Fatherhood

Fatherhood has been so amazing. I am continually astonished at what my kids can do, how much they are developing, and the joy that they bring to my heart. I'm also amazed at what parenting is. This is nothing earthshattering, I'm sure many people have recognized this long before I did, but it amazes me nevertheless. We most often have children because we want to have a certain experience, have a certain joy, live through certain things. Even the impulse to create life, or to have a legacy, is somewhat self-oriented. I'm not suggesting that this is a bad thing, in most cases it isn't. It's actually quite wonderful that God has made parenting and children so beautiful and fun, otherwise we wouldn't be nearly as good at populating and extending our species. I'm sure the pleasure of sex has much of this orientation as well, as the church has long recognized. But I'm digressing.

Anyways, I'm amazed that, just like marriage, God uses this wonderful institution of parenting in so many ways. We enter into it for the joy, and discover that God's purposes for it are manifold. We receive this joy in abundance, along with a fair helping of sorrow and frustration. We also participate in the shaping of a life, just as we do in marriage, though even more so here. But if we pay attention, we see that God is using parenting to radically transform us. This is what has amazed me lately. You get married, and realize what a complete selfish, controlling bastard you are. You start to work through these things, and see the wonderful fruit in your relationship. Then you have kids, and you are tested and exposed in ways you've never even imagined before. But, again, this is how you grow. You rail against the responsibility and demands, at least inwardly, and then you find yourself coming to acceptance, and even love of these offices, and wondering what life could have possibly been like before them. I'm still just early in the process, but I'm so thankful that God has built these processes into our lives, and doesn't just leave us where we're at, but gives us opporunities to build growth and maturation into our daily lives. I know that parenting is not all or even primarily about me, but I'm thankful nevertheless for God's provision for me in it.

Of course, I'm even more thankful for those times where my son looks up at me, reaches up his arms, and says, "Up!" :-)