37. Lois and Eunice - maternal praying power

We hear a lot today about 'Dads and lads', and probably rightly. Sons have a different sort of relationship with dad than with mum; societal/gender factors, nurture/ nature; whatever.

But where Christian faith is concerned, the New Testament church leader, Timothy, had been given a pretty good start by two important females in the family - his mother and his grandmother.

St. Paul pays them tribute when he recalls Timothy's 'sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you' (2 Timothy 1: 5). 

How do we get healthy faith living in us, which goes on living in us? Research suggests that those who have childhood faith are much more likely to have active spiritual lives as adults than those whose childhoods didn't include such exposure.

Timothy was lucky (blessed is probably a better word...) Although his father seems to have been an unbeliever, faith in Jesus Christ was transmitted down the maternal line - twice over. How many other Christian leaders have been similarly blessed by faithful mothers and grandmothers who prayed, lived and witnessed to the saving love of God in Christ so effectively that it would have been difficult for it not to rub off on their children...? (St Augustine for one...)

Now that's what I call parent power.