What your husband wants but won’t say:
Tomorrow, I’m turning to the men - I’ll tell them what your heart, body, and soul truly crave.
Dr. K. N. Jacob
Preparing for “Dedication Service ‘
Please read and meditate on: The Principle of Dedication.
In the Bible, "dedication" means to set apart or devote something or someone to God's service, emphasizing a formal commitment and a conscious choice to give one's allegiance to Him. This concept appears in various forms: the dedication of things (like Solomon dedicating the Temple), the dedication of children (such as Hannah dedicating Samuel), and the ongoing personal dedication of believers to live in obedience to God's will and the truth of His word.
At our Maranatha Churches we do practice dedicating babies / children to the Lord. firstly as an act of thanksgiving acknowledging that a child or children are a gift and blessing from the Lord and secondly as a pledge of the parents to bring up the child in the ways of the Lord.
Ephesians 6:2: "And ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord".
A Baby Dedication is a special rite observed in a worship service where parents pledge to raise a child in the Christian faith. Because raising a child in the faith is not done independently, I recommend involving the parents, Godparents (if applicable), and congregation in the charge to help the each party recognize their responsibility in nurturing a child in the faith. I have provided a sample charge to the parents, godparents, and congregation below.
Dedication Biblical Authority: Matthew 19:13-15
Then little children were brought to Jesus for him to place his hands on them and pray for them. But the disciples rebuked those who brought them. Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these." When he had placed His hands on them, he went on from there.
Dedication of Parents.
It’s not only dedicating the baby or child but it is the parents dedicating and committing themselves to provide and healthy Christ-centered environment for the nurture and admonition of the Lord.
PARENTING
Parenting can be so difficult while at the same time being one of the greatest blessings of our lives. So much goes into parenting: decisions about media consumption, pointing children toward Godly character, leading kids to honor their parents, and so much more. Parents must depend on the Lord. Perhaps you’re wondering what God has to say about parenting in the Bible. Might He offer any advice or guidance that can help us in the ups and downs of parenting? Surely He does! There are lots of Bible verses for parents. Let’s explore some of what the Bible says about parenting.
What Does the Bible Say About Parenting?
Old Testament: Exodus 20:12 - Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you.
Leviticus 19:3 - Every one of you shall revere his mother and his father, and you shall keep my Sabbaths: I am the LORD your God.
Deuteronomy 4:9-10 - Only take care, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things that your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. Make them known to your children and your children’s children— how on the day that you stood before the Lord your God at Horeb, the Lord said to me, ‘Gather the people to me, that I may let them hear my words, so that they may learn to fear me all the days that they live on the earth, and that they may teach their children so.’
Deuteronomy 5:29 - Oh that they had such a heart as this always, to fear me and to keep all my commandments, that it might go well with them and with their descendants forever!
Deuteronomy 6:6–9 - These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.
Deuteronomy 11:18–21 - Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates, so that your days and the days of your children may be many in the land the Lord swore to give your ancestors, as many as the days that the heavens are above the earth.
Psalm 78:1–8 - Give ear, O my people, to my teaching; incline your ears to the words of my mouth!
I will open my mouth in a parable; I will utter dark sayings from of old, things that we have heard and known,
that our fathers have told us. We will not hide them from their children, but tell to the coming generation
the glorious deeds of the LORD, and his might, and the wonders that he has done. He established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers to teach to their children, that the next generation might know them, the children yet unborn, and arise and tell them to their children, so that they should set their hope in God and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments; and that they should not be like their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation whose heart was not steadfast, whose spirit was not faithful to God.
Psalm 103:13 - As a father shows compassion to his children, so the LORD shows compassion to those who fear him.
Psalm 127:3–5 - Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one’s youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them!
He shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies in the gate.
Proverbs 1:8–9 - Hear, my son, your father’s instruction, and forsake not your mother’s teaching, for they are a graceful garland for your head and pendants for your neck.
Proverbs 3:1–12 - My son, do not forget my teaching, but let your heart keep my commandments, for length of days and years of life and peace they will add to you. Let not steadfast love and faithfulness forsake you;
bind them around your neck; write them on the tablet of your heart. So you will find favor and good success
in the sight of God and man. Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the LORD, and turn away from evil. It will be healing to your flesh and refreshment to your bones. Honor the LORD with your wealth and with the firstfruits of all your produce; then your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will be bursting with wine. My son, do not despise the LORD’s discipline
or be weary of his reproof, for the LORD reproves him whom he loves, as a father the son in whom he delights.
Proverbs 13:24 - Whoever spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him.
Proverbs 15:20 - A wise son makes a glad father, but a foolish man despises his mother.
Proverbs 17:6 - Grandchildren are the crown of the aged, and the glory of children is their fathers.
Proverbs 22:6 - Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.
Proverbs 23:22 - Listen to your father who gave you life, and do not despise your mother when she is old.
Proverbs 29:15 - The rod and reproof give wisdom, but a child left to himself brings shame to his mother.
Proverbs 29:17 - Discipline your son, and he will give you rest; he will give delight to your heart.
Proverbs 31:26–31 - She opens her mouth with wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue.
She looks well to the ways of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness. Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her: ‘Many women have done excellently, but you surpass them all.’ Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised. Give her of the fruit of her hands, and let her works praise her in the gates.
Isaiah 54:13 - All your children shall be taught by the LORD, and great shall be the peace of your children.
Lamentations 3:22–23 - The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.
New Testament: Matthew 6:33–34 - But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.
Matthew 19:13–15 - Then children were brought to him that he might lay his hands on them and pray. The disciples rebuked the people, but Jesus said, ‘Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.’ And he laid his hands on them and went away.
Acts 2:38–39 - And Peter said to them, ‘Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.’
Ephesians 6:1–4 - Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. ‘Honor your father and mother’ (this is the first commandment with a promise), ‘that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.’ Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.
Philippians 4:6–7 - Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Colossians 3:20-21 - Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord. Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged.
Titus 2:2–8 - Older men are to be sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith, in love, and in steadfastness. Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled. Likewise, urge the younger men to be self-controlled. Show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works, and in your teaching show integrity, dignity, and sound speech that cannot be condemned, so that an opponent may be put to shame, having nothing evil to say about us.
Hebrews 12:7–11 - It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.
Who or What is a child?
What is parenting and what is successful parenting?
What is the biblical principles for a victorious parent and child relationship?
Someone Once Said …
• Before I was married I had three theories about raising children. Now I have three children and no theories.—John Wilmot, the Earl of Rochester
• A father’s first responsibility to his child is to love his wife. The most favored children in the world are those whose parents love each other.—Charles Shedd
• To our forefathers the Christian faith was an experience. To our fathers it was an inheritance. To our generation it is a convenience. And to our children it is a nuisance.—an anonymous speaker, emphasizing the importance of raising children in a genuine, glowing Christian environment.
KEEP ON SINGING
Like any good mother, when Karen found out that another baby was on the way, she did what she could to help her three-year-old son, Michael, prepare for a new sibling. They find out that the new baby is going to be a girl, and day after day, night after night, Michael sings to his sister in Mommy’s tummy. The pregnancy progressed normally for Karen, an active member of the Panther Creek United Methodist Church in Morristown, Tennessee. Then the labor pains come. Every 5 minutes … every minute. But complications arise during delivery. Hours of labor. Would a C-section be required? Finally, Michael’s little sister is born. But she is in serious condition. With sirens howling in the night, the ambulance rushes the infant to the neonatal intensive care unit at St. Mary’s Hospital, Knoxville, Tennessee.
The days inch by. The little girl gets worse. The pediatric specialist tells the parents, “There is very little hope. Be prepared for the worst.”
Karen and her husband contact a local cemetery about a burial plot. They had fixed up a special room in their home for the new baby, but now they plan a funeral. Michael keeps begging his parents to let him see his sister, “I want to sing to her,” he says.
Week two in intensive care. Things don’t look good. Michael keeps nagging about singing to his sister, but kids are never allowed in Intensive Care. Karen makes up her mind. She will take Michael whether they like it or not. If he doesn’t see his sister now, he may never see her alive. She dresses him in an oversized scrub suit and marches him into ICU. He looks like a walking laundry basket, but the head nurse recognizes him as a child and bellows, “Get that kid out of here now! No children are allowed in ICU.” The mother rises up strong in Karen, and the usually mild-mannered lady glares steel-eyed into the head nurse’s face, her lips a firm line. “He is not leaving until he sings to his sister!”
Karen tows Michael to his sister’s bedside. He gazes at the tiny infant losing the battle to live. And he begins to sing. In the pure-hearted voice of a three-year-old, Michael sings: “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine, you make me happy when skies are gray....
Instantly the baby girl responds. The pulse rate becomes calm and steady.
“Keep on singing, Michael.” “You never know, dear, how much I love you. Please don’t take my sunshine away …”
The ragged, strained breathing becomes as smooth as a kitten’s purr. “Keep on singing, Michael.” “The other night, dear, as I lay sleeping, I dreamed I held you in my arms …” Michael’s little sister relaxes as rest, healing rest, seems to sweep over her. Tears conquer the face of the bossy head nurse. Karen glows. “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. Please don’t take my sunshine away.”
The baby is well enough to go home! Woman’s Day Magazine called it “The Miracle of a Brother’s Song.” The medical staff just called it a miracle. Karen called it a miracle of God’s love. A few weeks later, Michael’s little sister was baptized at the Panther Creek Church.
WHY CHILDREN LOVE GOD
The minister asked a group of children in Sunday School class, “Why do you love God?” He got a variety of answers, but the one he liked best was from a boy who said, “I guess it just runs in our family.”
HOW TO RAISE A HAPPY CHILD
When John and Peter were growing up, other kids felt sorry for them. Their parents always had them doing chores: weeding the garden, running errands, carrying out the trash. When they grew older, they delivered newspapers or mowed lawns. Sometimes other parents shook their heads and remarked that all work and no play made a dull boy.
But when the boys reached adulthood, they were better off than their childhood playmates who had been less industrious. They earned more money and had more job satisfaction. They had better marriages and closer relationships with their children. They were healthier and lived longer. Most of all, they were happier. Far happier.
These are the remarkable findings of a 40-year study that began in the 1940s—a study that may help you raise happier children today. Started in an effort to understand juvenile delinquency, the study followed the lives of 456 teenage boys from inner-city Boston, many from impoverished or broken homes. When they were compared at middle age, one fact stood out: regardless of intelligence, family income, ethnic background or amount of education, those who had worked as boys, even at simple household chores, enjoyed happier and more productive lives than those who had not.
FENCES
A kindergarten in one town sat right on a corner by a busy highway. Although the school had a nice yard in which the children could play, at recess they would huddle right up against the building. The cars whizzing by frightened them.
One day, workmen erected a steel fence around the school yard. From that point on, the children used the entire playground. The fence did not limit their freedom; it actually expanded it.
Children need fences, for they feel more secure having the discipline of clear boundaries.
A FATHER'S ADVICE
Heinrich Bullinger was a good pastor and a better father. He was born in 1504 to a priest who, in his old age, embraced Reformation views. Though it cost him his church, it gained him his son. Young Heinrich fell in love with Luther’s writings, Melanchthon’s books, and the study of the Bible. At the remarkably young age of twenty-seven, he was asked to take the place of slain Swiss Reformer Ulrich Zwingli as pastor of the Grossmunster of Zurich. He ascended the pulpit there on December 23, 1531.
Bullinger continued Zwingli’s practice of preaching through books of the Bible, verse by verse. His home, like his Bible, was open from morning till night, and he freely distributed food, clothing, and money to the needy. His wisdom and influence spread across Europe.
No one was more affected than his own son, Henry. When the young man packed his bags and set out for college in Strassburg, Heinrich gave him ten rules for living:
1. Fear God at all times, and remember that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom.
2. Humble yourself before God, and pray to him alone through Christ, our only Mediator and Advocate.
3. Believe firmly that God has done all for our salvation through his Son.
4. Pray above all things for a strong faith active in love.
5. Pray that God may protect your good name and keep you from sin, sickness, and bad company.
6. Pray for the fatherland, for your dear parents … for the spread of the Word of God.
7. Be reticent, be always more willing to hear than to speak, and do not meddle with things you do not understand.
8. Study diligently.… Read daily three chapters of the Bible.
9. Keep your body clean and unspotted, be neat in your dress, and avoid above all things intemperance in eating and drinking.
10. Let your conversation be decent, cheerful, moderate.
The advice was taken, and Henry Bullinger later became, like his father and grandfather, a minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
THE FAMILY ALTAR
Before her death, Morrow Coffey Graham wrote a little book about her experiences as the mother of the man who would preach the Gospel to more people than any other in history.
My husband and I established a family altar the day we were married and we carried that through. In the breakfast room I always kept a Scripture calendar with a verse for the day. Each morning we read that, too, and prayed to the Lord. As we gathered at the breakfast table, everyone would bow his head and fold his hands as my husband asked the blessing. Often as I packed the children’s school lunches, I could hear my husband talking to the children. He helped them memorize literally hundreds of Bible verses.
I looked forward to our evenings together as a family. Everyone gathered in the family room. We did this right after the dinner dishes were put away. It was the most important thing in our life, this time of Bible reading and prayer. I know that today Billy recalls those instructional periods as among the most important in his life, helping him to become saturated with the Bible.
Since my children have married and gone their separate ways, and since my husband’s death, I have found myself with more time to devote to prayer. I pray without ceasing for Billy Frank.
In the early days of Billy’s ministry, his mother accompanied him on a trip. Seeing his busy schedule, the throngs of people, and the stresses he encountered, she grew alarmed. But the Lord gave her Jeremiah 23:23, and it became her theme-verse in praying for him: “ ‘Am I a God near at hand,’ says the Lord, ‘And not a God afar off?’ ”
I knew God had a long arm; He was wholly trustworthy. I have always had great confidence in the Lord’s watchcare over Billy, and I have not feared, therefore, for his life.
BAXTER AND BOSTON
Richard Baxter was one of England’s greatest ministers. In early life, he went into a large parish that was composed almost entirely of rich, cultured people. He found that the congregation was cold, and all was not as he had hoped. He was disappointed, but he determined that the way to save the church was to establish a warm and living faith inside the walls of family homes. Baxter therefore spent three years in visiting the homes of his community and helping establish family altars—a daily time of prayer and Bible reading—in every home. He succeeded amazingly, and the condition of the home was the fountainhead that filled his church to overflowing and revived Christianity in his parish.
Thomas Boston was likewise a great minister, but, unlike Baxter, he spent the years of his early ministry in the slums of a city among the poor. There he discovered the same condition—the church was cold and empty. He had no influence, and he grew disheartened and discouraged. He determined that the only way to save the church was to save the family, and so he went through that poor community, establishing family altars. It took him three years, but Thomas Boston’s church sparked a revival of Christianity in his region.
RUTH GRAHAM ON THE FAMILY ALTAR
In a 1975 interview with Family Life Today, Ruth Bell Graham was asked about conducting a daily family altar. She first spoke of how her own interest in the Bible had been piqued at an early age: Each morning when I went downstairs to breakfast, my father—a busy missionary surgeon—would be sitting reading his Bible. At night, her work behind her, my mother would be doing the same. Anything that could so capture the interest and devotion of those I admired and loved the most, I reasoned, must be worth investigating. So at an early age, I began reading my Bible and found it to be, in the words of the old Scotsman, “sweet pasturage.”
Then she gave these suggestions about leading children in a family worship time: I believe it is important to keep the Scripture reading and prayer relatively brief and to vary it from time to time.…
It pays to start young and give it in small doses. For “a child’s mind,” said John Trapp in the seventeenth century, “is like a small-necked bottle: pour in the wine too rapidly and much of the liquid spills over and is wasted.
Bear in mind the words of Isaiah 28:9, 10, “Whom shall he teach knowledge? And whom shall he make to understand doctrine? Them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts. For precept must be upon precept,… line upon line … , here a little, and there a little.”
BIRTH ORDER
The impact on a child’s personality of the order of birth has intrigued psychologists since the early twentieth century, and over two thousand studies have been published on the subject.
In a front page story of the Wall Street Journal, David Stipp wrote about the newest research regarding birth order:
“Historian Frank Sulloway says it is only natural that he has spent twenty-four years plotting to overthrow the reigning ideas in his field. After all, he’s a later-born.
“Based on a massive statistical analysis of many of those who shaped the past, Dr. Sulloway has detected a grand pattern. Forget Adam Smith’s invisible hand, Karl Marx’s class struggles and Sigmund Freud’s Oedipal clashes. Radical change in human affairs is wrought by the perennial rivalry between the eldest children and their younger siblings.
“Later-borns are more open-minded than firstborns,” says Dr. Sulloway. “They are ‘born to rebel,’ take risks and explode accepted wisdom. Charles Darwin, Igor Stravinsky and Rachel Carson were later-borns. So was Victorian novelist George Eliot, who renounced religion and lived adulterously with her married mentor.” Some others: Marx, Lenin, Castro, Ho Chi Minh, Ralph Nader, Marlon Brando, Anita Hill, and Bill Gates.
“Firstborns tend to stiffly support the status quo,” says Dr. Sulloway, a guest scholar at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “They are status-conscious and often emerge as leaders. But when faced with revolutionary change, they try to slam on the brakes. John Adams, Calvin Coolidge, and Ayn Rand were firstborns. So are Chief Justice William Rehnquist and radio host Rush Limbaugh.”
MAKING SACRIFICES
Martha Scarborough celebrated Independence Day, July 4, 1870, by giving birth to a son, Lee. When the boy was eight, Martha and her husband George, a part-time Baptist preacher, moved to Texas to raise cattle and share Christ. A dugout shelter served as home, then a log cabin near Clear Fork Creek. George and Martha dreamed of a beautiful house atop a nearby hill. They saved frugally, but times were lean, and years passed before they accumulated enough to proceed with the long-discussed house. Lee, meanwhile, grew into a brawny sixteen-year-old cowboy.
One day, their work behind them, George said to Martha, “Let’s go up the hill and select a suitable place for the home. We have saved money for that purpose, so we had as well begin plans to build.” Arm in arm, the couple strolled to the grassy crest of the hill behind their cabin. This was a moment long anticipated. At the top of the hill, he said, “Here is the place. This is the most suitable location we can find.” But Martha turned toward him, her eyes filling with tears. “My dear,” she said, “I do appreciate your desire to build me a new, comfortable home on this place of beauty, but there is another call for our money which is far greater. Let’s live on in the old house and put this money in the head and heart of our boy. I fear that if we use this money to build a home we shall never be able to send Lee to college. I would rather a thousand times that we should never build this house if we can invest the money in our boy.”
George was disappointed, and he said little for several days. Finally one evening past midnight he yielded. The house was never built, but Lee Scarborough left home on January 8, 1888, for Baylor College in Waco, Texas. He eventually became a powerhouse for Christ, a Southern Baptist leader, a writer, a seminary president, a pastor, an evangelist, and a business leader who built colleges, seminaries, churches, hospitals, and mission stations around the world. And it was from a book of his sermons that young Billy Graham, a student in Florida, found the material for his first sermon.
FRIENDSHIP
Many years ago, British pastor John Patton gave his Sunday night congregation this advice about becoming “pals” with their children: “Thirty years divide a father and son. Each looks out on the world with his own eyes, and sees things from his own view-point. Is it any wonder that misunderstandings sometimes arise? The remedy lies along the lines of forbearance and sympathy. Be the pal of your boy. Let father and son cultivate the spirit of comradeship, and in every event of life there will be a chance of complete understanding between them.”
TOO YOUNG TO DATE?
Paul Harvey once delighted his radio listeners with this story. “Our For What It’s Worth Department reads The Washingtonian…
About the nine-year-old boy who announced to his parents that he had a date. A date with a girl at the age of nine? His parents were taken aback. But the lad had already telephoned the girl they’d met last summer and invited her to his house for dinner. He had lured her with the promise his mom would make popovers. And his dad would get a VCR tape of Thriller at the video store.
So—the pretty little girl was delivered by her mother.
After dinner the two youngsters went down to the rec room and watched Michael Jackson. At ten P.M. his father delivered them to her front door. Her four older sisters rushed out to hug and greet her. It was her first date also.
Back home, before the dying fire, dad sat soberly thinking about how fast babies grow up. His young son, misinterpreting his father’s mood, walked over, put his hand on dad’s shoulder and said, “Don’t worry, Dad; nothing happened!”
ANOTHER YOUNG DATER
Young people are starting to date too young nowadays. The other day one mother was overheard telling her son, “Now remember, Tommy, I want you back in this house when the big hand is on twelve and the little hand is on nine.
MURPHY'S LAWS OF PARENTING
1. The tennis shoes you must replace today will go on sale next week.
2. Leakproof thermoses—will.
3. The chances of a piece of bread falling with the grape-jelly side down are directly proportional to the cost of the carpet.
4. The garbage truck will be two doors past your house when your teen remembers it’s his turn to take out the trash.
5. The shirt your child must wear today will be the only one that needs to be washed or mended.
6. Gym clothes left at school in lockers mildew at a faster rate than other clothing.
7. The item your child lost, and must have for school within the next ten seconds, will be found in the last place you think to look.
8. Sick children recover miraculously when the pediatrician enters the treatment room.
9. Refrigerated items, used daily, will gravitate toward the back of the refrigerator.
10. Your chances of being seen by someone you know dramatically increase if you drive your child to school in your robe and curlers.
SHE'S JUST PERFECT
A small boy invaded the lingerie section of a big department store and shyly presented his problem to the salesclerk. “I want to buy my mom a present of a slip,” he said, “but I’m darned if I know what size she wears.”
The clerk said, “It would help to know if your mom is short or tall, fat or skinny.”
“She’s just perfect,” beamed the little boy, so the clerk wrapped up a size thirty-four for him.
Two days later Mom came to the store herself and changed it to a size fifty-two.
NEW YEAR'S DAY
Someone Once Said
• A.D.—The Year of our Lord
• You crown the year with Your goodness.—Psalm 65.1
• On the thirty-second day of the thirteenth month / on the eighth day of the week we will find the things we seek.—Sam Walter Foss
• Time has no divisions to mark its passage; there is never a thunderstorm to announce the beginning of a new year. It is only we mortals who ring bells and fire off pistols.—Thomas Mann, in The Magic Mountain
• A New Year’s Resolution usually goes in one year and out the next.—Anonymous
TWO-FACED
The month of January is named after the Roman god Janus, who was pictured as a man with two faces, one looking backward and the other forward. New Year’s Day provides a valuable time to ponder the past while anticipating the future.
NEW YEAR'S CUSTOMS
Not all countries celebrate the New Year at the same time or in the same way because of different calendars and customs.
• In Ancient Egypt, the holiday was celebrated when the Nile flooded, usually near the end of September. This flooding made it possible to grow crops in the desert, and the people celebrated by taking statues of the god Amon, his wife and son, up the Nile by boat. Singing, dancing, and feasting was done for a month, then the statues were returned to the temple.
• Babylonia’s New Year was in the Spring. During the festival, the king was stripped of his clothes and sent away, and for a few days there was a relaxation of laws. Then the king returned in grand procession, dressed in fine robes. Everyone returned to work and behaved properly. Thus the New Year gave people a new start to their lives.
• The Roman New Year festival was called the Calends, and people decorated their homes and gave each other gifts. It was Emperor Julius Caesar who began the calendar system in which the first month is named for the two-faced god Janus.
• The Celtic New Year festival took place at the end of October, at summer’s end. The Celts gathered mistletoe to keep ghosts at bay, for this was the time when the dead were thought to return to haunt the living.
• The Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah, is a holy time when people consider things they have done wrong in the past and promise to do better in the future. Special services are held in synagogues and the Shofar is blown.
• The Muslim Calendar is based on the movements of the moon, so the date of New Year is eleven days earlier each year. In some Islamic nations, people put grains of wheat or barley in a little dish to grow. By New Year’s the grains have produced shoots, reminding the people of a new year of life.
• Hindus do not all celebrate New Year in the same way or at the same time. The people of West Bengal wear flowers of pink, red, purple, or white. In Kerala, mothers put food, flowers, and little gifts on a special tray to surprise their children. In central India, orange flags are flown from buildings. In Gujarat in western India, small oil lamps are lit along the roofs of buildings.
• In Vietnam, the New Year is called Tet Nguyen Dan, or Tet for short. It begins between January 21 and February 19, the exact date changing from year to year. The Vietnamese believe there is a god in every home who travels to heaven (traditionally on a carp) to report how good or bad each family member has been in the past year. Live carp are often purchased and set free in a river.
• In Shinto families in Japan, a rope of straw is often placed across the front of houses to keep out evil spirits and bring happiness during the coming year.
• The Chinese New Year is celebrated some time between January 17 and February 19, at the time of the new moon, and is call Yuan Tan. It is a time of parades and street processions involving large costumes and thousands of lanterns which light the way for the New Year. Firecrackers are used to frighten the spirits away.
• In Greece, New Year’s Day is also the Festival of Saint Basil, who was famous for his kindness. Greek children leave their shoes by the fire on New Year’s Day with the hope that he will come and fill them with gifts.
• In some villages in Scotland, barrels of tar are set afire and rolled through the streets, signifying the burning of the old year.
• In the United States, New Year’s Eve is celebrated with parties and champagne by some, and by prayer and worship by others in traditional “watch night” services. January 1st is devoted to parades, football games, and for some, black-eyed peas.
• All over the world, Robert Burns’s poem Auld Lang Syne is sung at midnight on New Year’s Eve. The words auld lang syne mean old, long time.
A. W. Tozer’s New Year’s Message
A. W. Tozer, long-time editor of the Alliance Witness, once penned this greeting for the cover of the January 1, 1938, edition of his magazine, and it was reprinted on the cover for the New Year’s edition in 1979. It read in part:
While all the promises of God are true and precious, yet it is good to take them one by one and especially commit ourselves to them. If you ask God to give you a special message for the opening year, one that will be made seasonable and real in every exigency of the unknown future, you will be surprised how faithfully He will fulfill His Word, and how fittingly the Holy Spirit will speak to you of things to come, and anticipate the real needs and exigencies of your life.
Another Year Is Dawning
Hymnist Frances Ridley Havergal took New Year’s Day very seriously, always using it as a time of reflection and often composing a poem to send to friends expressing her feelings about the new day and year. The one she wrote in 1874 has become immortal. She was thirty-six at the time, and she dashed off this poem and had it printed on a specially designed greeting card to be sent to friends. The card was captioned: “A Happy New Year! Ever such may it be!” The inside said:
Another year is dawning:
Dear Father, let it be,
In working or in waiting,
Another year with Thee;
Another year of progress,
Another year of praise,
Another year of proving
Thy presence all the days.
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