Parenting and Other Feats of Courage

By Ken Laue

When we got married in 1972, I was 21 and Bonnie was 20 and we were both attending the University of Arizona. Being a lover of animals and plants, I got an Agriculture degree. Bonnie had always dreamed of teaching and finished with a master’s in Education.

I had just escaped the draft for the Vietnam War in what I considered a stroke of luck – but now I know it was God’s sovereignty. Draftees were chosen by birthday in 1970, and my date did not get called up – but many a man my age did get called to that war and came home in a box.

Those were also the saber-rattling years of our Cold War with the Soviet Union, during which we lived with the daily prospect of a nuclear holocaust.

Knowing what a dangerous world it was, we believed that bringing a baby into it would be wrong.

In July of '79, after seven years of marriage and no kids, we learned two significant things. First, that it was high time to surrender to Christ, and we did that at the Door Church in Tucson under Pastor Harold Warner.

Second, we discovered within a month or two of that decision that a baby was growing in Bonnie's womb. As new Christians, we embraced this turn of events as a blessing and awaited the birth of Melissa in May of 1980. Michelle soon followed in November of '82.

While I hadn’t become an entomologist, I had become a beekeeper.

Then, God changed my plans, and I have spent the last decades working with children: my own two and my grandkids, naturally; but kids also became my career in the school system and my ministry in the church.

"Feed my lambs," the Lord said. In so doing, I have come to love and thoroughly enjoy kids. But I also realize that Satan has placed his forces out there in this world to attack and kill our children and that our job – as parents, school, and ministry workers – is to protect them physically and psychologically.

This is where courage comes in. Woke forces now entrenched in many schools oppose parents. Western culture increasingly devalues both children and God's command to reproduce (or multiply, as the Bible puts it).

With the invasion of millions of migrants, roughly 300,000 children have been lost and are unaccounted for as they are handed over to unvetted, untraceable organizations, many of which are fronts for human trafficking rings.

Many celebrities and politicians are involved in forms of devil worship which abuse and torture children. Drag queen shows with child audiences have made the news. Libraries in woke-run schools contain books that teach kids anti-biblical sexual practices and how to perform them.

Horrifying photos appear in the media of small kids abandoned at the border, crying and afraid, vulnerable to all forms of exploitation, and we pray that the government will take action.

Psalm 127:3 says, “Behold, children are the heritage of the Lord, and the fruit of the womb is His reward.” Children are a blessing from God, and it takes courage to rise up and protect our children’s God-given innocence.

Children and adults are equipped with entirely different filters by which they perceive the world around them. Kids view things through a lens of wonder and joy, and in that regard, being around children can be very refreshing and exciting to an adult.

One day when my granddaughters were small, we went for a picnic to Madera Canyon. As I locked up the new-to-me SUV, I was thinking about how well its V-8 had handled the ascent up the canyon. I picked up my new camera (another grownup boy toy) and began examining the technical aspects of how to create some amazing nature shots.

While I was lost in my world of machines, Grammie and the girls headed toward the restroom. On that short walk, Leilani (age 6) discovered acorns on the ground in a world of wonder that I missed, and she gathered two small fistfuls of the tiny treasures faster than I could walk over to her.

Later, while I was absorbed in finding the perfect camera angle to capture the canyon world of twisted white sycamore trunks and rock pools, Abby (age 4) discovered a little spider underfoot and Leilani captured a little white canyon tree frog.

The horsetails were nothing more than weeds underfoot to me as I struggled to frame Mt. Wrightson’s high backbone ridge. But the girls were fascinated to find that the jointed stems of these Jurassic-looking plants could be yanked apart into segments. Wow! Wonder or weed?

An old sycamore bent over the rocky stream would be the perfect photo – if I could only get the depth of field and lighting right. But to the kids, it was so much more: a natural jungle gym!

As I surveyed the camping areas for a possible picnic spot for our puppet team, I barely noted the little footbridge across the gully. This instantly became a "troll bridge” to the girls, and the surrounding staircases and boulders – don't you know, silly Papa? – these are for climbing and playing on! Turns out the little princesses got some mountain goat genes in them from somewhere – obviously not from me!

That day I was seeing the world through the eyes of a child and I was enjoying it immensely. But not everyone values kids or enjoys them.

On the other side of the equal sign, many of our co-workers and relatives committed themselves to being DINKs (Double Income No Kids). In some cases, it was because they embraced our former position: children shouldn’t be brought into this evil world. Others felt that kids would cramp their plans and suck up all the resources they could spend on themselves.

(Please note: we are not condemning couples who are unable to have kids due to some physiological or other legitimate cause beyond their control.)

DINKs considered themselves fortunate that they missed all that bother, muss and fuss. But they also missed out on the blessing of parenthood. They missed the stretching and Christian growth that kids bring.

It’s all part of our God-ordained character development. No pain, no gain.

Yeah, there have been some tough times and no, growing isn't always easy. But those picnics in Madera Canyon make it worthwhile. Seeing your offspring grow up and mature in Jesus even as they are battered by the storms of life; seeing them come through and serve the body of Christ... In your face, Satan! It was all worth it.

If you look at a Phillips head screwdriver, it becomes obvious that it was designed for inserting Phillips head screws and nothing else (although I have ruined a few by using them as awls or punches).

If you study the human anatomy, it becomes obvious that we were designed to reproduce; to "be fruitful and multiply."

Whenever we defy God's intended purpose, we miss out on His blessing.

In one sense, by selfishly choosing not to reproduce, we cheat God out of what is rightfully His because God loves children. But beyond this, we also suffer the consequences.

In his January 2011 World Magazine article, "Not Getting Any Younger," Timothy Lamer notes that "low fertility rates leave Western nations with little choice but to raise retirement ages," because they don’t have the population anymore to support programs like Social Security or Medicare.

These programs were designed assuming growing populations in developed societies, but people in big industrial democracies are now having too few children to replace older citizens as they pass away. This is the unspoken problem behind the riots in Greece and France, Lamer notes, over "austerity measures."

While the United States fertility rate has bounced back some, it seems to me that through the selfishness of the pill and abortion, my generation has destroyed with our own hands today’s work force that was to support us in our old age.

Having just experienced “the big seven-four” and drawing Social Security, this hits close to home. If Western societies like ours had just obeyed God and been fruitful and multiplied, we wouldn't be in this dilemma.

I won't even attempt to address the great evil of abortion here, as that merits an entire article on its own. But suffice it to say that many childless couples would gladly have raised one of those aborted babies if they had only been given the chance!

Many childless couples realize that children are God’s plan, and so they foster and/or adopt children.

As I consider the DINKs, it occurs to me that, in many cases, the heart of the matter may be a lack of faith. If God's intent is for us to have and raise children, don't we trust Him to take care of them – even in this evil world? Don't we trust that He will provide the necessary resources to raise them?

Remember, God intended children to be a blessing. Who, in their right mind, would want to reject one of God's blessings?

Yes, it does take courage to bring children into this evil world. But whatever stresses and heartaches may become part of that process, take heart in knowing that God is big enough to handle it. Do you believe that?

In Matthew 18:3, Jesus said you can't even begin to get a handle on what His kingdom is all about unless you become like a little child: "Truly I tell you, unless you become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 18:3 NIV).

Parenting is ultimately rewarding because God said the fruit of the womb is His reward.

I vote for the acorns and the spider, the tree frog and the horsetails, the troll bridge and the magic of seeing this world through a child's eyes.