May the sun be bright and the breeze always warm
enough to watch butterflies flit flower to flower.
And perhaps in the green grass you can charm
a snake from his hidden bower.

But when the air is chill and the sky a storm
may the rain make the puddles perfectly deep,
May the asphalt be wet enough for the worm
to inch by as the air turns heavy, lulling you to sleep.

May the water freeze and form
the perfect snow; fluffy and a little wet
so you might sled down the biggest hill and perform
marvelous feats before your most sizable snowman yet.

But before your eyelashes freeze and your fingers numb
exchange wet clothes for a steaming cocoa in a cup.
May there always be room by the fire to get warm,
and so many fairy books you’ll never finish them till you’re grown up.

One of the great gifts of motherhood is our role as culture-makers. We help create the culture of our home, we take part in building the story of our children’s childhood. I hope when my children are grown and they look back on the years they can remember they think of their childhood as wholesome. Wholesomeness is a promotion of well-being in body and spirit, a simple health that promotes soundness in body, mind, and morals. Traditionally, the definition of wholesomeness has prudent fear as its foundation, as though it is a precursor to holiness. As Christians we want want more than just joyful memories and loving security for our children, but we do not want less. If our home culture is built upon the fear of the Lord, one result will be wholesome delight as a common thread in our days. These gentle wholesome moments, in a way, build the scaffolding for the great ideas we teach our children about God as our Creator and the Author of the redemptive plan that is our ultimate hope and the source of our greatest joy. I do not want to disparage these little wholesome moments that are such gifts, inconsequential as they seem at first blush. Especially as it seems the Holy Spirit uses them to help till the soil of their hearts, making it possible for truth to take root there.

Yet even as I delight in the goodness of these moments with my own children, it grieves me that so many children in the world could not call their young lives wholesome. Too many children are exposed to evil when they ought to be protected from it, they live in insecurity and fear, the culture they know is one of chaos and conflict. It is with profound gratitude that I build the culture of my home, and as I pray my children would be blessed with this kind of wholesome childhood, I pray that those who do not, or have not had it, would nonetheless find wholeness and a kind of wholesomeness the only place it can be found: in Christ. Whatever the past, there is no childhood too broken or unwholesome to be healed in the hands of the great Healer. In Christ our past is healed and forgiven, and our future is certain. In Christ our future exists in the household of God, where the culture is holiness, unity, and peace. Because of what Christ has done for us, we have a Father. A Father who is unchanging in his mercy and kindness, and who has given us brothers and sisters who love us and will bear our burdens with us.

If you are fortunate enough to be building the culture of your home, foster wholesomeness aimed at holiness, with the words of the gospel always on your lips. Bless your children this way, and expand that culture beyond the four walls of your home and into the life of the church and the world. For the world needs not merely wholesomeness, but Christ himself.