Here’s the last stanza:

Holy and blessèd Three,
glorious Trinity,
Wisdom, Love, Might;
boundless as ocean’s tide,
rolling in fullest pride,
through the world far and wide,
let there be light!

We got there early, so she first had to check out the giant red rug decorated with letters and numbers around the border. When all the children arrived, I wasn’t sure what her reaction would be. She is a friendly child and not clingy in the least. She walked up to one little guy who only came up to her chin. “Hi!” she said cheerfully. The cute little boy continued to suck his finger and take Emily in without comment.

The songs all had various hand motions and directions which she didn’t know, so during song time, she settled for jumping up and down the entire time. A shape matching game was next, and she was thrilled to take her colored square up to the magnetic board with the other children. She didn’t want to come back and sit down again, but a word or two brought her back to sit by me. She sat still for the story, but kept looking at all the other children.

Afterwards, she was excited to see a cart rolled out filled with toys the children could play with. She couldn’t make up her mind which one to take, so we took one at a time, and she tried them out.

She gave a breathless and rather garbled account to her daddy over dinner later on. “Toys on cart, jumping up and down, children and barn with cows and horses and songs…” Afterwards, she got a hair cut at the “lady shop” as she calls it, so it was a very exciting morning for a 2-year-old. The library program is 6 weeks long, so we’re going back next week for more fun.

I’ve never been a great proponent of formal early childhood education (preschools) for my own children. Having been able to be home with them, and in that my toddlers have always had a sibling to play with, it was easy to provide all the stimulation and teaching necessary. But Emily’s in a unique situation being like an only. Seeing her delight in the organized program at the library, I think a couple of mornings a week at a Christian preschool would be very helpful to her.

Onlies (or those like Em without near siblings) have to learn how to share, take their turn, and so forth with their peers, and having some experience with other children early will help her do that. Emily is surprisingly confident at this point socially, and hopefully, her sunny personality will help her get along well with her peers for a little play and learning time.

In the mean time, I have to admit it is a lot of fun, if a little surreal, to be standing with other moms, stomping and clapping along with our toddlers to, “If you’re happy and you know it…” Yes, being mama to a little girl makes me happy, and I know it!

P.S. The Valentine’s party plans continue apace. Emmy tells me that we will have candles with fire (lit candles) on the heart cake. Balloons as well. Some pink and red streamers should add a nice touch, and don’t be surprised if Emmy decides to add a Christmas snow globe and Winnie the Pooh to the table decorations! This is gonna be one wild party!

He shall feed His flock like a shepherd; and He shall gather the lambs
with His arm, and carry them in His bosom, and gently lead those that are
with young. (Isaiah 40:11)

Come unto Him, all ye that labour, come unto Him that are heavy laden, and
He will give you rest. Take His yoke upon you, and learn of Him, for He
is meek and lowly of heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
(Matthew 11:28-29)

Pastures Of Tender Grass And Waters Of Rest 

By F.B. Meyer, from The Shepherd Psalm

“He maketh me to lie down
In green pastures:
He leadeth me beside the still waters.”

In this sweet pastoral symphony, the first verse gives the air, when it tells us that there is no want to the man who lives under the shepherd care of God. In the succeeding verses the harmony is worked out, and the music in all its completeness is rendered effectively.

The first want which, according to this verse, he who belongs to Christ shall never know, is the want of rest. This verse breathes the very spirit of rest, as is even more apparent in a more literal rendering of the words. It may be rendered thus: “He maketh me to lie down in pastures of tender grass: He leadeth me beside the waters of rest.”

What a delightful scene is thus conjured up before our fancy! It is the scorching hour of an Eastern noon. The air is stifling with fever-heat, and all the landscape is baking in the awful glare. The very stones upon the hills burn the feet that touch them. At such a time woe be to the flock without a shepherd; and to the shepherd who cannot find the blue shade of some great rock, the shelter of some bushy dell, or the rich and luscious pasturage of some lowland vale!

But there is no such failure here. See where the pellucid stream is rolling its tide through the level plain. Higher upward in its bed, when it was starting on its course, it foamed and fretted over its rocky channel, leaped from ledge to ledge, chafed against its restraining banks, and dashed itself into a mass of froth and foam. No sheep would have drank of it then; for the flocks will never drink of turbid or ruffled streams. But now it sweeps quietly onward, as if it were asleep, there is hardly a ripple on its face; every flower, and tree, and sedge, as well as the overhanging banks, is clearly mirrored on its surface, and every stone in its bed may be clearly seen; on its banks the pasture is always green and luxuriant, carpeted in spring by a thousand flowers; the very air is cooled by its refreshing presence, and the ear is charmed by the music of its purling waters. No drought can come where that river flows; and the flocks, satisfied by browsing on the tender grass, lie down satisfied and at rest.

We All Need Rest

There must be pauses and parentheses in all our lives. The hand cannot ever be plying its toils. The brain cannot always be elaborating trains of thought. The faculties and senses cannot always be on the strain. To work without rest is like over winding a watch; the mainspring snaps, and the machinery stands still. There must be a pause frequently interposed in life’s busy rush wherein we can recuperate exhausted nerves and lowered vitality. There is more permanence than many think in the commandment which bids us rest one day in seven.

But there is no part of our nature that cries more urgently for rest than our spiritual life. The spirit of man, like the dove, cannot always be wandering with unresting wing; it must alight. We cannot ever be travelling up the rugged mountain pass of difficulty, or traversing the burning marl of discontent. We must be able to lie down in green pastures, or to pass gently along the waters of rest. There are three things needed ere sheep or human spirits can rest.

1. A consciousness of safety.

The growl of a lion, the bark of a dog, the presence of a little child, will be quite sufficient to spoil the rest of a flock of sheep, and to drive them trembling and timid into an affrighted group. And how can we rest so long as we feel ourselves liable to the attack of the roaring lion of the pit? Who can rest so long as eternal destinies lie uncertainly in the balance?

Against all this our Shepherd Jesus has provided. He has Himself met the great adversary of our souls, and has for ever broken his power. We can never forget that fearful conflict between the two,- the malice of the one; the strong cryings and tears, the anguish and bloody sweat, of the other. It was not a time when we could throw the balance of our weight into one scale or the other; we were rather the prize for which the battle was fought through the long and weary hours. On the one hand stood cruel hate and bloodthirsty destruction; on the other was mercy yearning to deliver, although at the cost of bitter agony and wounds, of which the scars shall remain for ever. In the end, the Good Shepherd gave His life for the sheep. No hireling coward He! His all was at stake. The flock was His own, given Him by his father; and He laid down His life for it.

But in that death He slew our enemy; as two antlered champions of the woods have sometimes been discovered side by side in death, because the one, in his own death-throes, had struck the other with a mortal wound. But God “brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant.” And now He lives to guarantee our safety. He has suffered all that there is to suffer. He has mastered all the opposition that there is to encounter. He has secured us everlasting deliverance from the slaughter-knife, from the demands of the divine law, and from the consequences of our own sins. “Who is He that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again.”

And now, O timid soul, be at rest! The blood-red brand which is upon thee is a sure token that thou art safe. He cannot have done so much for thee to lose thee now. In all moments of peril or dread softly murmur his name, Jesus! Jesus! and He will at once comfort thee by His presence and by His voice, which all the sheep know; and this shall be His assurance: “My sheep shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.”

“The Lord is thy Keeper.” “We know that whosoever is begotten of God sinneth not; but He that was begotten of God keepeth him, and the evil one toucheth him not” (1 Joh 5:18, R. V.).

2. Sufficiency of food.

A hungry sheep will not lie down. Main force will fail in making it do so. But the shepherd who can provide it with plenty of good pasturage will soon bring the most restless animal to lie contentedly among the fragrant herbage, while birds may settle on its woolly back and bees murmur drowsily around.

We can never rest so long as the hunger of the spirit is unappeased and its thirst unslaked. Strange that men are so slow to realise this! Yet the whole drift of human life seems impelled by the aching void within. Conscious of their hunger, men try to satisfy it with the husks that the swine eat; but they try in vain. And there is no answer to the unrest of the inward man until the voice of Jesus is heard, saying, “He that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.”

Oh, to eat of the flesh of the Son of man, and to drink His blood, in hours of devout reverie, in moments of rapt and intimate communion! This is life. This is eternal satisfaction. Here are pasture-lands indeed, and the rivers of His pleasures.

The Word of God may fitly be compared to green pastures. There is nourishment there for all hungry hearts,- “enough and to spare.” Nor do these pastures ever become barren or sear. They are as green and fresh to-day as when they were first issued by the Holy Spirit. Though multitudes of commentators have considered them, and myriads of Christians have studied and conned them, they cannot be pondered by a loving and obedient heart without yielding nutriment and strength.

There are many spiritual realities corresponding to the waters of rest. What is the Lord’s day but a water of rest; or the hour of worship; or the long period of illness and convalescence; or the summer holiday; or the long halcyon period of spiritual prosperity, when it would almost seem as though Satan had forgotten to tempt? At such times it is sweet to know that He who anon led to war or work is now leading to rest.

And in some cases, in the midst of life’s rush and pleasure, He beckons us aside to rest with Him awhile, that we may have leisure to eat. He causes our hearts to keep Sabbath and be at peace. He makes us drink of the brook by the way, and at noon we rest with His flock in the blue shade of the Rock in the weary land.

3. Obedience to the Shepherd’s lead.

The tenderest shepherd cannot bring a flock of sheep to rest unless they follow him. If they lag far behind him, if they go astray from him, if they take their own several ways, then, however good the shepherd’s intentions, they cannot but be thwarted and frustrated. “My sheep,” said Christ, “hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.”

This test of following the Shepherd’s lead is most important. It is by no means wonderful that we lose our rest when we run hither and thither, following the devices and desires of our own evil hearts. We substitute our plans for His. We insist on our schemes and stratagems. We crowd our days with much of our own, in addition to something of His. We do not look up often enough to see which way He is going and what He would have us to do. And so our rest is broken and lost. We must follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth if we would be led to the living fountains of waters, which are fed from heavenly springs.

Oh, sigh not for the rest of God as if it were impossible for thee! The Good Shepherd waits to make thee lie down, and to give thee to drink long, deep draughts of rest. Only trust Him! Hand over to Him all that breaks the stillness of thy spirit, though it be but a gnat-sting; and take from Him His own deep, sweet rest. Claim that He should make thee lie down by the arts of His gentle compulsion.

No Nightingale did ever chaunt
More welcome notes to weary bands
Of travellers in some shady haunt,
Among Arabian sands:
A voice so thrilling ne’er was heard
In spring-time from the Cuckoo-bird,
Breaking the silence of the seas
Among the farthest Hebrides.

Will no one tell me what she sings?—
Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow
For old, unhappy, far-off things,
And battles long ago:
Or is it some more humble lay,
Familiar matter of to-day?
Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,
That has been, and may be again?

Whate’er the theme, the Maiden sang
As if her song could have no ending;
I saw her singing at her work,
And o’er the sickle bending;—
I listen’d, motionless and still;
And, as I mounted up the hill,
The music in my heart I bore,
Long after it was heard no more.

~ William Wordsworth

On the other hand, parents going through the motions of church, enslaved to rules, serving God to gain his acceptance, tolerating their spouses, or worse, engaging in open warfare, chase their children away from God and his church. When Mom and Dad preach one thing but do the opposite, and don’t repent to their children, it makes the world attractive and the gospel irrelevant.

Kids also internalize their parents’ passions. They alone see what or who you “really” love, and not what you merely pretend to love.”

-William Farley, Gospel-Powered Parenting

I still have Sam’s first photos. The wonder of life and God’s creative genius is something that I will never get over. The sacredness of life in the womb has been denied in our nation for 29 years as millions of babies like Peter Samuel have been murdered in abortion clinics.

We thank God for babies, whenever he sends them. Our own miracle baby, Emily Frances, was a shock to us, and completely re-ordered our lives. A more delightful re-ordering could not have been engineered. I spend my days making purple play-do wiener dogs, coloring and listening to the same Wee-Sing songs I was listening to 20 years ago with Sammy and Charlie. And I feel privileged to have such a high calling.

Children come into your life like small tornadoes in pastel blankets, and you are never ever the same. Never again will your own desires and wants and goals have the same importance. Your well-being is caught up with that of those children. Your heart walks around outside of your body. Mothering has been difficult, sometimes heart-breaking, frustrating, and exhausting, but, for me, the most rewarding work I’ve ever done.

(Parenthetically, the reason I never succeeded in an outside career was because I didn’t possess the single-mindedness to do it. My heart has always been at home, my mind wandering to what my children were doing and needing. Because I can’t do an outside job from home at the present time, I do my mommy job and write on the Hope Blog instead!)

We cannot wait to meet Peter Samuel. God bless our little grandson and all the babies in the womb in the dangerous era in which we live. Life is precious. God created it. We must do all we can to protect it.

Peter Samuel Guzman, Age 20 weeks

Cast thy burden upon the Lord,
And He shall sustain thee.
He never will suffer the righteous to fall;
He is at thy right hand.
Thy mercy, Lord, is great
and far above the heav’ns;
Let none be made ashamed
that wait upon Thee.

(Psalm 55:22)

This recording is old, but carries with it a sweetness of peace that fits the words being sung.

It’s likely always been that way. Humans are drawn to physical beauty and praise it, even worship it. Deep inside, every woman longs to be thought beautiful, even if it’s only by one person. The way she sees herself is developed early, and her father plays a key role.

When a father fails to capture the heart of his daughter, it makes her terribly vulnerable. The father is the first man in a girl’s life. If he is distracted and operates under some illusion that girls raise themselves, tragedy follows.

The most precious thing a father can give a daughter is the gift of time. Not time spent with a daughter doing what he always does, but time that is spent on the girl herself. What are her interests, her delights? Her sense of self-worth is established by her father more than anyone else. It’s not that mothers aren’t crucial, but fathers have a potent role in the development of their daughters that is often underrated.

Girls have a need to feel loved and cherished. They need to feel attractive in a whole-person kind of way, but to feel physically attractive is also important. Admiration shining in her father’s eyes is more precious than anything else a girl can receive. Her heart gets a message from her dad, whether it is one of indifference, or one of love.

When girls don’t get this, when their fathers see their own ambitions, however noble, as more important than investing themselves personally in the lives of their daughters, the girls are at risk. Because a girl’s need to feel cherished will ultimately be met by someone.

How many fathers have stared in horror as their teen daughters have made terrible choices and then tried to pull back the reins? It’s a waste of time now, Daddy. When a substitute figure steps in and tells a girl she is pretty, that she is desirable and invests his time in her, he fills an aching void. Telling the girl then that that substitute figure is unacceptable for this reason or that will fall on deaf ears.

These same fathers then often cry, “rebellion!”, when all along their own neglect paved the way for a catastrophe. Girls, especially those who are emotionally vulnerable, anxious, and lonely, are prime candidates for easy seduction. When a father doesn’t know his daughter, he doesn’t see what is really going on in her life, and he endangers her.

There is a window that fathers cannot afford to miss, and it opens on day one of their daughters’ lives. Wise daddies will beautify their daughters with their love and generous attention. Because that’s what love does. It beautifies. It puts confidence in a girl’s heart, because she knows she is loved and lovable. And she is able then to develop in the rest of her life according to God’s plan for her. The seducers, the unwholesome men out there who are looking for easy prey will mean nothing to her. She won’t even hear their voices, because she will carry with her the loving voice of her own father, and she will value his guidance, not see it as interference with her happiness.

Girls today are crying out for daddies who will protect them, cherish them and teach them that they are valuable. The absence of this is what has produced this tragic genearation of sexting, self-harming, sexually misused young girls who have been robbed of their innocence, lied to about their value and thrown to the wolves waiting to use them and discard them.

Buried under the eye-liner, body-piercings, provocative clothing and exhibitionist behavior of so many girls today are sad hearts and souls, weeping for a daddy who never cared. And sometimes, there isn’t any black eye-liner, piercings or provocative clothing, just a sad heart and soul that is looking for someone to fill the void, but looking in all the wrong places.

“For so is the will of God, that by well-doing ye should put to silence the ignorance of foolish men” (1 Pet. 2:15).

“For this is acceptable, if for conscience toward God a man endureth griefs, suffering wrongfully… For hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, that ye should follow his steps… who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously” (1 Pet. 2:19,21,23).

“For the eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and his ears unto their supplication… And who is he that will harm you, if ye be zealous of that which is good? But even if ye should suffer for righteousness’ sake, blessed are ye: and fear not their fear, neither be troubled” (1 Pet. 3:12-14).

“…casting all your anxiety upon him, because he careth for you” (1 Pet. 5:7).

The Lord’s Care for His Own

This is just one of the many standpoints taken up by the Apostle in this letter. This one represents the position and attitude of the Lord Himself toward His Own, the realisation of which should produce a certain state in them. The Lord’s attitude is one of solicitude for His Own – that is what Peter is saying. “The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous and his ears unto their supplication”. The Lord’s attitude toward His Own is one of concern for them. He has His eye upon them, they are not out of His ken. Not only has He His eye upon them, but He has His ear open to them; and not only so, but He is taking definite care concerning them. These three things Peter says quite definitely.

Our Response to His Concern

Then he says, ‘If you realise that, it will produce a state of restfulness, carefreeness, in you. You will cast all your care, your anxiety, on Him because He cares for you.’ There are three things we might say about this. One – this word “casting” is a very deliberate word. This actual word only occurs twice in the New Testament. The other occasion is in Luke, where, in recording the entering into Jerusalem on the colt, it says, “they cast their garments upon the colt” (Luke 19:35). So if you can picture the people casting their garments on the colt for Him to ride upon, you get the mental conception of the word used here – “casting all your care…” I suppose the people were deliberate in what they did. It was something quite precise. They pulled off their garments and put them on the colt’s back. And in our apprehension of the Lord’s attitude and the resultant state produced in us, we deliberately cast our anxiety upon the Lord, put it over on to Him.

The second thing – as to the word “care” or “anxiety.” It is one of several Greek words translated in the English “care.” This one definitely means, as the Revisers have indicated, “anxiety.” The word really means being drawn about – that is, pulled in various directions at the same time. That is what we mean by being distracted. It is the word used by the Lord to Martha when He visited Bethany. “Martha, Martha, thou art anxious and troubled about many things” (Luke 10:41); ‘All these various things you have on hand are distracting you, you are torn. Here is My presence, here is Mary sitting here, you no doubt would like to be here, you have a pull here; and then there are all these other things you are occupied with, and you are pulled that way as well; and being pulled in various directions you are thrown into a state of anxiety, of agitation, of distraction; the whole atmosphere is disturbed; you are “anxious”.’ It is the word used in the parable of the sower, concerning the seed that fell among thorns; the Lord interpreted the thorns as the cares of this life. “These are they that have heard the word, and the cares of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things entering in, choke the word” (Mark 4:18,19). The distractions, the anxieties, of this life leave no place or time for the quiet contemplation of, and response to, the word that has come. The Lord sows the word, the Lord gives something with great possibilities in it, but then we are at once called off and engaged and engrossed with all sorts of things which spring up, and the word does not stand a chance. It is anxiety – that is the word.

Carefreeness not Carelessness

The third thing to be said is this. It is as well for us to be perfectly clear about what we have said, because we shall come upon the same English word or the same thought in other connections which seem to be a contradiction. “Be careful to maintain good works” (Titus 3:8). And you find exhortations to carefulness scattered through the New Testament; we are exhorted to take care. It is not the same original word as the one we have been considering. When He says, “In nothing be anxious” (Phil. 4:6), or “casting all your anxiety upon him,” the Lord does not mean that you are to become careless, indifferent, to put the matter away as though it is nothing to do with you, that you have no place in it at all. There is a place where the Lord expects us to take care, to be careful (in the ordinary usage of the word among us), to recognise that we have responsibility, we have to be watchful, we have to come into the situation, we have to be careful in this way and in that. That is another thing.

In the passages with which we began it is this terrible harass of anxiety that is in view, and it is that that has to be cast over to the Lord. While occupation must go on, many things must be attended to, there must be no distraction resulting from worry about it. “Be not… anxious, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?” (Matt. 6:31). Here is the same word again. What it amounts to seems to me to be this – that it is not just a psychological decision or resolution that we are going to be careless, we are going to be indifferent, we are not going to bother. It is to be positively an act of faith. The anxiety usually comes in as to how things are going to turn out, what the issue is going to be. The right care is to do our part. The carefreeness is the result of committing the issue to the Lord and definitely taking the faith attitude that He will look after the outcome while we are looking after what is ours to look after. It is not just spineless optimism, it is definite faith – faith that refuses to be harassed and distracted by many things, by anything.

Now, you know from this letter of Peter that the people to whom he wrote might well have been, and probably were, very much in anxious suspense. The situation was an exceedingly difficult one for them. Their homes, their families, their livelihood, their lives, all were in danger, and from every direction came threats and perils. If it is said to them, surely it should be said to us. He says, in effect, ‘The Lord has the issues in hand, He is taking care about all that; you cast your anxiety upon Him because He really does care.’ You have to believe that He does care, and, believing that, you definitely and deliberately cast over on to Him that which would cause you to be distraught with anxiety as to how things are going to work out, and what the issues are going to be. It is the committal of faith, very deliberately casting all your anxiety on Him for “he careth for you.” “The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and his ears unto their supplication… Who is he that will harm you, if ye be zealous of that which is good?”

First published in “A Witness and A Testimony” magazine, Sept-Oct 1948 Volume 26-5