“This command I entrust to you, Timothy, my son, in accordance with the prophecies previously made concerning you, that by them you fight the good fight.” 1 Timothy 1:18 (NASB 1995)
Yesterday I watched four-yearold Ivy play on the sidewalk. It’s already hot in Texas, and she wanted to put on her swimsuit and play with the water hose. As I watched her, a thought struck that surprised me. I thought, “It must be so wonderful to be Ivy because she doesn’t spend a second of her day thinking hateful thoughts about her body.” All she knows about her body is that it runs fast. It jumps high. It showcases princess dresses, and it helps her play with toys, paint, color, and do all of things that make her life fun.
“Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go forth from your country,
Four year old Ivy wants to dance in church. As the pastor’s wife, I’ve been in the habit of sitting on the front row for many years now, and when those guitars get going and that little preschooler starts to want to twirl and kick, well, I spend a good portion of the service talking her down from putting on a mighty fine performance at the front of the church.
Sometimes I think about how different my mom’s childhood was from my own, not because she was born almost three decades earlier, but because her dad died in an accident when she was only four years old. She lived her whole life without knowing the love of a dad or experiencing the unique ways that good dads tend to challenge and encourage us. She had a good one. But she missed him.
213 E. Main St.
PO Box 577
Olney, Texas 76374
Phone: (940) 564-5558
Fax: (940) 564-3992