Today is a special birthday. Today is Christine’s birthday. A month ago, we celebrated Jamie’s birthday, which was also a very special birthday. These two women are our daughters. They are now in their thirties. They are mothers to our grandchildren. Jamie is married to our wonderful son-in-law, Cal.
I remember so well, the evening that Charlotte went into labor. We hurried to the hospital, excited and scared. We had prayed for Christine’s birth. She was our first child. Some years later, we would have another daughter. We wanted, more than anything, to invest in our children so that they would grow up loving God, putting their faith in him, and living a life of obedience to him. We didn’t quite know how to do this but this focus was where we would put our energy, time, and prayer for decades. Now, many years later, we invest in our grandchildren as well.
In many ways, I am still learning about how to be a parent (now to adult women!). Yet, I am especially learning more about God. As I wrote in a post recently, “Being a dad or mom will help you understand how God must feel at times. As a parent you may experience great joy, great satisfaction, great disappointment, and even great pain through your children. This may be just a taste of what God experiences in us (you and me), his children.”
So today, I think about how much I love our daughters. I also think about how much I have learned about being a parent. More importantly, I have learned so much about God and what it means to be his child.
You never stop being a parent. Our love and affection for our children continues to this day. God never stops being our father. “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good. His love endures forever” (Psalm 136:1).