Today, my older daughter turns 4 years old.
As most parents, I am amazed at how quickly the years have gone by.
I also wonder whether I learned more in my four years of college, four years of seminary, or four years of parenthood. It could be a close call.
Anway, reflections and insights from these 4 years:
- Children can push you to the limits of human emotion, both good and bad, and cause you to react in ways you never thought such a small creature could.
- The stupidest words I ever said (out loud), "Having kids won't change our lives THAT much".
- Having "up close and personal" experience with a child brings new levels of meaning to scriptural ideas and teachings - that God is "our Father", that Jesus commends the faith of Children, even the idea of laying down one's life for another.
- There was some Luther quote I read about Fathers changing diapers because it was a Christ-like thing. I wish I had a quarter for every dirty diaper I changed. But if I had a nickel for every sin of mine God forgave... (then I REALLY wouldn't need Google Adsense)
- Two words: ORIGINAL SIN. Kids give you a lesson it it you will never forget.
- How anyone does this on their own amazes me (single parents). How mothers do what they do amazes me. Single dads get the gold star in my book.
- I am SO not built to be a mom. My wife and I certainly offer different kinds of love to our children. Motherly, and Fatherly, respectively. But I could never do what she does.
And much, much more, of course.
Thank God for the gift of children, and for the many ways He blesses our lives through them.
It is a lot harder than it looks huh? That's why I enjoy my friends kids, I can spoil them and then send them home.
ReplyDeleteConsidering the title of my fatherhood blog, I had to laugh at your comment on original sin.
ReplyDeleteMy son has given me such a greater depth of understanding of God. I realize all the feelings I have toward my son, God has toward me. The joy, the frustration, and, above all, the love. The lengths to which I would go for my son is nothing compared to the lengths God went for me.
(By the way, here's that comment from Luther, which I just found today on another blog.)
Not the exact Luther quote I was thinking of, but a good one too.
ReplyDeleteBoth parenthood and marriage, I have often said, are "living object lessons" of our relationship with the Lord. Much to learn there.