"You knit me together"

There are lots of kids here at the farm, and there will be another one in a day or two. Kate's been out walking and climbing hills to try to encourage the baby to come on out. We're supposed to leave here Thursday, but Heather may stay to help with the delivery if it doesn't happen by tomorrow.

And we've also been talking to people here about raising children, how they educate them, advantages and challenges in a close-knit community, etc. Each family is a little different, so we're getting a variety of perspectives. Heather's also warming a bit to the idea of home schooling, something I've wondered about as a possibility (since we don't know what sort of environment we might be raising children).

This morning, after watching the sunrise as we picked corn for the last time, we talked about children again. I was saying that I wanted to avoid the idea that our children are our project. Little people that we are shaping the way we think they should be. No. Each of us is God's work. It makes me think of these verses of Psalm 139:

You formed my inward parts,
you knit me together in my mother's womb.

You know me right well;
my frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately wrought in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes beheld my unformed substance;
in thy book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there was none of them. (Ps 139.13-16)

God is the father, the author of our story, the potter who shapes us. I don't want to get in the way of that as a parent, or take over God's responsibility, but simply be a servant who helps when prompted and stands aside when told to--by the Father of us all.



Also, there's this...