When I was 28 years old and had no prospects of getting married, I knew I wanted to have children someday (though that hope was fading).  I came from a big family, and I thought having a big family myself would be fun, but I never knew that children could help complete me as an individual.

God had mercy on me, and gave me a wonderful husband.  I married at 29, had my first son at 30, and then went on to have two more sons and a daughter. Now, as I anticipate the birth of my first grandchild in a few months, I can look back and see some things that were not so clear during the rough-and-tumble years I was raising my family.

I know now that at 29 I was immature and self-absorbed.  As a Christian, I understood I was a child of God.  I knew how to be a child…I had after all been a child of my mother and father.  But in having children, I learned how God the Father felt about his Son.

You know how it is…all the changes you experience when that first child comes into the world.  My firstborn DID NOT SLEEP THROUGH THE NIGHT for the first 18 months of his life!  If that doesn’t break you of selfishness, nothing will.  When you have a baby, all of a sudden you are not the center of the world; that little, sweet-smelling, helpless human being you created is.  There are times when the baby doesn’t smell so sweet, and there is no one to change the diaper but you.  There are times when the baby will not sleep, no matter what, and with tears running down your cheeks, you sit up rocking and rocking and dozing off, swearing that you would give anything for a good night’s sleep.  There are times when money is tight and instead of buying that new ----- (fill in the blank) for yourself or your spouse, you have to buy diapers or new shoes for your toddler.

The point is, when you have a baby, all that selfishness that you’ve had the luxury to indulge in as a single person goes right out the window.  You learn to truly sacrifice for someone else.

Now, as my children are growing up and going out on their own, I am entering another phase. I am having to let go.  After all the years of attentive, loving care in nurturing up my children, the very best thing I can do for them now is let them go, let them learn how to be adults.  And I begin to have an inkling of what it meant for the Father to send Jesus down to this dusty planet to be one of us.  Our love for our children is just a spark, just a glimmer, compared to the blazing glory that is God’s love.  Our feelings of brokenheartedness when our child is hurt are just a glimpse of what the Father went through when Jesus died at the hands of sinful men.

In being willing to take a chance…to lay down my life to bring new life into the world, and set aside my ambitions and selfish desires to see that my child is raised up right to stand on his feet and be a man…I become more like my heavenly Father.  I get an idea of how He sees the world, and how He feels about us.  

Just an idea, but in God’s economy that idea is enough to change a person.  And I’m thankful for that.