Children are a heritage from the Lord… (Psalm 127:3-5).
Our modern antiseptic society sometimes has a rather dismissive attitude towards children, who are too often seen as an expensive, inconvenient complication to a relationship. The result? When too many children are an inconvenience, it is but a short step to having no children at all. Hence, the Australian birth rate has decreased dramatically, and we see an escalating and horrific abortion rate.
‘Why the alarm?’ someone asks, ‘After all, a foetus is not a real person anyway.’ Something similar was said about the Jewish people in Nazi Germany over fifty years ago and the world still gasps in horror today at the ramifications of that.
On one occasion, Australian playwright and author Olga Masters told how people sometimes said to her, ‘What a pity you had such a big family to raise–think of the novels, short stories and poems you never had time to write.’ Her reply was beautiful. ‘I would look at my seven children,’ she said, ‘and say, “These are my poems; these are my short stories.”‘
It is a great honour to be entrusted with the life and upbringing of a child. There are times of frustration, of difficulty, even of despair. But the rewards are well worth it.
To read more on this topic see Living in the Image of God, Barry Chant (Miranda: Tabor, 2012 available in eBook and Paperback) from which this edited extract is taken.