John Lennon: "Mother"

 I'm glad John wrote and sang this painful song. Many children don't have the idyllic kind of upbringing which 1950s television portrayed. John's father left him when he was five and his mother didn't want the responsibility of a child. So he lived with his aunt, the same one who said he'd never make a living from his music.

Listen to the song here:

Though the Bible tells us how to raise children, reality isn't so kind. In fact, even princes had times of trouble. We read in 2 Samuel 4:4 (Bible in Basic English), "Now Jonathan, Saul's son, had a son whose feet were damaged. He was five years old when news of the death of Saul and Jonathan came from Jezreel, and the woman who took care of him took him up and went in flight: and while she was getting him away as quickly as she was able, he had a fall and his feet were damaged. His name was Mephibosheth."

Mephibosheth was fortunate that he wasn't killed, as the sons of some princes were, when a new king came to power.

We see how David avenged the Gibeonites, whom Saul foolishly murdered, in 2 Samuel 21:6 and 7 (BBE). The people said to David, "'Let seven men of his family be given up to us and we will put an end to them by hanging them before the Lord in Gibeon, on the hill of the Lord.' And the king said, 'I will give them.' But the king did not give up Mephibosheth, the son of Saul's son Jonathan, because of the Lord's oath made between David and Jonathan, the son of Saul."

Though we might have lived without a mother or father, the Lord still cares for us since he's our heavenly father. Deuteronomy 10:17 (BBE) reminds us both of his greatness and his tenderness. "For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, strong in power and greatly to be feared, who has no respect for any man's position and takes no rewards: Judging uprightly in the cause of the widow and of the child who has no father, and giving food and clothing in his mercy to the man from a strange country."

If he hasn't sent Christ to bring us to himself by Monday, I hope to post about life during war time.