Parenting & Grace

Mary and Joseph were devout. They made the annual Passover pilgrimage to Jerusalem every year — the whole trip, the full festival. They were the kind of parents who brought their child to worship consistently. And yet, on the way home, they lost Jesus for three days.

When they finally found Him — in the temple, sitting among the teachers, asking and answering questions — they were overwhelmed with relief and, honestly, a little frustration. "Son, why have you treated us like this?" Mary asked. "Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you."

His answer was gentle but revealing: "Didn't you know I had to be in my Father's house?" He had been doing exactly what they had been raising Him to do. Their faithfulness to worship had produced in Him a hunger for the Father's presence. They just couldn't control where that hunger led Him.

This is the core tension of parenting faith: we shape it, but we cannot steer it. Mary and Joseph planted worship and got a Son who dove headfirst into it — more than they expected, in a way they hadn't planned for. The commandments on their hearts had done exactly what they were supposed to do. They just had to trust the result to God.

Paul's letter to Timothy begins with something unexpected: Paul tells the young pastor that he thinks of his mother and his grandmother. Not his credentials. Not his training. His grandmother Lois and his mother Eunice, whose "sincere faith" lived in them first — and then found its home in Timothy.

We don't know the specific things Lois and Eunice said to Timothy. We don't have the curriculum they used or the specific Scripture passages they emphasized. What Paul remembers is not the content of their teaching but the quality of their faith: sincere, genuine, the real thing.

Timothy had almost certainly heard a thousand things from these women — stories, prayers, encouragements, corrections. He had watched them navigate difficulty. He had seen what they turned to when things were hard. He had been in the room when they prayed and when they read and when they trusted God in situations that didn't make sense. All of that was shānan. All of that was impressing, repeatedly, over years.

The result was a young pastor who would carry the gospel into some of the most challenging missionary territory of the first century. The impression made by two faithful women rippled out further than they could have imagined sitting with a small child at their knee.

Paul and Silas were in prison — not a metaphorical prison but an actual one, feet in stocks, back wounds from being beaten publicly. It was midnight. This was about as far from a peaceful "lying down" moment as you could get.

And yet: "About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening." The faith that lived in them didn't wait for acceptable circumstances. At the worst hour of a terrible night, it came out in prayer and song.

Parenting in the ordinary moments — the midnight feedings, the homework frustrations, the bedtime prayers when everyone is exhausted — is exactly this. The faith that shows up in the hard ordinary moments is the faith that forms children most deeply. Not the Sunday performance. Not the impressive moments. The Tuesday at midnight faith, the Monday morning "get up and do it again" faith.

Children who see a parent pray at midnight and praise at dawn — not in triumph but in genuine trust — are watching something that shānan goes down deep into their souls. That is the faith that stays.