7 A final word

Seven years ago our daughter Camilla was serving her mission in the Switzerland Geneva Mission. Her first assignment was in Strasbourg, France, a city hugging the eastern edge of the country right up against the border with Germany. This past week I was looking in my 2002 journal and ran across a letter I had sent her, from which the following excerpt comes:

"A couple days ago . . . I was sitting in the blue recliner in the family room reading a book. A group of Mom’s tending kids were playing in the room and got into a theological discussion that was quite fascinating. I wish I had a recording of it. Amy, the expert Mormon in the group, had observed that the devil wants to make us fight and argue. I hadn’t been paying attention to what elicited that comment, but they all seemed to concur with her observation. The next thing I knew they were talking about Santa Claus giving coal to naughty children.

"'That’s not fair,' one of them said.

"'Well, he only does it if you’re bad,' said another.

"'My mom got coal once when she was a little girl,' observed Emily.

"'What is coal?' someone asked.

"'It’s a black rock,' Amy said, 'like what they make roads out of.'

"The conversation then shifted to how the President is in charge of everybody. That may have been in light of the commemorative events of the day [it was the first anniversary of the 9/11 attacks]. I think it was Jesse, our resident Catholic, who had said that. It was soon countered by Emily, some brand of Protestant, that God is in charge of everybody. They discussed that a while and concluded after a few minutes that the President is in charge of everyone here and God is in charge of everyone up there.

"'God is a king,' Emily asserted. No, he is isn’t, others countered. They didn’t come to any resolution on that theological point other than someone’s observation that He died a long time ago and Amy’s renewed observation that the devil makes us argue.

Fascinating stuff out of the mouths of babes.

"And yet it occurs to me," my letter to Camilla continued, "that the people you’ll be teaching there in Switzerland, France, and Belgium, to the extent they even care about such things, know as little about our Heavenly Father and His purposes as this little ecumenical council we had convened here in our playroom. They’ll know bits and pieces of truth, distorted by a lot of falsehood, mingled with the philosophies of men, and all that suiting the devil’s plans just fine.

"Mostly, you’ll find to your great frustration, they don’t really care about such matters one way or the other. And that really suits the devil’s designs just fine because he can thereby keep them from even listening to you. But you are armed with three things to your advantage: the power of the Spirit, the gift of love, and the truth. Use them all to bless and lift and strengthen. And remember always, as guided by the Holy Spirit (as I wrote before), people won’t care how much you know until they know how much you care."

People won't care how much you know until they know how much you care. A good reminder as we embark on this new year before us.