Newborns and Novels
Our Babies. You anticipate their arrival for 9 long months. Feelings of exhilaration tinged with healthy fear. So much time is spent preparing the nursery, gathering all of their little clothes, visiting the doctor. And sometimes you are even allowed to peek at their tiny features in an ultrasound. You dream of what they will look like. You begin to fill out the beautiful “First Year” baby book. You record how much they kick, the foods you crave, the weight you gain. And then they finally arrive, and your world changes forever. You name that precious child. You continue to add to the book. You fill in their weight and length and any and all information. What type of eaters they are, sounds they make, and later when they first crawled and walked. This keeps going for quite a while as they grow and flourish. You write in their first day of Kindergarten and display a picture of their adorable selves next to their teacher. Their imaginative letters to Santa and the tooth fairy are all kept in the journal, sweet memories of their innocence. It ALL seems so sweet. There are challenges of course, but you keep entering in the information. They are your children, after all, and there is still so much to record in the blank book we seem to think they came with. So much is still unknown. The schools they will go to, the houses they live in, they are still so dependent on us. The Baby Book is full and has been stored away, and you now move to another journal to record their lives. They grow older and become more of who they are, and we feel less like the author of that journal. There are some things about their story that you would not have anticipated. Decisions they make don’t line up with who you wanted them to be. Schools that they don’t go to, friends they don’t have. Maybe its a health issue that you didn’t see coming. It begins to steal pages from your beautiful journal. It’s as if someone has stolen your pen.
But what if we had it all wrong as parents. What if instead of coming into this world with a blank journal, our children actually arrived with a novel. A novel written by their true maker. And this novel was for us and the world to read. Chapter by chapter, page by page, word by word. As parents we are still given a pen when handed this journal, but we are only to write in the margins. To underline and star at different sections in the book, like one would do in an English class. Let’s think about that. Because as I parent teenagers and young adults now I see that they have a story to tell, and its not mine. Their own unique story, and I am not the author like I had once thought. It is a paradigm shift no doubt, to see these little humans as novels rather than blank journals. Less control and more awe. Less pages to fill, and more paragraphs to read, to explore and learn about this beautiful novel and its perfect author. He has crafted each one, each person alive has a unique story to tell. And as parents we get a front row seat. More marvel, less criticism. More discovery, less judgement. It’s a story that was written long long ago. Do I see my children like this? I am starting to. And it changes the way I understand them. They way I relate to them. They are more of a mystery to me. I don’t write their story, they do. God did. He ordained their story, and they live it, and we watch it. We can join in, we can participate in their story but we do not write it.
So go on and try it. Begin to look at them with fascination. With more of a loving eye instead of a critical one. You might find moments in their novel that remind you of yours. Thank you Lord for giving us the privilege of being parents. Let us not take it for granted. And let us humble ourselves as we see that each story they bring to this world is a beautiful picture of you that only they can tell.
