Once a week or so my church schedules a “Mom’s Night Out,” with free babysitting for single mothers who need a night off or mothers who simply want to spend an evening with their husbands. Our pastor’s wife once happily took advantage of this programme to go out to dinner with her husband. Later, when Peter, my pastor, went to pick up his three-year old son, the babysitter told him about one of the games they had played. She had asked each of the preschoolers what was Mummy’s favourite thing to do with them. “You know what your son answered? He said that Mummy’s favourite thing was to `clean me up.”‘

“In truth,” said Peter the next Sunday, “that isn’t Susan’s favourite thing to do with her son. Cleaning him up is an excuse to hold him. Absorbing the mess is just part of the process of getting close. And it’s the same with God.”

Yancey, Philip. Rumours of Another World”. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2003, p. 157.