Children

I sometimes look at my daughters as if they are aliens.  Not that they have two heads or green skin or speak strange languages, although they do speak strangely sometimes, but alien in the sense that they are different from me.  Separate from me.  For me, it's good to do that to recognize and remember that my children are not mine (even though I claim them) but are a gift from God to cherish and train up in the paths of God's goodness.  For these three young ladies, I am forever grateful.

They don't always do as they should, or at least what I think they should be doing.  That's just part of being young; but they have a sense of amazing self-discipline and grace that I know isn't my doing - obviously Christine plays a major role in it, but raising kids in a home where Christ is present changes everything.  It is as if somehow, in preparing them for a life apart from us, they begin to recognize life with Him is even more important.  And when they leave our house to start down their own adult journeys, we can release them even more into God's care and creativity.

Now that they are all in high school, I ponder each day from my own alien perspective, what my dreams are for these young Matthiaslings.  With wonder, I imagine great things (and small things) for each one of them and I am blessed in the imagining.

That's what parents receive in the process of parenting.

On our journey, we stayed with two sets of parents who are at a different stage of parenting (one that we are quite happy to be done with) but who show to be incredible caretakers of their own gifts that God has given them.  On New Year's Day we went to visit one of my favorite manfriends in the world, Ben Spiger and his wife Kendra.  We met in Chicago and we stayed in a hotel right down by the river and not to far from the Mile.  Ben is a dentist and Kendra is a Lutheran pastor.  When Kendra was on her internship from seminary, Ben's apartment was right across the hall from us.  That's how I got to know him.  That, and the fact that he was the best player on the seminary basketball team.  He's got good teeth, too.

We spent a lot of time together that year while Kendra was away.  Pretty much every night of the week he would find his way to our apartment, have a meal, play with my daughters and then when the girls would go to bed, I'd wander over to his apartment where we'd have a beer, talk about basketball or invite two of the other guys over for a game of Settlers of Catan or Pinochle.  When you spend that much time with a person, sooner or later they start to seem like family.  I don't know when the change happened, and I'm not really concerned about it, but I have one natural born brother and a whole slew of adopted brothers.

Adoption is a great thing.  All over the world there are parents seeking the opportunity to raise children.  Ben and Kendra have been parents for a long time - they just didn't have children until eighteen months ago.  They were parents for my kids; granted, I don't remember Ben changing any diapers, but he read the girls books as they sat on his lap.  They ate meals with him; they hugged him good night.  And now, as Christian has entered the Bendra family, my girls recognize that they, in many ways, have a little brother. 

We are two of Christian's godparents - Christine and I.  And for the first time we were able to experience the little miracle in the flesh and see the miracle of parenthood for Ben and Kendra and how amazingly gentle they are with him; how he has changed every aspect of life for them.

Christian was adopted at birth.  And he will be blessed forever by being placed in Ben and Kendra's lives.

Luke, also was adopted.  He entered the Gaweinowski (don't even try to pronounce it) family just about the same time that Christian found his way into the Wilde-Spiger family. Luke is a rambunctious toddler that is learning the mysteries of the world through his parents Michelle and Peter.  We are following the same theme: Michelle is a Lutheran pastor also and Peter is... not a dentist... but works as a guidance counsellor in a school.  For many years they have desperately wanted to be parents, but just a year and a half ago, their adoption came through also.

It just so happened that it happened on a Sunday morning.  Michelle was preaching, which made for exciting news as the pastor left the pulpit to attend the birth of her son.  Driving all those miles, just like a first time father hurrying to the hospital to make sure to be there on time, Michelle and Peter hurried to find their young son born to them. 

The first time you see your child, or at least this is my experience, the depth of every feeling washes over you like an emotional tsunami.  The sight of the helpless infant, squalling for new breath, brings you to one's knees; every confidence that you had about being a 'great' parent is flooded away by the feeling of inadequacy and undertow of responsibility.  And then, as you hold them, your own breath is taken away, your eyes swell with tears, and you can only begin to dream about what God has for this little one wrapped in swaddling blankets lying red-faced in your arms.

We met Michelle and Peter at a converted bed and breakfast that used to be a one room schoolhouse.  It was bitterly cold in Wisconsin, but we'd had such good weather, a little bit of old Mister Winter wasn't going to hurt us.  We entered the schoolhouse and enjoyed a meal and getting to know young Luke. 

What was really enjoyable, though, was to watch the disassembling process of Peter and Michelle, of life without children to life with.  They had an exhausted rhythm of life that all new parents have - changing diapers, feeding, playing all the things that fresh parents encounter and yet through the exhaustion, you could sense incredible contentedness.  That life was, well... right.

The blessing was ours to meet two of the newest installments in our lives both Christian and Luke and to spend time with their amazing parents. 

If you have a chance, reconnect with new parents wherever you are.