Photo and Commentary ©2026 by Maylan Schurch
Friday, May 1, 2026
Thursday morning of this week I paused beside this scene and snapped its picture. Near this fence is a home which evidently includes not only children but a parent who loves to offer them opportunities for enjoyment.
However, as I looked at this swing, I found myself squinting at it through the eyes of my father. Dad passed to his well-deserved rest in 1994, but had he had been able to study this photo, he would have squirmed nervously.
And the reason would have been that, in his opinion, the rope on this device is far too feeble. Even if the householder could have reasoned with him, demonstrating with science and experimentation that its tensile strength was more than adequate for the weight of any of the kids who might leap astride its swing-disc, Dad would have politely disagreed. And had he been tasked with revising it to his liking, he would have replaced the rope with a line of hemp five times as thick, and he would have anchored that rope’s upper end to a sturdy tree branch using a large and complicated knot.
I know this because this is exactly what he did when he made a swing for his four kids back in the day. He loved us so much that he systematically worried his way through all the possibilities of our potential injury before he set up anything we would be involved in.
At the link below you’ll find four Bible verses which mention how God regards us as His children. And He cares for us far more than my Dad doted on his own progeny.