While areas of the American West are going up in flames, northern India has been inundated with monsoon rains, mudslides and devastating flooding. Over the last few weeks, “Swollen rivers have swept away entire villages” (BBC, July 15, 2013), and more than 5,700 people are presumed dead following flooding in late June when severe weather affected more than 4,000 villages (ibid.).

Being age 63 is a good place, and actually a pretty good accomplishment just in itself. When you reach that point in years, you will have been through a lot of life’s experiences and traveled many roads to get to your destination. If you have had children, you have raised them and may be enjoying visits with your grandchildren and know the joy of being a grandmother. I will never forget the day I flew back to Ohio from California to see my very first grandson. When I first laid my eyes on him, he looked so much like my only daughter when she was a baby that I could hardly believe it.

What is the most important responsibility a mother has in shaping and nurturing her growing children? Certainly, kids need shelter, food, love, and stability. We can think of many physical comforts that will help our children to thrive. However, a Christian mother needs to consider her children’s spiritual growth even more than their physical growth.

“A court in London has sentenced seven members of a Muslim child grooming gang… to at least 95 years in prison for raping, torturing and trafficking British girls as young as 11. The high-profile trial was the latest in a rapidly growing list of grooming cases that are forcing politically correct Britons to confront the previously taboo subject of endemic sexual abuse of children by predatory Muslim pedophile gangs” (Jewish Press, July 14, 2013).