Many nights, when I'm putting you to bed, and we go through our ritual of reading, singing and praying, I find my thoughts drifting to whether or not you'll break our hearts one day. The way life is right now, it's hard to imagine. I can't fathom what it would be like if what we tell you to do or not to do held no weight in your decision making. It's hard to believe that one day soon, a time out won't be able to influence your behavior. That sitting in the time out chair for a minute or two won't make you "ready to obey."
As you lay in your crib and look me in the eyes while I sing to you, I can't comprehend a world in which you make all of your own decisions with no regard for what your father and I will have spent years and years teaching you.
In these moments, I'm tempted to worry. I'm tempted to stress out about what we should be doing or shouldn't be doing to make sure that you make good decisions. I want to do research and read books that will guarantee that following the 12 easy steps will help you grow into a mature young man who loves God with all of his heart. I want to know what estranges kids from their parents and what I can do now to prevent that.
But I know that ultimately, it's out of my hands. I have a responsibility to teach you and to love you and do provide what's best for you to the best of my knowledge and ability. I will pray for you and support you, but the rest . . . well, the rest just happens. Your Dad and I trust God and know that He is working to accomplish his purposes in our world even when we don't understand why things are the way they are. And someday, you'll have to make decisions about whether or not to obey Him.
We know that life is not about you. It's not about us. It's about God. And we know that everything we do should revolve around doing the work that He's given us while we're here.
I don't think I've ever said anything in any of your letters that I don't mean, but I want to be sure that I'm clear. I do think that you have a special purpose in our world. I do think that God has given you so many gifts, many of which have yet to be seen, and that you'll have the chance to use those someday to bring God glory. But I never want to lead you to believe that the world revolves around you. Each of us is a small part of this huge picture of time and space that God has created. He loves us each individually, but we're all just a piece of the larger goal that He's trying to accomplish. To ever think that we're more important than any other piece of that puzzle is silly.
As time passes, you'll depend on us less and less. That's good and it should be the case. But my hope is that as your dependence on us decreases, your faith in and dependence on God will continue to increase. He'll never stop loving you. And neither will we.
Love,
Mommy
2 comments:
sara-
I'm curious...I assume that you have all these amazing letters to Jack in writing somewhere...what did you write them in, and where do you keep them? Do you plan to give them to him one day? What a great gift!
I don't have them in writing, but I should. I'm downloading all of my blog posts to blurb to have them published in a book we can keep. I think I might do a separate one for letters though . . . maybe one booke per year? I haven't spent enough time thinking about it. He can read them when he's old enough to read, I guess. I haven't really thought about them.
The real question is . . . will I be able to keep up with letter writing to #2?
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