Complimentary Story
Editor, Wisconsin Christian News:April 2025
Some of my fondest childhood memories are of learning to read upon my mother’s lap. Besides that of homemaker, she helped run our small farm. I can still picture her driving the tractor pulling our baler through the field as we children “helped” dad stack the hay. Mom also worked during the week at a full-time city job.
Last year I talked briefly with another such mom. She raises vegetables for sale at stands, while also working as a local cook. Her daughter brought home a book from the elementary school library, but knew not to read it until Mom checked it out. I looked at a picture of the cover and agreed that any young child might see it as as good book to read. The title, “A Good Kind of Trouble” doesn’t seem sinister in context with the blurb below, “Full of Heart and Truth.” At first glance, the cover illustration looks innocent too. A well dressed young school girl facing away. Hanging from her shoulder is a prominent pink backpack covered with some stickers. A star, a flower, a winged athletic shoe, an ice cream cone and a heart seem tame as well; even the rainbow “peace” symbol might be. Yet, right in the center? A clenched black fist! It definitely looks out of place. That mom scanned through the book and I agreed with her on the content — such a book should not be in an elementary school library; not even middle school or high school.
Far from “heart and truth” it is a primer into the radical left wing agenda; critical race theory, gender queer ideology, etc. Needless to say, her daughter didn’t read it, nor did her mother let her return it to poison the minds of other children whose parents may not be so diligent.
Just as my own mother, she not only cares with physical hands, but figurative, spiritual hands as well.
It baffles me, how a clenched fist is so often displayed by those espousing “peace.” I once wrote about how GOD is often symbolized with an open hand. An episode of the popular series, “The Chosen,” offers a powerful illustration, in which one sees Jesus’ hand plunging into the sea to save Peter from drowning. I don’t always agree with everything the show portrays, but believe it sticks closer to The Bible than most other such artistic works. I would love to see them supporting WCN by advertising.
Critics claim that the loving and caring GOD of the New Testament is contradictory with the vengeful, smiting GOD of the Old. Yet, only the Biblically ignorant could think that. GOD sets Adam and Eve in a paradise. After their sin, HE doesn’t use a clenched fist to pound them back to dust. They are banished, however, from Eden. Cain kills his brother, perhaps with a clenched fist, again mercy is granted, he is not smitten but banished. The flood of Noah? Except for a few saved on the Ark, men’s evil had all the earth on a path to destruction, anyway. Abraham bargains with GOD to spare Sodom and Gomorrah if just five good people may be found. Lot’s family only add up to four.
No, The Caring Hand of GOD is there in the Old Scriptures as well, for those with eyes to see and ears to hear. As Jesus said, “they testify of HIM.”
I never did and no longer can say “thank you” to my mom as much as she deserved. For all those moms who care as much about the spiritual food their children ingest/read, thank you. Most of all, I thank GOD for HIS SAVING HAND, that rescued me from drowning in a sea of troubled waters.
-Bill Behringer,
Winneconne, Wis.
