THE CYCLE OF LIFE
Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it. Proverbs 22:6
I was having a conversation with my mother one day, and she mentioned this verse to me in reference to a decision that one of my siblings had made based on his faith in God. She said it with gratitude that as adults we still chose to pursue a relationship with Christ.
Growing up, my parents always took us to Sunday School; at one point, my mother was a teacher in Sunday School as well. She always took us to Christian potluck gatherings with other women and their children at the Arboretum on Saturdays, and she signed us up for VBS (Vocational Bible Study). I’m sure a lot of us who grew up in Nairobi and attended the big churches in the city attended these programs.
While my mother took both an inward and outward approach to building a foundation for us in Christ, my father made it a habit to meet us in the sitting room at the end of the day and read the Bible and pray for us. It was in these sessions that we shared what we learned and understood from the word of the day, and he and my mother gave us wise counsel on very critical aspects of life. I recognize my privilege in this way.
It is in recognizing this privilege that I have come to realize that as an adult I have a responsibility to protect it. For a very long time I have always decided to remain celibate until marriage. Even when in doubt, I stood my ground. Now I know why. It was not just because I was taught that sex before marriage is wrong, but because there is a lot more to marriage than just doing it the way God meant it to be. God knew and still does. It took me such a long time to understand it. I asked many questions on the way. At some point I even made questionable decisions. But now I get it.
Do not compromise. Once you start chipping away, it does not stop. It’s like anything else in this life.
