***
After two more weeks, Nick and Piper learned they were going to be the proud parents of a baby boy. They decided to name him Patrick, after one of Nick’s favorite saints and favorite holidays. Little Patrick was developing well in Piper’s belly, and she soon developed a nesting instinct, feeling the urge to prepare the home for the baby’s arrival.
“I’m going to paint his room a nice shade of ocean blue,” she told Nick one day as they sat next to one another on a couch in the family room of their home. Faith sat across from them on a different couch and stared at her new owners. She had adapted to her new home and Piper and Nick had already grown attached to her. Faith was a nice addition to the growing family.
“We’ll have to go out soon to purchase a crib, some clothes, and other baby items too.”
“Maybe we can do that this weekend,” Nick offered.
“I’ll have to let my work know soon too. Or maybe I’ll wait. I probably won’t start showing until about twenty weeks or so, so maybe I’ll hold off until then.”
“Do you want to keep working after you have the baby?” Nick asked.
“Yeah. I’m sure we’ll need the money, but it would be nice to take a couple of months off to care for Patrick after he’s born. Little Patrick is going to want his mom to be by his side for as long as possible.”
“I’m sure he will. You’ll be a great mom, Piper. A great mom.” Nick stood up and headed into the kitchen, where he grabbed Faith’s leash. “Do you want to walk the dog with me?”
Faith howled and leapt from the couch before sprinting into the kitchen with her tail wagging from side to side. It was clear she knew the word, “walk.”
“Sure,” Piper answered as she stood up. “She’s our other little baby. I’m sure her previous owner is missing her much. She’s such a little sweetheart.”
Faith’s backside jiggled about in such excitement that Nick could barely get the opportunity to connect the leash to her collar. “C’mon, girl. Stop. Hold on. Let me put this on you.”
Piper chuckled as she noticed Faith’s little body shaking all about. “Such a cutie. I love this little dog already!”
Nick grabbed Faith and connected the leash to her. Faith took the lead and tugged Nick behind her as they crossed the lawn. Her floppy ears bounced up and down as she led them through her favorite parts of the neighborhood, occasionally leaping into the woods to chase squirrels and lizards along the way.
“You’re going to be a great mom,” Nick said.
“Thanks, Nick. You’ll be a great dad too.” Piper grabbed his hand and squeezed it, feeling his hand squeezing hers in return. They walked hand in hand entrenched in their own thoughts for a while before heading back to their home.
Piper’s attention soon turned to the youth ministry at their church. Maybe this was attributable to her budding pregnancy. Or perhaps she felt called to make a difference in the lives of children more generally. Possibly she felt called because she wanted to teach, and the opportunity to teach Christianity was exciting, particularly since her day job was in the context of a secular organization in which such activities were not the norm and were often not appreciated or tolerated.
She started as the fourth grade teacher of a Discipleland class in the Fellowship Church. Teaching fourth graders was sometimes difficult for Piper, who noticed that many had short attention spans and made it known that they would rather be advancing to the next level in their videogames than sitting at a table listening to the lesson or participating in the activities. Some acted up, revealing the infusion of sugar in their breakfasts. Others sat patiently and listened. The patient ones were a blessing.
The curious were also a blessing, as they sometimes challenged Piper to better explain the Bible. As an example, one morning, a young boy wondered how it was that God could write a person’s name into the Lamb’s Book of Life fifty years before that person actually died, not knowing how he would be completing his life. Piper told him that God’s time isn’t linear and doesn’t flow in one direction from beginning to end. God can move back and forth in time, so today he can see the entire life of a person who may have fifty more years on the earth left to live.
“Because God can move back and forth in life, we know that He’s already beaten Satan in battle. He’s already won. So anytime Satan whispers doubt in your ears, whisper back ‘God has already won.’” Piper said.
The boy also pondered the relationship between science and Jesus. He noted that some of Jesus’ miracles, such as healing the sick, could occur today through medicine and various scientific discoveries.
“Good point. But science doesn’t walk on water or bring the dead back to life. Science will never be able to feed thousands of people from a few baskets of bread and fish. And science will never be able to see into the hearts and minds of men and women as Jesus was able to see into the hearts and minds of Matthew the tax collector and the woman at the well. Science will also never see into the future, as Jesus did with Peter when He told him that he would deny Him three times before the rooster crowed.”
The boy nodded his head and smiled. Though his questions had been answered, Piper knew that as always, he would come in with more questions the following week. To her, curiosity was a blessing and a sign of a very strong and healthy mind. One can never defend the faith if one can’t ask and answer critical questions about it.
After only a couple of weeks, though, Piper questioned herself. The kids were acting up in class and she found it difficult to control them and to keep their interest and attention. Wondering whether her instruction was valuable to the Discipleland program, or whether other teachers could do the job better than she, she said a prayer and asked for direction. The following Sunday, something surreal occurred in that small Discipleland room, which Piper noticed midway through the lesson.
“Jesus told Peter that he would be the rock upon which He would build His church,” she started. “Yet Peter had some doubts about Jesus. Even though Jesus walked on water right in front of him, Peter secretly doubted. Peter tried to believe in Jesus and he tried to walk on water with Him, yet his doubt caused him to sink. Jesus had to rescue him when he sank. Do you know what He said?”
“No,” a couple of kids responded. Eighteen kids were sitting quietly around several tables in the room with their eyes glued on Piper.
“He said, ‘you of little faith, why did you doubt?’ Later Jesus told Peter that he would deny Him three times, but Peter said that he would never do that. But he did. He was scared. He doubted, and he didn’t want to be tortured and crucified like Jesus, so he denied that he knew Jesus three times just as Jesus predicted. Peter felt badly about that, yet he still hid with the other apostles in their homes after Jesus was crucified. It wasn’t until he saw Jesus after He died and received the Holy Spirit that he stopped doubting. That was when he started to bravely spread the good news, despite the risk of being killed for being a Christian. Peter preached and preached until one day they captured him and killed him on a cross. But Peter had no fear of death. Why do you think he had no fear?”
“Because he knew he was going to go to heaven,” a boy answered.
“Exactly.”
The kids were still silent, which shocked Piper. Unlike all of the other times she had been with them, the kids were silent and all ears. No one spoke out of turn. No one stirred in their desks or grabbed pencils from others or acted hyper or jittery. No one.
“I’ll bet I could have heard a pin land on the ground if I had dropped it,” she later told Nick.
When one of the mothers picked up her daughter after that class, she told Piper that her daughter only wanted to go to the “middle Discipleland service,” when Piper was teaching. She also said that Piper was making a big impact in her daughter’s life.
“You’re making a difference. You should know that,” she said.