How thankful I am that Sunday after Sunday large numbers of our children are brought down to the front for the children’s sermon by their fathers—I hope that sight strikes visitors as the unusual and gospel-driven reality it is!

Visits home to Scotland always mean “family” for us. This past week we experienced two different “family” occasions.

First, we attended a graduation ceremony for one of our sons. It brought to an end thirty-five unbroken years of having children in educational institutions. Yes, 35!

Then, at the beginning of this week, we spent some time with our daughter and her two young girls, aged two and one. Great fun! But two girls? That is high maintenance! The sheer amount of energy our daughter seemed to expend in caring for them, helping them, loving them just for the time we were there was exhausting to watch.

Two very different scenes: the pomp and grandeur of a graduation ceremony in an ancient Scottish University; the domesticity of a young mother and her two girls, combined to underline some basic biblical lessons for me.

The first: the privilege of having children is also a lifetime stewardship.

The second: the challenge of rearing children can never be hurried, foreshortened, or made simple—it can never be anything other than individually crafted. (Woe betide the guru who tells you otherwise!)

The third: we do not really discover the effect of our “principles of child rearing” until our own children are well into their twenties and possibly their thirties—then the fruit appears of all they have seen and breathed in, and how they themselves have responded to it, for good or ill.

All this of course made me think of the responsibilities we have as fathers. (How thankful I am that Sunday after Sunday large numbers of our children are brought down to the front for the children’s sermon by their fathers—I hope that sight strikes visitors as the unusual and gospel-driven reality it is!)

More than this—I reflected on how important is a mother’s passion for her children’s well-being. The calling to motherhood is high and sacrificial. But the juxtaposition of seeing a son finding his way in life and a daughter at the beginning of the long journey of motherhood underscored for me that there is no higher calling in the world. How many of our social woes are the result of its neglect. How much of the greatness of great men and women has been the fruit of it.

Day after day after day . . . motherhood is a humble ministry. But the fruit of each of those days will last for all eternity.

The lessons? At least threefold.

Mothers—stick at it—you are planting not simply seed, but character that will last for all eternity.

Fathers—share with and love your wives and children.

Older women? “. . . teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and their children . . .” (Titus 2:4).

Books could be written on each of these lessons.

But perhaps for most of us it is enough simply to be reminded of them.

Sinclair B. Ferguson is a Minister in the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church and serves as Senior Pastor of the historic First Presbyterian Church of Columbia, SC.  This article is reprinted from First Things, a weekly publication of First Presbyterian Church, Columbia, S.C, and is used with their permission.