I find it easy to write about stuff I know nothing about. It comes with the territory of earning my BS degree in Journalism.
But my kids… I find it hard to write about them. Nothing I conjure up seems to do justice to the lives that fill my heart with joy every day when I come home and have them ankle tackle me. The pride I take with every new step (Luke), rambling story (Nate), spontaneous song about a pink kitty (Anna), and carefully extracted booger (Abby) makes me grieve at the thought of NOT having them in my life.
You don’t cry over the kids you never conceive. But maybe you should.
This past Sunday a friend at church asked me as I was carrying out my two princesses if I had ever heard of birth control. I smiled and replied “the Bible says children are a blessing” and besides “we’ve asked God how many He wants us to have and he hasn’t told us to stop yet.”
Its funny because we are currently in a church wide drive to manage our finances according to scripture (Crown Financial Ministry is our source for materials and is a great tool). One of the examples the book uses is about the Knights Templar and how they would keep their sword out of the water as they were being baptized. The idea being while every area of their life was in the service of God, their sword was exempted from obeying God. The connection Crown makes is that many Christians serve God with their lives but hold their wallets out of the water.
I think we hold a lot more than that out of the waters of obedience (which is the whole point of baptism).
If this were my class I’d ask for volunteers to make the connection for me before I spell CAT.
Yes… go ahead….
Right, Joe Bob. Our Children. So much of our identity, security, fulfillment and effort is tide up in our children or our lack of children.
The other day as we were talking about where they wanted to be when they were 30 a student lamented that “once you have kids the fun is over.”
Question? Where did that student hear such crap?
No wonder so many kids are selfish, cold hearted and shallow – they just want to be like their parents. What do we communicate to our kids when we can’t handle or afford more than two (but we can afford a brand new car and a 50 inch plasma TV)? When we can’t wait till they’re out of our house so we can get back to the life we enjoyed before they were born? Children pick up on our attitude toward them. You sure did when you were growing up. You picked up on the unspoken. You heard what they said but did what they did. Is the next generation not going to do the same?
“Children are a blessing.” – God.
It saddens me that so many of my friends take medicines to prevent pregnancy like they take the flu shot. It grieves me that people that would be excellent parents decide not to have children so they can try to save the children neglected by others. Where is the sense in that?
It makes me wonder about the viability of Evangelical Christianity when the only people that have large families are Catholics and Mormons. I won’t impugn the motives of either of these stalwart religions (judging by their fruit they’ve both done more good then their detractors would like to concede) but wouldn’t it be a great world if God’s children had children for the right reasons. Not because they had no other choice, or to fill up their future celestial kingdom, but because they DID have a choice and decided to trust God with his greatest blessing: life.
I for one will never grieve over the children we never conceived. They greet me every day when I come through the door. God has filled up our house with joy and life and that more abundantly. Luckily for me I was too dumb to know how it happens.
Speak Your Mind