Rejoicing Over Children--How Like God

I’m thinking this morning of the times I’ve watched parents embrace their newborn children.  For parents, it is a unique and holy moment.  For an outsider looking on, it is a unique and holy moment.  As parents embrace their newborns, you see a depth of joy and love that is a joy to behold.  Even macho papas take on a softer glow in those moments. 

One can observe something similar in parents as they watch their children move through various mileposts of life—the first birthday, the first day of school, graduation, leaving for college, bringing home that “special someone” to meet the folks, marrying, and then the baby and the cycle repeats itself.

Of course the cycle from birthing to seeing those birthed begin to birth their own is not without obstacles and struggles.  The bundle of joy can become a handful, and often does.  Most parents will spend some anguished moments rearing and loving their children, and most parents will encounter some point at which their children’s actions and choices will sadden them.

Yet through it all, good parents keep on.  They keep on loving the children they birthed.  They keep on giving direction and guidance.  They reprimand.  They give their children limits and freedom; and when freedom leads to the breaking of limits, they seek out the children who ran past the appropriate boundaries, forever calling them back.

And through it all, good parents rejoice over their children.

It’s a God-thing; for it is how God rejoices, loves, frees, seeks, and rejoices over those into whom the Divine Breath has been breathed.