Insurance coupled with a bit of assurance

Many of us worry about the insurance we have, asking things like, "do we have enough coverage ?" "Does it cover this or that ?" "Should we buy more coverage ?" It's all a bit of a gamble to put money out each month for something that MIGHT happen, but many of us do it anyway, feeling it worth the cost. There are required insurances like car insurance, home owners insurance if you have a mortgage on your home etc, then there are the elective insurances like life insurance and health insurance. Some religious communities have a plan where they all agree to help one another with each others medical bills and that works out quite well. Everyone works together for each others common good. For an example, just read a few editions of "The Budget", an Amish newspaper to read about the needs within the community and how it is meet. There is within that system something greater than insurance, its assurance that things will be taken care of. I think we would be a better place if more churches would be like that.

I think in life matters we can look at what we do and don't do, what we allow and don't allow for our children or ourselves as a bit like insurance against damage. The cost may not be in cash but more in time, energy and commitment. We never allowed our children to sleep over someones house. We had many children stay over our house, but our children needed to be home at night in our care, we never felt like we knew anyone that well as to allow them to sleep over their house. It wasn't a judgement on anyone, it was just something MIGHT happen that we would not agree about, it might be a television show the family thought was fine and we didn't, it could have been a number of things. People would tell us not to be so strict etc but we felt this kind of insurance for their protection was important. We wanted to assure the children had our guidance at all times until we felt they were mature enough to make good decisions on their own. It seemed to work for us, as they say, "the proof is in the pudding" ! But even now this same sort of thinking comes into play with our own choices. To insure we don't get caught up in things contrary to what we believe we don't go certain places, we avoid certain kinds of entertainment. We pay the price of looking a bit odd, not fitting in here or there, not living like mainstream America and the premium is often having to take a narrow path which is not easy.

Keeping vigil is not always easy since its like swimming up stream much of the time. And things slip in, make us numb and can make us loose focus.

I have often thought when having a conversation regarding religion and life choices....no one can PROVE God exists, but no one can PROVE He doesn't. Its a bigger gamble to not believe in Him than to believe. Say you believe and live you entire life according to the bible and there is no God after all, the end result, so what ! You didn't loose anything. But on the flip side, say you don't believe and at the end you find out He does exist. You LOOSE.

When our children were small, we opted to home school and to be hands on parents 24/7 We can count on one hand the times our parents or anyone family member watched our children. When I had to go out of state to adopt our boys, a young girl from the church came and stayed with our girls during the day while Emery worked. What a blessing Maria was to our family that week. We sheltered our girls, but at the same time taught them how to make good choices and showed them how to think on their own. We wanted to raise them in a way that some of life's hard things might be avoided. For us that meant sheltering them from things like playing unsupervised for hours outside with other children, and not letting them go to homes we did not know well and by this I mean being there many times ourselves. To us, this type of insurance would produce a certain level of assurance. Our boys came to us with such a different background, it was hard for them and for us to find where to begin.

We didn't want our children to be one of the news stories of 12 year olds getting drunk, watching R rated movies, or developing boyfriend/girlfriend mentalities that end up with broken hearts. We didn't ever want to be guests on the Dr Phil show ! We didn't want to have to relate to those kinds of situations.

If you could dream up a good life for your children, you would love to see them spared of the heartache that comes from bad choices made in a moments time that stay with you your entire life. This is what the plain Mennonite families try to do, spare their children the hurts of the world that come from bad choices made on a whim and the influence of others to do wrong. This separation from "the world" is insurance without much of the gamble part. It's almost assurance. When we were raising our family, we were willing to be unpopular with some of the decisions we made, feeling in our hearts that the cost was worth it and so far, we still feel that way. We feel so blessed by seeing our children, grown into happy, successful, good people with caring hearts. It wasn't luck, it was hard work ! Emery and I make choices to not put ourselves in situations where there is risk of destroying what we have built together, insurance of a sort with a touch of assurance. Gods word to us, is assurance. Not easy to do always, but a bit like insurance against making bad choices all on our own.