This entry isn’t just for parents, but for whoever is committed in raising and nurturing children. To do this some gave birth, some adopted. Both are beautiful.
But why?
Having a child, by birth or adoption, means only one thing: an unbreakable bond for the rest of your mortal lives. It means laughter, failures, triumphs, frustration, exhaustion, helplessness. If this bond means anything to you it drives you to tears and at times leaves you a sobbing wreck.
There'd be a great many reasons why people chose to have children. Most of them are probably valid, and we’ve been struggling to find ours.
You're in a hospital. The doctor's getting you to push. You bring her into the world by waking everyone and clawing into your husband’s arms. At her first breath she bawls in your face when you pick her up to celebrate her birth. She doesn't say please and shows no gratitude. She defecates at will and expects to be cleaned up right after.
That’s still the easy part.
Later she asks a multitude of questions and expects clever answers. When she gets a clever answer she digs up more questions about it and starts the cycle all over. She gets high on sugar and whirlwinds through the house. She picks her nose and smears boogies on walls and tables. She punches, she kicks, she talks back. She thinks she knows the world better than you. Despite your well-meanings she snorts and retorts. She starts telling lies without you having to teach her any of it.
And still you wake each morning with her breakfast at the top of your list. You slog it out entertaining and educating her despite that throbbing headache at the end of the day. You go sleepless when she runs a fever. You go frantic when she doesn’t come home on time.
If you think you’re making an investment by doing this; if you’re having children for the sake of having someone to look after you when you’re old, think again.
When God explicitly spoke about how a man must leave his parents He did not abolish filial piety or singlehood. He's preparing us for the fact that at some point in life we'd have to let the child go.
Despite knowing this you love. You love even though the child’s willful, recalcitrant nature suggests she is probably undeserving of it. You love despite the possibility that you're not getting the same love in return.
It's a love that doesn't make sense. It's irrational, it's unconditional.
And if that little rascal comes running back to you and offers to take care of you for the rest of your life, praise God, because that very irrational, unconditional love you’ve been tolling to impart and imbue has finally yielded its fruit.
It's a lie if I'd told you we were never upset or bitter with God for all the stuff that Joel and Amos put us through. But we realised the act of having and caring for a child is a God-given opportunity for us to exercise and testify this unconditional love He’s been showing us.
We have kids because we want to take a shot at loving unconditionally.
And in this spirit, however the child turns out, healthy or special, no longer mattered.
“But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Rom 5:8
Photo credit Jack Fussell via Foter.com