I have been delving deeper into college choices for our children. While they are very young, the education and the philosophy are supremely important in order to hone my kid’s swords. …Or dull them. Thus, the education they are subjected to and embrace will have a profound impact on their lives. I have to balance my ‘want’ for them with their ‘need’ from the world we live in… Indubitably, I’m not in a position to teach them as much as I’d like. My wife and I have them in ‘training’ to become good Christians and decent, honorable, and caring young people. Our example, if we don’t screw the pooch, will hopefully show them what good dads and moms are supposed to look like and how they should carry themselves and behave. 1 Timothy 4:12 – Let no one look down on your youthfulness, but rather in speech, conduct, love, faith and purity, show yourself an example of those who believe.
A good friend of mine has a really successful radio program. While he suffered a stroke not long ago, his recovery is coming along and I have no doubt he’ll return to the air. In his absence I’ve been done a couple things with his podcasts. At times, I’ll literally close my eyes after getting to his list on my smartphone, scroll to wear the dates are, and poke a few times to randomly select something to listening and enlightenment. Other times, I’ll search and enjoy something of a specific nature. Recently I was listening to some dialogue over the order of and in two good things. Dr. John Patrick, an apologetics renegade in my book, is a wonderful resource and extremely shrewd man. His defense of Christian faith is really my brand of Faith. Here’s a video that takes excerpts from a very long lecture and combines the high points together for your consideration. The order of good things is among them of course. Watch this. Several times if you like… Then continue reading below. Here’s the video:
After I gave some serious considerations to what Dr. Patrick had to offer I was hooked. Since that day nearly a year ago, I’ve begun researching and learning apologetics in ideology and practice. Through the research of Dr. Patrick’s origin I ran quickly across the college in which he and others have founded. Augustine College, with “Faith Seeking Understanding” as written clearly on their site’s landing page is the sum you’re looking for… Proverbs 22:6 – Train up a child in the way he should go, Even when he is old he will not depart from it.
While at work, I have a great deal of flexibility with what I listen to in the background. Whether that’s Sports Center, AM radio, “Flight of the Bumblebee,” or in the case of a few weeks back, the closing remarks given by Dr. Patrick after John Behr addressed the college courtesy of YouTube. From that stemmed the mention of a book written by Diane M. Komp, Chief of Pediatric Oncology, Yale University School of Medicine, titled “A Child Shall Lead Them” written in 1993…
I purchased the book. Dr. Komp had grown up like many of us with bibles in the home and actively practiced Christian ethic. But through years in medicine, specifically cancer stricken children, she had become an existentialist. The university skeptics, also called professors, had managed to chip away at her faith and she found herself doing the best she could for children, or so she thought. Dr. Patrick quotes “skepticism is the sadism of embittered minds” as a good, but sad definition of the overwhelming majority of university professors currently. It wasn’t that Dr. Patrick or Dr. Komp had ceased to believe, but rather they had both at different times in their early lives ceased to practice their Faith.
What can the Chief of Pediatric Oncology tell and dying child if they themselves, don’t believe? Dr. Patrick tells a story I’ve listened to a couple of different times about how Dr. Komp kept hearing her mother in the back of her mind urge her to be there for these little children’s passing, because she needed to be there for people she loved and those that in turn loved her. After Dr. Komp embraced this, she sat with the family and little girl dying of leukemia late in the evening. Moments of lucidity and extreme clarity apparently aren’t uncommon in even the sickest of children, and this little girl came out of gradual fade with great enthusiasm and said, “Mommy, can you see the angels, can you hear their singing, it’s beautiful!” and promptly passed. Dr. Komp recognized this for what it was and realized she had just witnessed real life and the little girl couldn’t wait to get there.
If that image in your mind doesn’t stir you, I profess you aren’t truly alive. Dr. Komp reflects on that evening as the time in which her Faith and her path were restored and intact.
Isaiah 40:29-31 – He gives strength to the weary, And to him who lacks might He increases power. Though youths grow weary and tired, And vigorous young men stumble badly, Yet those who wait for the Lord will gain new strength; They will mount up with wings like eagles, They will run and not get tired, They will walk and not become weary.
Do you want your cherub to attend a school of higher learning that commits this story to a defect within a sick young child, or would you prefer to embrace the ascension to Heaven as proclaimed by the glimpse and fleeting seconds that were captured by tiny angel transitioning between worlds? God knows the difference. I believe I’m bound to the choices I make, just as you are. Let’s choose wisely for our children and honor Him with the best choice we can make.
A child shall lead them…