The responsibilities of parenthood are more various and challenging than I ever imagined. Diapers and long evenings I expected. Writing on sex I didn’t. But when Hannah (our third born of six) began asking questions, I came to the conclusion that it needed to be done. The following essays are what I cooked up and presented to her.
There are other books out there. When I was eleven, my mother gave me one of these to "prime the pump" before we talked. My wife and I used that same small volume with our two oldest daughters. But it wasn’t exactly what I wanted. It seemed all about “plumbing” and the bare “do’s and don’ts” of the matter. I wanted my children to understand the glory of the whole business, and that this business, like every imaginable business, finds it roots in the Triune glory of the Christian God. Not only did no one mention the Trinity along with round bottoms, but no one seemed to ask what round bottoms meant, at all. You’ll see that this is an intolerable situation. So I hope you’ll forgive my audacity in trying to remedy it myself. I presented it to Hannah at her graduation to Middle School- in front of her friends. Eleven years in our home have made her a longsuffering young lady and she handled it with much grace.
A common truth lies beneath every point that I try to make. It’s something I never quite get around to explicitly mentioning. Ask yourself, “What kind of God dreams up the marriage bed?” How great and loving beyond description! And so I’ll end my small effort as, I’m told, Johann Sebastian Bach ended his great compositions: Sola Gloria Deo. Not because our efforts are comparable, but rather because, as the bodies of men and women so clearly declare, God’s grace is the source of the most ordinary of blessings and in a world that began in the heart of our God- no blessing is merely ordinary.
PART 1/ PART 2/ PART 3/ PART 4/ PART 5/ PART 6/ PART 7/ PART 8/ PART 9/ PART 10
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