord is looking at us, loving us, celebrating and marveling at each new development and state. He loves each new baby indescribably more than their new adoring parents do. He already loved the parents that way. Their joy at this new phase of life is a tiny drop in the pool of the Lord’s pleasure at our joy, and at the birth of a new angel in potential. 

It’s hard for me to grasp how much the Lord loves me, loves all of us. But the thing that brings me the closest to understanding is witnessing and experiencing the love of parents for their children. I’m sure I’m not alone there. 

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you.” (Jeremiah 1:5)

The first article I ever wrote for New Christian Woman was entitled, “Teething.” It described my first experience comforting a child who was cutting new molars and how it helped me understand a little better just how much the Lord loves us and wishes to ease our pain. The toddler who was the inspiration for that article is now in kindergarten and has her first loose tooth. I must have blinked.

This milestone has left me feeling more nostalgic than I would have expected. After all, it’s just a tooth. It’s not like she’s leaving for college or getting married or even getting her ears pierced. But I got a little choked up when I saw that tiny tooth wiggling precariously in my daughter’s mouth. A piece of her is about to be gone. Her body is finished with it and making room for a bigger tooth. This is how it’s supposed to work. 

And as silly as it is, my child’s dental development has once again nudged me into looking a little deeper at how this mini milestone correlates to our spiritual growth. I guess the Lord prompts us to muse over important things in unexpected ways.

Baby teeth seem almost pointless. We have them for such a tiny fraction of our lives – why bother with them at all?  But no part of our design is an accident. Not only do baby teeth help us chew our first solid foods, they also serve as placeholders. They ensure that our mouths have enough room for the adult teeth to eventually grow. 

My household has undergone many ups and downs since the lockdown started.  For us in South Africa, the country went into lockdown in early April, but life had been disrupted for several weeks even before that. School and normal family routines were all thrown into the air.  I’ve tried several versions of new routines: some where I just let the kids do whatever they wanted, some where I was scheduling and managing every hour.  I’ve continued to change and juggle the routine as life continues changing – sometimes on what feels like a daily basis! But one of the things that has come out of all this is a new routine of reading the Bible with my kids.

As a family reading the Bible has always been at least an occasional part of our routine.  But in the last few years with school taking up more time as the kids moved from pre-primary to primary and even now senior primary grades, our time at home to do additional study has fallen away.  And while I know they are reading the Bible at school I am not in that routine with them.  But since the lockdown and having the kids at home we began to read daily together, and I have been amazed again and again by the experience.  

My kids all enjoy reading, so I wasn’t really surprised to find them excited at the idea of reading together.  But what I have been surprised by is their ability to read even some of the stranger or more violent parts of the Bible and then follow up with insightful and useful discussions.  We spent June reading through Revelation as we led up to New Church Day on June 19th.  We have several picture books which helped to give a more concrete understandings of some of the stranger creatures and scenes described.  But each day my kids were eager to read more, to understand more, to find passages they recognized, and to discuss the strange beasts and the terrifying plagues.  I remember reading through Revelation as a child and feeling confused but enjoying it, but I don’t remember expressing the enthusiasm my kids regularly share with me.  

When I decided to make daily Bible reading a part of our routine I expected the kids to hesitate or whine.  But I have been thoroughly enjoying my time to connect with them and watch their enjoyment as they find new Bible stories to wonder over or light up as they read a verse or a story they’ve learned about before.  It is an experience that I’m already holding on to as a bright spot in these stormy times.