Christian Living

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Larry Lilly's Letter Tuesday February 6, 2007

The other afternoon the little honey of my youth, known far and wide as The Great Blonde sent a piece to me called "The Price Of A Child." As with many Internet articles, no source was given as to the author. It's a long piece and if you want it in entirety just note me with a reply and I will send it to you free and postage paid via the Ethernet.

Here's the part I'm using today:

The Price of Children

"The government recently calculated the cost of raising a child from birth to 18 to be $160,140 for a middle income family. Talk about sticker shock! That doesn't even touch college tuition. But $160,140 isn't so bad if you break it down. It translates into: * $8,896.66 a year, or * $741.38 a month, or * $171.08 a week. * That's a mere $24.24 a day! * Just over a dollar an hour. Still, you might think the best financial advice is "if you want to be 'rich', don't have children."

I often pass vans loaded with kids and I say a silent prayer as the van pulls into the local Scottish eatery. And what of the poor father and mother who are working for minimum or near minimum wage?

Can you even imagine the load that single mother's are called upon to bear? Add to their load the uncaring deadbeat dads who do not pay for the fruit of their passion. Add to that the burden on society as communities struggle to make some positive difference for the children through tax payer supported health programs, hot lunches, food stamps etc while adults continue their deadbeat ways.

Such as the above should not be named among the saints as the scriptures are very clear on these matters. And yet. And yet, according to research numbers I am digging up, as with the divorce numbers, the statistics for the saints are near the same. What a shame to the name of Jesus Christ. What a terrible shame for those who empower professing Christians to engage in such outrageously irresponsible behavior.

Your spiritual exercise for today is simple: Find a need and meet it, find a hurt and heal it; find it in your heart to really care about a hurting person today and at least pray for them. I know the following is a little out of context, but the principle applies across the board:

"Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." Jesus.

Larry Lilly Copyright © 2007 Use with credit

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