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Guest Post: John Hindley on “Fatherly Kindness”

Scott and Cathy Guest Posts August 17, 2016August 17, 2016 0 Comment

This week we’re thrilled to be sharing the wisdom of John Hindley in a guest post on the Fatherly Kindness of God. John was Scott’s pastor while he was a university student in Manchester. He is a seasoned church planter (currently leading BroadGrace Church in Norfolk), father and author (of the brilliant book ‘Serving Without Sinking: How to Serve Christ and Keep Your Joy *‘, among others). We love John – he exudes joy in the gospel and love for Jesus and has a wonderful gift of warming hearts to the Father. We know he’s got lots of wisdom to be gleaned, so we hope you enjoy this post!

Kindness: an underrated virtue?

Kindness is an underrated virtue. I think we often put it in the same category as nice. It is the sort of thing that goes well with little children – their pictures are nice, their sharing is kind. As we grow up we want stronger virtues – goodness, integrity, courage. I don’t want to overplay the point, as kindness is part of the fruit of the Spirit as outlined in Galatians 5:22 but it is a virtue I had given little thought to.

I increasingly think it is a critical part of love. It is kindness that shows us whether our love is a cold and dutiful thing, or a warm and relational thing. Kindness is not a weak virtue, although it can be understood as one. The reason for this is that we wrongly play it off against truth. We see it as unkind to speak a difficult truth to someone. To tell a friend that they look fat in that is unkind, even if it is true. More importantly to tell a friend that they are not likely to get that job they’ve just applied for is unkind, even if it is true. The problem is that we are making kindness about what we do. More often, kindness informs how we do things. I can tell a friend the truth about clothes or jobs or their sin or their life kindly.

This is the power of kindness. It goes beautifully with truth, because it makes truth easier to hear. David writes, ‘Let a righteous man strike me—it is a kindness; let him rebuke me—it is oil for my head; let my head not refuse it’ (Psalm 141:5). We know that the wounds of a friend are faithful (Proverbs 27:6) and they are delivered kindly.

Exasperating Fatherhood?

My growing appreciation of kindness over the last few years has gone hand-in-hand with a growing understanding of a verse that slightly puzzled me, Ephesians 6:4: ‘Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord’. I trusted the Lord that exasperating one’s children was a particular danger, but I couldn’t see why. Now I get it, and it is to do with a lack of kindness in me.

I now have three girls, Daisy, Eliza and Sylvia, and I see how I exasperate them. I will dish the dirt on myself, then show you how the kindness of a greater Father than me is undoing my sin and leading me through the sunlit meadows of repentance. There are two ways I exasperate my children. The first is through my inattention. This might be when my mind is occupied with something else – work, chores, plans for the evening or whatever. More often it is when my agenda is different to theirs. A fairly common example of this currently occurs most evenings around 6.30pm. My agenda is to get teeth done, milk warmed, stories read and beds filled. Daisy and Eliza’s agenda is to perform a dance show for me. Sylvia’s agenda is to play ‘running away from daddy shouting and waving my arms in glee’. My temptation is to simply force my agenda on them.

Nothing wrong with that, you might say, as they need to get to bed, and it is good for them to learn that they are not in charge. That is quite correct. The problem is that my heart is not seeking to do this for their good, but for my ease. I want it done so I can get on with chores, relaxing or work. I am not engaging with them, I am not interested in what they want. It is purely, selfishly, about me. And so I exasperate them, I do so by simply making it about obedience, not relationship. I repeat the instructions to do their teeth, louder and louder, getting crosser and crosser, even with the baby who doesn’t really get it. They respond with anger, defiance, and tantrums – exasperated little children.

Worse, though, sometimes I am glad to be at this point. Sometimes it is more deliberate than mere inattention. Sometimes I want to show that I am right, to show that I am in charge, to have a good reason for some proper discipline. Sometimes I want to turn their silliness, their tiredness, their craziness into sin and disobedience so that I am clearly in the right when I lose my temper, shout at them and make them obey me. I hate this in myself, and if you recognise it at all in yourself, you will too.

Kindness-fueled repentance

The way that the Lord is giving me repentance in this area is through his kindness. The antidote to the poison of exasperation is the kindness of God our Father. I have noticed how God treats his children with kindness, and that by the work of the Spirit in us, he makes us kind, just as his Son Jesus is kind. The kindness of God is firstly an objective reality towards us, with the coming and the cross of Christ at its heart:

‘For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.’ – Titus 3:3-7

Our salvation is kindness, shown by God. It is kindness that led him to send Christ to die our death, carry and kill our sin, and suffer our judgment on the cross. It was kindness that raised Christ from the dead to draw us into his new life of righteousness and joy. It was kindness that led our Father to pour out his Holy Spirit on us richly.

This is no surprise, because these very real and infinitely strong truths come to us so gently. The Spirit comes alongside us as a counsellor, drawing us to Christ and to growth in him. There is no forced change, no Jesus boot-camp, just the Spirit directing our gaze to Christ and in so doing, making us shine like the one we see (2 Corinthians 3:16-18).

We see the way that the Father saves us in the staggering promises, in the words spoken to a woman by a well in Samaria. We see this kindness as Christ invites Matthew and Zaccheus to himself, as he restores Peter’s life, hope, dreams and future in John 21. We see a God in Christ, the perfect radiance of the Father, who will not break a bruised reed (Matthew 12:20). We see kindness in what Christ does and says and how he does and says it.

Isn’t this our experience too? When I look back at my sin and folly, I am amazed how consistently the Lord has spared me from myself, how he has led me so gently to his Son again and again. My tantrums are frequent, my prayers of thanks are rare. But the kindness of my Father leads me to peace, not to exasperation, much as I deserve to be exasperated! So I have begun to pray for kindness for myself and for our family. I have found that the Spirit has pointed me to see the ongoing kindness of God in the bible and in my experience. I have found also, that he has worked kindness in me. It turns out that engaging with the world of my children means I really enjoy short shows some evenings, and they don’t mind so much if there isn’t time. I love being a kinder father, it is a joy and delight, it makes my children such a blessing to me, and it shows me a glimpse of the amazing kindness of my Father, which is the wellspring from which the Spirit draws what he works in me. I may even be a slightly less harsh husband as well.

There is kindness in our Father. It is deep and good, and it is directed towards us. It is also given to us. We can be like God, love like the Father and obey, wonderfully, the command not to exasperate our children. What loving kindness our God has.

We hope you enjoyed this guest post – we certainly did! Many thanks to John Hindley. If you enjoyed it, why not leave a comment below. If you think others would enjoy it too, then please do share it using the buttons below.

Our First Video, To Say Thank You!

Scott and Cathy Uncategorized August 5, 2016 1 Comment

We wanted to say a big thank you for your support, so decided to do something different – check out the video below.

If you’ve been enjoying Gospel-Centred Parenting and you’re a Facebook user, then why not head over to our Facebook Page by clicking here, and click the ‘Like’ button near the top?

A Tiny Big Announcement

Scott and Cathy Uncategorized August 1, 2016 2 Comments

This post is coming to you a little late this week, but we think we have a reasonable excuse…

On Saturday we were very excited to welcome to the world our second son, Boaz Henry Thomson. He came 15 days early and is a lovely little bundle of squidge, weighing in at 6lb 11oz (so more than a pound less than Reuben!) There were many answers to prayer with the labour and he seems to be establishing well with feeding so, if you get chance, do give thanks to Jesus for his kindness to us.

Please accept our apologies if things are a bit slower on the blog over the next few weeks – we’re going to be pretty busy with a bit more than usual actual parenting, rather than writing about it.

We do have some exciting posts lined up already however, so hopefully we’ll be able to keep things going. These early days of sleep-deprived, hormone-excess fuelled extremes do throw up some interesting and wonderful times, so we’re sure there’ll be lots we’ll be wanting to share with you.

Watch this space, and thank you for your support!

The brothers seem to be getting on okay so far!

5 Posts Worth Pondering

Scott and Cathy Uncategorized July 25, 2016January 6, 2019 0 Comment

It’s been a while since we’ve done a round-up, so here are 5 really great blog posts we think you should read.

30 Things You Can Do This Summer To Deepen Your Kids’ Faith by Natasha Crain

A great read at the beginning of the summer. This post includes lots of ideas for how to engage your kids in fruitful conversations about their faith. We’ve only recently discovered this blogger, but we think she has some really helpful things to say. Her blog is all about raising Christian kids’ in a secular world – apologetics for parents and for kids.

Moms, Jesus Is The Hero Of Your Birth Story by Victoria Wilson

I (Cathy) am getting closer to giving birth by the day. The baby is due in just 3 weeks time. Reuben’s birth was traumatic. This time I’m hoping for a more peaceful, natural and shorter birthing experience. This blog is a great reminder that whatever our birth stories, Jesus is the hero of them. Here’s an excerpt:

“The next time you’re in a playgroup and the story swap begins, know you can tell a better story. You’ll have a wonderful opportunity to testify to your weakness and Christ’s strength. Speak to the groaning of creation and the longing for a Savior. Share the ultimate example of life coming out of death and suffering in the cross. Birth is a ready-made opportunity to talk about Jesus.”

Who Needs a Tough Father by Krish Kandiah

A helpful post addressing the criticism that Dads so often receive in today’s society. It’s hard to be a dad. It’s even harder to be an adoptive or foster dad – but it’s something which is so worthwhile.

Why Christians Should Embrace Pokémon Go by Matt Adcock

Like it, loathe it, or know little about it, what we cannot deny is that Pokémon Go is currently sweeping over our culture like a wave. This article gives some reasons why we should embrace Pokémon Go. Wherever you land on this one, it’s probably worth landing there in an informed way, because if your children are of a certain age they’ll almost certainly be engaging with this cultural moment. This article is a good place to start.

How To Raise A Low Media Child by Mindy Wood

Not a Christian resource but very helpful all the same. If you feel your child is having too much screen time (now that you’ve got them obsessed with Pokémon Go!), then this article gives lots of helpful advice on how we can encourage little children to play independently and thus be less dependent on screens. This is a skill we’d certainly like Reu to develop over this next year while we’re preoccupied with little baby Thomson.

Let us know how you find these articles in the comments below. Please point us to any other articles on Christian parenting that you’ve found particularly useful!

Guest Post Invitation – Could You Write For Gospel-Centred Parenting?

Scott and Cathy Uncategorized July 13, 2016 0 Comment

You may have noticed that this week, for the first time, we didn’t manage to publish a new blog post. Life got very busy and we just ran out of time – sorry about that! Normal service should resume next week.

We wanted to take this brief hiatus to issue an invitation. As you may know (if you’ve followed the blog for a while), we’re expecting the birth of our second child in the next month or so. As such, we’re trying to be realistic about what the implications of this might be on the blog, and we know that we might struggle to get a post written each week. Rather than see this is a problem, we thought we could use it as an opportunity.

That’s where you come in to it!

We’d love to welcome a number of different contributors to the blog over the next little while through a series of guest blog posts. We already have a number of people lined up, and we’re super excited by some of the posts that we’re going to be sharing before too long.

Could this be you? Do you have something that you could contribute to the blog, to help us and our readers think about gospel-centred parenting from a different angle? Perhaps you have a story to tell or an experience to reflect on? Maybe you’ve been thinking about a particular aspect of parenting from a Christian perspective and you’d like to share your thoughts? Have you been struck by a particular Bible passage, or an aspect of the character of God, and how that can shape and direct the way you see parenting, or the way you parent?

If you have an idea for a blog post, why not get in touch? Either contact us on scott@gospelcentredparenting.com, fill in the form below, or if you know us personally, get in touch.

We’d love to hear from you.

5 Things We Want Our Children To Know About God

Scott and Cathy Uncategorized July 4, 2016July 5, 2016 0 Comment

We love God, and we’d love our children to grow up knowing him and loving him themselves.

There are so many things that we’d love to teach them – we could write a list of 100 things we want our children to know about God but most of you would stop reading before the end and in any case we still wouldn’t have exhausted everything.

Instead we’ve picked 5 things. Not the 5 most important, just 5 key things.

Our children learn about God through all sorts of means: through the Christian community that we’re part of; through what they learn in kids’ church activities; through what we read with them in the Bible; through our conversations as we go about life; through watching our lives… we could go on.

But here are 5 of the things that we hope our children learn about God through all of these means.

1. God accepts our children as they are

There’s pressure all around children (and adults!) in this world to “be” something. Pressure to perform in a certain way. Pressure to be funny. Pressure to look a particular way. Pressure to be smart, or sporty, or popular.

It’s easy for children to feel weighed down by people’s expectations of who they should be, and to feel they have to live up to certain standards in order to be accepted.

The liberating reality of the gospel is that God doesn’t expect us to come to him with anything in order to accept us. He wants us to come to him as we are, warts and all, and what’s more he LOVES us as we are. Jesus has done all of the performing that we need, and has borne our inadequacies in his body on the tree. What a weight off their shoulders!

2. God wants our children to flourish

God accepts our children. Nothing will get in the way of that. And in that context of full and free acceptance, God wants our children to flourish. He wants to work in them to deal with self-destructive and other-people-hurting habits, thoughts and attitudes so that they can flourish. He does this for their good, and for the good of those around them.

What’s more, he’s created them with abilities and passions that he wants them to run with, to his glory.

Our children don’t need to set aside their ambitions, passions and gifting in order to be Christians. Rather, they can see that God has given these things to them to use for his glory, and so they can go about seeing how they can best develop and nurture them to use them for good.

Again: what a weight off their shoulders. They don’t need to prove their worth through what they achieve in life. Their worth is defined and maxed out in their unimpeachable standing as adopted children of God. So rather than seeking to prove their worth through what they can achieve, they can use their talents and gifting to bring God glory, not themselves.

3. We live in a broken world, but God is still good

lament It’s a guarantee that our children will one day come face-to-face with suffering and adversity. We all do. We want our children to know this, to expect this, and to be able to cope when it happens.

We want them to have a Biblical theology of suffering that doesn’t offer trite and easy answers.

We want them to weep in the face of suffering, just like Jesus.

We want them to be able (even when they don’t understand God’s purpose in suffering) to lean on their knowledge of the good character of God and his hope for this world to get them through.

4. God is trinity, and this changes everything

We want our children to know that our God is a God in three persons – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – who for eternity have existed in a relationship of love.

Why is this so important? Because out of this flows everything.

Why did God create? Not because he was lonely – because our eternally love-giving God wanted to extend this love to more, and to invite others in to the community.

How did God create us? In his image. Part of our very identity is our need for community, because we’re made like our community-God.

Why did God save us (aside from drawing us in to enjoy the loving Trinitarian community of God)? He saved us to bring us into the community of the church– we want our children to see church as a wonderful blessing that flows from the very nature of God.

We could go on, but we want our children’s vision of God to be deeply Trinitarian, and all the richer for it.

5. God is the source of joy, not a killjoy

There’ll be numerous voices in culture that will speak in opposition to the Christian worldview – that’s becoming more and more apparent. It will be tempting for our children to think that God is killjoy – that he’s unnecessarily limiting what people can do.

There will be some things that culture will accept as perfectly normal that the Bible does not – our children will grow up in that climate and will inevitably imbibe some of it. The danger is that they may then see God’s restrictions as him being a killjoy.

We want our children to see that God is the source of all joy. He created humanity not to stop us having fun, but so that we could experience life to the full. Sometimes what he says won’t seem to our children like life to the full. But we want them to have a deep sense of how God is for them – he wants them to have a deep and lasting joy. So even when they don’t understand why God has said something, we want them to have a deep conviction that God is good, he is for them, and he is in pursuit of their joy, not out to kill it.

So there we have it. 5 things we want our children to learn about God. Do any of these resonate with you? What might you add to the list? Let us know in the comments below.

The EU Referendum: Trusting God with our kids’ futures

Scott and Cathy Uncategorized June 27, 2016June 27, 2016 0 Comment

It’s been a momentous week for Great Britain. By a relatively small margin, Britain voted to leave the European Union. No one can be sure exactly how this will work out. At the moment, the only thing that we can be certain of, is that nothing is certain.

Having children (one in utero) has made us feel all the more keenly this sense of uncertainty and insecurity. We simply don’t know what the future holds for them. But as Christians there are some comforts we cling to at times like these.

EU Flag We thought we’d post a few encouraging thoughts of how the gospel can give us hope and confidence for our children’s future when all seems unsettling. It’s not exhaustive and it isn’t filled with caveats and political musings – that’s intentional. Please do feel free to comment and we could start some interesting and edifying discussions. Cathy studied international politics and modern history at uni, so this sort of debate is right up her street. But simply a political debate about Brexit is not the purpose of this post.

So, onto the encouragements…

God is sovereign

Throughout time and history God has been in control of all things. He has seen nations and empires rise and fall. He has seen rulers come and go. Nothing surprises him and nothing happens outside of his purposes. There have been many moments like this in history – where the future seems uncertain and scary, oftentimes for God’s people themselves. But God’s unfailing character, his steadfast love, his faithful rule and his purposes in human history remain the same. What a comfort!

“O LORD, the God of our fathers, are You not God in the heavens? And are You not ruler over all the kingdoms of the nations?“

2 Chronicles 20:6

“Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God.”

Romans 13:1

God is good and he does all things in our best interest

God is kind and generous. He loves to give us good gifts and he works in the midst of our circumstances. His working for our good doesn’t always mean we get the easy route – quite often the opposite is true! But in all things he does work for our good. He’s demonstrated that he is good in countless ways: through creating an amazing universe for us to inhabit; by revealing himself to people throughout history through prophets, miracles, the bible and ultimately Jesus; by giving Jesus to be the perfect sacrifice for our sins – making relationship with God and forgiveness possible; and by promising that he will recreate the universe in perfection in the future. If he’s got the masterplan covered, then we can trust he’s got this covered too. He is good and can be trusted.

^“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”

Romans 8:28

God cares

God is not some cosmic watchmaker who winds up the clock of the universe and then steps back and is uninvolved. God is relational. He is intimately involved in what is going on in the world. He hears and answers the prayers of his people, and he wants us to live peaceful and quiet lives in the nations where he’s put us. He wants us to seek the good of the places that we live. He wants our political environments to be conducive to religious freedom and civil liberties. He wants this to be the case so that everyone will have an opportunity to hear the message of Jesus.

“I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people—for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. This is good, and pleases God our Savior,who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.”

1 Timothy 2:1-4

How encouraging is this!

So whatever the future holds for our children in the changes to come for Great Britain, for the European Union, and for the world we can live with hope, trusting our heavenly father with the future. Because in the end he’s sovereign, he’s good and he cares. And ultimately he loves our children far more than we do.

Enjoy your little one while you still can?

Scott and Cathy Uncategorized June 20, 2016June 10, 2018 1 Comment

Our baby boy turned two last weekend – how did that happen?

These days are so precious. So often we wish we could put these smiles, these giggles, these slobbery kisses, these first clumsy sentences, these wide-eyed looks of wonder, these “firsts” in a little box for safe keeping. Our boy is so trusting, so cuddly, so affectionate, so dependent, so cute – so childlike. We’ve lost count of the number of times people have told us to “enjoy him” now before he grows up, because the time flies and they don’t stay tiny for very long.

Already he’s grown up so much, and there’s so much that we’ve forgotten. If it wasn’t for video clips, photos and blog posts of milestones then we would have forgotten even more. As we sort out his old clothes ready for baby number two, we think “how was he ever that small?” And as we watch him sleep in his cot, face crunched-up on the mattress and breathing deeply, we think “I don’t ever want you to grow up, I wish you could stay this small forever.”

But let’s face it, the days where our children can fit their entire body on our laps, or have dimples in their chubby hands, or squeal with excitement when they see us come through the front door are limited. It’s sad, but c’est la vie! The natural thing is for children to grow up into adulthood and to perhaps one day have babies of their own – and then we get the joy all over again! But this time with grandchildren.

But as Christians we can have even more of a consolation than just hoping for grandchildren one day. We believe that all people are immortal, that we have eternal souls, and that we all live forever – how mind boggling is that!

As C.S. Lewis once wisely said in his book, ‘The Weight of Glory’:

“It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree helping each other to one or the other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all of our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations – these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit – immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.”

How extraordinary! Our little blonde toddler will not just hopefully one day be a man; able to structure nuanced arguments, develop a career and shepherd his own family – but he is immortal! Our consolation and our hope is that our little boy’s heavenly glory will exceed any worldly ambitions that we can have for him – for God willing, if he trusts in Jesus, one day he will be transformed into the very image of Christ.

^“I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Listen, I tell you a mystery: we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed – in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.”

1 Corinthians 15:50-52

Wow – how that changes our perspective! It gives our son (and us all) immeasurable dignity and purpose. And it helps us to remember that as we go about life doing ordinary human things, we are either helping or hindering our boy to get to his heavenly destination. What a responsibility, but what an amazing privilege too! It radically redefines our view of parenting. (Though let’s not forget – it’s all ultimately down to God’s grace, not us!)

But this gospel truth that we are eternal beings works deeply in our own hearts too. So, as we watch our little boy sleep in his cot, face crunched-up on the mattress and breathing deeply, we may be tempted to think “I don’t ever want you to grow up, I wish you could stay this small forever.” But then we remember that while this is a lovely stage, staying like this forever is not truly want we want for him. Thanks to Jesus, what is to come is immeasurably better.

Fearfully, wonderfully and awkwardly made- reflections on antenatal classes

Scott and Cathy Pregnancy June 13, 2016June 9, 2016 0 Comment

It’s that time again – we are in the middle of our course of antenatal classes. Love them or hate them, they are a part of the preparation that many parents go through in anticipation of the birth of their new baby.

Back when Reuben was brewing in Cathy’s tummy, Scott was blogging elsewhere and he wrote a post on his experience of the antenatal class that we attended. As we’re away on holiday this week, we thought we’d re-post it here with light editing, for your enjoyment!

Today Cathy and I went to our first antenatal class – it was all about breastfeeding

A number of things struck me. One was how awkward it can be to walk in to a room full of people you don’t know. As we crossed the circle of shame and sat facing roughly 15 people shifting nervously in their seats, no one breaking the deafening silence, I didn’t quite know what to do with myself. We got a slight peek into the cracks of a fractured humanity there in the antenatal day room.

Many walk in to church or a seeker Bible study for the first time and no doubt share some of my apprehension – but for them it’s coupled with a greater fear of the unknown than we experience – what will these crazy religious people do, now that we’re in a room that they’re in charge of? We need to do all that we can to make that initial impression better than ours was today.

That was a negative observation. But what was more striking was how clever, as they suggested, “Mother Nature” apparently is. Here are some facts we learned:

When breastfeeding, some of the calcium stores in the mother’s bones are taken to feed to the baby and strengthen his bones. Bad news? Well no, actually. After breastfeeding these Calcium stores are not only replenished but actually made greater, reducing the risk of osteoperosis in old age.
Breastfeeding has been proven to greatly reduce the mother’s risk of pre-menopausal breast cancer.
In breast milk, the antibodies that the mother has built up through her lifetime as she’s fought off various infections are passed to the baby, thus building his immunity and protecting him.
Here’s a fascinating fact. Immediately after the baby is born, ‘skin-to-skin’ contact is encouraged, where the baby is placed straight onto the mother’s tummy. I find that slightly gross, to be honest. What’s astonishing though is that the mother’s thermoregulatory system (internal thermostat) will adjust the temperature of her tummy by +/- 1 degree to warm or cool the baby, as needed. Isn’t that cool (or warm!)? Even though the baby is now external to the mother, the altruistic body serves the baby regardless of what the mother needs. (A small picture of our Father?).
Just after this aforementioned skin-to-skin contact, the baby will naturally seek food from the mother. To do this, it performs this crazy crawl (crazy given how young this 5 minute old person is!) to reach the milk. Youtube it – it’s almost unbelievable!

Clever huh!

Here’s a thought. Could it be that it’s not Mother Nature coming in from the land of tooth fairies and Santa Claus that makes all these things possible. Perhaps it’s God, who has revealed himself time and again in history to be outrageously good and supremely wise, who has fashioned us in this way?

“For you created my inmost being;
    you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
    your works are wonderful,
    I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you
    when I was made in the secret place,
    when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed body;
    all the days ordained for me were written in your book
    before one of them came to be.
How precious to me are your thoughts, God!
    How vast is the sum of them!
Were I to count them,
    they would outnumber the grains of sand—
    when I awake, I am still with you.”

Psalm 139:13-18

We hope you enjoyed that little thought from the past. We know that for various reasons not everybody chooses to or is able to breastfeed, and there’s not necessarily a right and wrong way here. We actually used a combination of formula and breastfeeding. Still, regardless of how your baby is/was fed, these facts are still pretty extraordinary so we thought it worth sharing anyway.

Gospel In The Everyday: Nesting

Scott and Cathy Gospel In The Everyday, Pregnancy June 6, 2016October 3, 2018 0 Comment

Nesting has hit the Thomson household.

It has a lot to answer for. The nesting instinct is the reason Cathy decided to scrub the grout of the shower with a toothbrush when 38 weeks pregnant with our eldest– a ridiculous urge (what baby inspects grout?!) and very un-Cathy-like!

What is nesting? It’s the strong desire to prepare your home for the arrival of a newborn baby, including decorating, cleaning and reorganising.

Now that the nesting instinct has hit us again, we’ve been beavering away decorating the big boy bedroom, the little one’s nursery, and we’ve got plans for the play room too.

For Scott (who enjoys DIY and a thorough sort-out) the desire to nest comes from the sensible reasoning that, with the arrival of a newborn, it is impossible to keep a vaguely tidy house never mind attempt DIY! So, let’s get it out the way now.

Cathy, on the other hand, is finding that she is waking up in the middle of the night and devising never ending to-do lists: “buy fabric for curtains; paint the chest of drawers; clear out unwanted stuff for the charity shop; stock up on new-born nappies; check we’ve got all the sections of the breast pump…” the list goes on and on. Are hormones responsible? Most probably!

You couldn’t normally accuse us of being overly organised, tidy or house proud. Don’t believe us? Just look through the glass in the front door and see the shoe-strewn floor, paperwork-littered sideboard and assortment of toys, nappy wipes and the nearly dead plant.

But getting things ready for our new arrival is really exciting. We can’t wait to meet our little one, and as sentimental as it sounds we want everything to be just right for his/her arrival. We thought the instinct to nest might not be so strong second time round, but we’re finding it’s even stronger! Even though our home will look like a bomb has hit it a few hours after the baby moves in, the desire to create a lovely place to welcome our new child into is very strong. Where does this instinct come from?

Nesting in Creation

Last week we reviewed the book “Home for Good”. There’s a lovely section of the book in which the Kandiah’s paint a beautiful picture of God the Father nesting:

“The opening chapters of the Bible describe God creating the universe. Just like a parent meticulously preparing a nursery with mobiles and furniture and murals, God hung the stars in the sky, sculpted the mountains and rivers and brought the landscape alive by adding birds and fish. Everything was ready. The world contained all that a beloved son or daughter could possibly need. The only thing missing was the child. So God creates human beings to enjoy all that he has prepared for them.”

It’s a wonderful picture of creation.

How often do we think about the fact that God harnessed his creative power and channelled it into creating a perfect habitat for us – humanity? God sees us as the crown of creation. God wasn’t only making a universe to display his power, but he was lovingly making a home for us – his people, his children. It’s pretty mind-boggling to think about.

Much of our behaviour in nesting is normal (perhaps not the toothbrush incident…). It’s part of what it means to love our children. We haven’t met little miss/master Thomson yet, but we already love them. We prepare a room, a bed, a play space for them out of love, anticipation and excitement. We image God in creation.

So if you are awaiting your own new arrival, then as you prepare your home for your little bundle, remember that you image our God who in creation was, in a way, nesting for us. How loved we are!

Jesus is Nesting

But here’s another wonderful truth. There’s a sense that God hasn’t stopped nesting. He’s still doing it today.

You see, shortly after creation, God’s children broke his heart and decided to live in rebellion against him. The people that he made started to destroy the beautiful home that he had made for them. They started to destroy each other. They even destroyed themselves. Sin ravaged creation and left it bleeding and broken.

But the story didn’t end there.

God decided to rescue and redeem the people that had rejected him. And more than that, he decided to rescue and redeem the creation that he made for his people. How? Through the amazing life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

“¹⁵The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. ¹⁶For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on
earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. ¹⁷He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. ¹⁸And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy.¹⁹For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, ²⁰and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross”.

Colossians 1:15-20

Jesus has reconciled a people to himself, and is reconciling all things to himself. The blood of Jesus is effective not just in dealing with sin (though it wonderfully does that!), but in bringing restoration to the whole of the creation that he has made.

One day that work will be complete. Here’s what Jesus promises:

“ ‘Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me. ²My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you?³And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. ⁴You know the way to the place where I am going.’”

John 14:1-3

Right now, Jesus lovingly prepares a place for his people. He’s nesting. He gets the rooms ready for us to move into. He waits for us with anticipation and excitement. He can’t wait to welcome us into his father’s house. To welcome us into the family home.

So, as we nest for our baby, we image Jesus and remember how much more wonderfully he does it for us.

As we eagerly anticipate the arrival of our little one into our home, we pray that this would remind us of Jesus, the one who created our earthly home, who prepares our heavenly home, and who draws up the architect plans for the new creation – our eternal home. What amazing love he has for us!