Every parent is likely familiar with the subtle desire to recreate your children in your own image, but with all the bits you don't like about yourself corrected. We all do this, right? And of course, as autonomous entities, individual souls made in the image of God, they resist this with a mighty will and eventually forge their own paths forward. The ultimate test of the relationship we so carefully molded in their early years: can those loving ties survive the stretching? Will we all enter our new roles of adult peers with all the cords still intact, strongly connecting us to one another, albeit at a mutually respectful distance from one another? That is the question. The final marker of parenting success or failure. It's a little scary.
On the other hand, it can be exhilarating. Every day I'm surprised and delighted by what my children are becoming. And I'm trying more and more to lean into that delight, rather than focus so intensely on the bits of my own sin nature that I want to erase in them. One truly delightful surprise that's emerging as they grow-- something I only notice when I stop trying to make them better than I am at art, sports, music, personal devotions, math, etc--is their affinity for writing. Oh my. While I was busy trying to make them smarter, kinder, stronger, and less addicted to screen time and sugar, they were busy becoming Writers, behind my back.
And so this morning, in the sideways light of an early fall Sunday morning, I'm sitting side by side with my youngest as we both play with words-- creating new worlds and telling new stories. How funny, and how humbling, that while I was preoccupied with preventing him from becoming something less than I want him to be, God was busy making him something more than I even thought of. Something a bit akin to the best in me...
