“Out of the Mouths of Babes” is a phrase that goes back to Biblical times where it can be found in Matthew 21:16
“and they said to him, “Do you hear what these are saying?” And Jesus said to them, “Yes; have you never read, “‘Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies you have prepared praise’?”
As it implies, the pure honesty that sometimes comes out of the minds of children too small to truly know what they are saying can truly be just the thought we need to hear.
I truly believe that it is that wisdom that comes from their ability to hear God speak in a way that we learn to ignore, doubt and even block out as we grow up. In ‘Small Talk’ Amy Julia Becker shares with us some of the lessons she has learned from the innocent and loving words that sometimes pour out of the hearts and minds of her children.
I truly enjoyed reading her book and I hope and pray that it touches you as well. There were moments when those words her children spoke to her touched me as well and I am grateful that God put it on her heart to share with us.
Small Talk
Every day, one of Amy Julie Becker’s children says something that prompts her to think about life in a new way. “Mom, does Santa love me?” William asks, after his mother explains the meaning of Christmas…
In a chat with her dad about the children who died in the Sandy Hook shootings, Penny asks, “Did they go to heaven?” …”You was a jerk, Mommy?” asks Marilee one morning in the car.
These conversations deepen Amy Julia’s relationships with her children, but they also refine her understanding of what she believes and what God is doing in her own life.
In Small Talk, Amy Julia draws from the wisdom and curiosity of those young voices to reflect on beauty and kindness, tragedy and disability, prayer and miracles.
As she moves through the basic questions her kids posed when they were very young to the more intellectual questions of later childhood, she invites us to learn from our own day-to-day conversations with the children in our lives.
This eloquent parenting memoir is about the big questions little hearts ask, the thoughts their words provoke, and the laughter and soul-searching their honesty brings—to adult and child alike.
About the Author
The Huffington Post parents page, Christianity Today, The Christian century, and numerous other publications. Her first book, A Good and Perfect Gift: Faith, Expectations, and a Little Girl Named Penny, was named one of the Top Ten Religion Books of 2011 by Publishers Weekly.
Amy Julia lives in western Connecticut with her husband and three children.
Amy Julia Becker writes about faith, family, and disability for Parents.com, the New York Times Motherlode blog, TheAtlantic.com,
It does sound like a really interesting read. I’d say we could all learn from what children say.