Children

We had the joy of having both our children and their spouses home for Christmas a few weeks ago. It was a first for us – our daughter Alyssa and her husband Paul will celebrate their fifth anniversary this year, and our son Chad and his wife Becki their first. This was the first Christmas where we were all family together. I loved it – and the time slipped by so fast. It was as if they got there one day, and were gone the next. The house seemed empty and too quiet.

It is a strange thing – you pray for your children, that God will bless them and keep them close to Him, that they will grow and enjoy God’s good gifts and find a spouse that is as a gift from God. And then as those things take place, you realize that their lives take a different path than yours. You pray they always remember the things you taught them. You ask God to keep them close to Him. As son-in-laws and daughter-in-laws enter the scene, you find yourself praying for them just as you do your own children. You realize, in my case, that where only two people on the face of the earth had the right to call me “father,” now there are four.

You rejoice in their successes, agonize over their hurts, ask the Heavenly Father to direct them, and pray that the choices they make, the paths they travel, will be God-honoring. And you trust them to that Father who is so much greater than any parent can be.

As young newlyweds, Holly and I took off to Tennessee, some twelve hours from my parents. Because of college and work demands, I didn’t get to see my parents but once a year. I tried to call when I could, which wasn’t enough (my kids do much better). One day we were leaving my folks after a visit of about a week. I took one last glance at my parents as we drove off – they were standing outside watching, my Dad holding my Mom in his arms, and I suddenly realized my Mom was crying. I don’t know why it didn’t dawn on me before – my leaving caused her pain. She was grateful for all God was doing in our lives, thankful that I had “turned out alright,” but still – things would never be the same.

We have tools my parents never had. We can Skype with our kids, see their faces, hear their voices, enjoy time with them even though they may be hundreds of miles away. But it can never be the same as seeing their faces in the flesh, feeling their hug, enjoying just being with them.

My children are far more attentive to my wife and I than I was to my parents. It saddens me that I didn’t get it – that I didn’t realize that, though the years bring change, they do not minimize the love or lessen the prayers. Twenty years ago I came to First Baptist Church of Rolla, and I remember the conversation I had with my Mom before I decided God was in that move. She wanted to make sure I would be happy, that I would be cared for, that it was the right thing to do. And then she said, “I’ll be praying for you.”

To my knowledge my Mom prayed for me every day from the day I was born – I do my best to follow her example, praying for my children.

See the picture – aren’t they a fine bunch!