Sweet and Pure, Red and Juicy Strawberries
On Saturday, as Ray and I traveled to visit Bethany and her family for Easter, we finished reading aloud a memoir. The author spoke often about her close relationship with her son. We were impressed again and again as we read how she mothered him so well while working in a high profile career.
Near the end of the book, she discussed her son’s faith. She said that though she and her son had gone to church together since he was a little boy, until recently they had never had an adult conversation about his faith.
Jesus was always ready to talk about the most important things. Though it often made people uncomfortable, He brought up the important subjects anyway.
No longer do I call you slaves,
for the slave does not know what his master is doing;
but I have called you friends,
for all things that I have heard from My Father
I have made known to you.
John 15:15, NASB
You are a teacher. You can have no better example than the Master teacher, Jesus Himself. As you teach your children, be sure that you tell them all things you have learned from your Father. And, don’t wait for special or monumental times to teach them.
Jesus chose the twelve apostles so that they would be with Him (Mark 3:14, italics mine). Jesus taught them just as Moses told parents to teach in Deuteronomy 6:7: when they sat in a house, when they walked by the way, when they lay down, and when they rose up.
with Nate, Mary Evelyn, Clara, and Wesley at Nate’s parent’s home.
Their strawberry patch is ready to bear a bumper strawberry harvest.
After we got home last week, Ray and I stopped by the little store owned by a local organic farmer. He had some red, juicy, organic strawberries from Florida where his daughter also raises organic produce. Oh, they were sweet and good. I pray that your fruit and the fruit of your children will be like those sweet and pure, red and juicy strawberries.
You did not choose Me but I chose you,Â
and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit,Â
and that your fruit would remain,Â
so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name
He may give to you.Â
This I command you, that you love one another.
John 15:16-17, NASB