Being present in parenting
Much of my life at home feels obligatory. It is, in reality, a life more beautiful than most can dream. But for me, many times, I am using brunt-force willpower to go through the motions of things that should flow from natural joy: making pancakes, play time with the girls, talking to my wife. There are occasional moments where I am fully present, where the delightful reality of my life rushes upon my senses and flushes away duty like a clog gets flushed from a drainpipe. But those moments are the exception; I want them to be the rule.
So why does it feel like I am just going through the motions? Perhaps it’s because I’m busy dreaming about that window of free time where I can do what I want to do. Which is what? Answer some email? Feel the burning pressure of trying to write a song I’m happy with for more than a few minutes? Be frozen in indecision over what to do with my free time?
Where has the joy gone?
The joy of life can only be recovered by receiving my calling to be a parent. I have to continually remind myself that it is as glorious and spiritual calling as any other. My problem is that I have developed a habit of thinking that my calling is elsewhere, that real life is found somewhere other than where I am, that if I had just a little more free time I could somehow do something that would fill this hole in my heart. But that simply isn’t true. All of life is in Jesus. And right now, while the girls are little, hands-on parenting is a large percentage of my life.
Lord, I receive this calling as gift. For what a gift it is, especially with the delights that are our daughters. Only You, not any activity, can bring meaning to life. Only a deep, beyond-reason understanding of Your approval can put my aching heart at ease. Thank You that because of Jesus-in-me I, too, am Your beloved son in whom You are well pleased.
Part of enjoying parenting is allowing myself the grace not to live up to my own ideals. The more the ideal picture of myself weighs upon me the less I am able to naturally live up it. But if I allow myself the freedom not to be that ideal, if I live under the grace of God, I then through divine paradox naturally become more of who I want to be. That may mean in practice that the girls watch more shows than I’d like, eat things that can’t be sold at Whole Foods, read Barbie instead of Bible. But it also means in practice that I am more at ease with them and with myself, thankful instead of dutiful, gracious instead of demanding.
