Signs of Life

Around here I’m looking for signs of growth both outside and under our roof as I watch our son and try to get a read on him. In some ways I know everything about him, in other ways I’m so in the dark!

My privilege is to love him, care for him, help him, push him forward, and with that the difficulty of the necessary evaluating and wondering. How often do we say things about our babies’ future like, “Just wait till he’s crawling!” or “He’s going to be a handful when he’s older!” or “In a couple years she’ll be talking your ears off!” We can say things like that and it’s completely appropriate. Being experts on our kids is part of the gig, which is part of what’s hard to bear about this. It’s not knowing if he’ll be here in ten years, or what he’ll be like if he is here in ten years. It’s not being able to answer the questions about him, because I just don’t know, and as his mom, I want to know. I’m learning a whole new kind of parenting, the kind that doesn’t assume anything about the future and yet is fully invested in its possibilities. I’ve got a long way to go.

Day by day and sometimes hour by hour I’m asking God to help me know the hope to which He has called me. I want to be so full of that hope, the hope that I have because of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead. Maybe you will ask God to make this hope known to you as well. There are so many people who are deep in grief and suffering. Or deep in sin. The only balm for grief is the resurrection balm and the only cure for sin is the resurrection cure. Here’s Paul’s prayer:

“that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.” (Ephesians 1:17-23 ESV)

May our hope be in the immeasurable greatness of his power and his great might that raised Jesus from the dead and can forgive our sins and make us alive, forever. Sunday’s on its way.