An Underprivileged Home

Written by Sandi Babb

Friday marked a special day in my life — a day I’ll never forget. Twenty years ago Friday, I gave birth to our son, David. My labor and David’s delivery were difficult, and he was born very ill. One night in the hospital, I crept out of bed and went down to the nursery. For the longest time I stood at the window watching my tiny baby struggle to breathe.

As I went back to my room, a flood of emotions hit me. I sank down in the hallway with my head on my knees and cried out to a God I did not even know as my personal Savior to save my baby boy. A nurse found me and helped me back to my room. And so began the life of an underprivileged child.

Let me explain: David has always had good, clean clothes to wear. He has always had plenty to eat and lived in a decent, modest home. He has always had medical care and material possessions. He has always had the love of his mom and dad and extended family, who thought everything he said or did was the greatest thing in the world. But until he was about 13 years old, David grew up in an underprivileged home.

You see, David did not have parents who knew and loved Jesus as their personal Savior. Every night, from the time he was small, we rocked or sang David to sleep or read him bedtime stories and tucked him in just right. He would snuggle down to sleep with Winnie the Pooh and the tale of The Three Billy Goats Gruff, but he was never covered with the powerful blanket of prayer. He was as uncovered as if he had never been tucked in at all. He went to sleep holding on to a cartoon character, with a fairy tale on his mind when he could have been holding on to Jesus and thinking about His precious truths.

When David was a little boy, his heroes were He-Man and the Ninja Turtles. Just think – his heroes could have been a little boy named Samuel who heard the voice of God call out to him, or a boy named David who slew a great giant, or Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, boys who stood in the fire, who did not bend, bow, or burn. David did not have the privilege of hearing their stories.

When we traveled, I continued a tradition my grandmother had started with me. We sang as we drove. David would pipe up, “Let’s sing, Mom,” and we would sing silly songs like “Little Bunny Foo-Foo” and “Ten Little Indians.” Sometimes David would compose his own songs about anything that passed by the window.

Silly songs are fun and fine to sing, but think of the teaching moments we passed up. Deuteronomy 6:6-7 says, “These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.” We could have taught David songs about Jesus, Scripture songs, and songs of praise. Instead, David was underprivileged.

Fridays were special days for David and me. Every Friday we would prepare a snack and go to the park to play for the afternoon. We would swing and slide, hike, observe nature, and collect all kinds of bits and pieces, enjoying the outdoors and our time together. Just think – we could have enjoyed a time of praise along with the fun. I could have taught my little child about what God had made. He had heard the Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling about how things came to be, but not the true stories of creation from the Bible.

So you see, my son grew up in an underprivileged home, a home where he did not have the privilege of knowing Jesus. But God is so good, so gracious, and so merciful. He revealed Himself to me; to my husband, Dennis; to David; and to our daughter, Kelli. We all accepted Him as our personal Savior. Our home has become one of privilege, but we have had to struggle to right the wrongs.

Each year, our church has a baby dedication ceremony, where parents of new babies acknowledge that their child is a gift from God and publicly recognize and accept the challenge and responsibility of being godly role models, teachers, and faith trainers. This always reminds me of Hannah’s prayer in 1 Samuel 1:11, where she says she will give Samuel to the Lord for all the days of his life.

I feel a kinship with Hannah. In desperation we both cried out to the Lord for a child – Hannah because she had no child and I because I might lose mine. Here the similarities end. Hannah was a godly mother who, in the short time she had Samuel with her, must have prepared him well with the precious truths of the God he would serve. I did not prepare my son.

Those dedication services leave me wishing I had known better, done better, and could have stood with my little son, treasure beyond measure, and offered him back to the Lord. But God in His infinite mercy gave me this desire of my heart as I was reading 1 Samuel and 2 Chronicles 29. Thoughts began to form in my mind that led to a prayer of dedication for David, which I was able to present to him on his fourth spiritual birthday.

It’s never too late to start teaching your children about Jesus – who He is, what He has done, and the hope found in Him. Don’t let your children grow up in an underprivileged home as David did. You may be just starting out with all those wonderful times and possibilities ahead of you, or you may be somewhere in the middle, but know this: If you train up a child in the way he should go, when he is old he will not depart from it (Proverbs 22:6).

God has taken our impoverished home and filled it with plenty. He is an awesome God and is truly to be praised. God has given us a small window of opportunity, just as Hannah had before she handed Samuel over to the priest. We have a small span of time to faith-train David before he leaves home.

God has shown us that children and time are precious commodities. Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 says, “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven: a time to be born…a time to plant…a time to build…a time to embrace…a time to speak, a time to love.” These verses speak to me of the precious little time we have to teach and faith train our children. Don’t let a minute slip by.

Sandi Babb is a homemaker from Conway, Arkansas. She and her husband, Dennis, have two children, David and Kelli.

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