Parental Reflections

Okay, hold onto your britches. For those of us who have already experienced the joys of birth and parenthood, this will not be profound. For those who haven't, you probably still know this intuitively but you will not truly know it until you experience it for yourself. Are you ready? Here goes:

Having a child changes your life.

I know what you're thinking, "Duh." And you're right. It is one of those things that sort of goes without saying. But there is something that exceeds the obvious about it as well. Its one thing to acknowledge that there is a new person in the house, that there is another mouth to feed and a new financial "burden" to bear. That is the natural man that deals with those things. And they're very real things. I've laid awake a few nights counting nickels and dimes in my head trying to make sense of the financial and material aspects of our then impending new child. Having dealt with one already that cost us a pretty penny, it'd daunting.

But there's something more to the whole deal. When you see this little person, hold this little person, that you were allowed to have a part in creating, in bringing to this world, it changes you. Something tangibly within you changes and you see the world through new eyes. The cares and worries of the world, those aforementioned financial and material issues, they fall to the wayside. You find yourself viewing everything differently, politics, pop culture, even people you pass on the roadside. The reason is this: Life is the important thing. Things, social status, even simple things like being on time for an appointment fade away in light of this understanding. This is not to say that we should throw our clocks away and just show up whenever or reject the "World Series of Pop Culture" and politics outright, but that we should view them in their proper contexts.

I guess where I'm going with this whole rambling thought is this. Some of us really want to see the world changed. When you have a child, you exchange your eyes for a new set of lenses that simply allow you to pursue that change with a new understanding. You know understand that this world is not about systems and conquest and money and getting more done and so forth but it is about people. Just as Christ taught, the Kingdom is not about conquest but about love. When we learn to love others as we love ourselves, and dare I say our children, we enact the very change we pursue.

Plus, it's just really cool.