The Education Called Parenthood

On the whole, my children give me unspeakable joy. The great desire of my heart is to lavish gifts on them. I would love nothing more than to be able to give them everything they want. The delight on their faces thrills me in a way nothing else does. I want to give them every freedom and to see them enjoy all the world has to offer. Every fiber of my being longs to withold nothing from them.

But the irony of human nature prevents me from doing this. If I gave them whatever they wanted, they would become monsters. Human nature is, by nature, corrupt. Left to complete freedom, we would leap to selfishness and ferociously guard it. We would take whatever we wanted and give only when it pleased us. This is how we are born and this is how we would remain without compelling reasons to be otherwise.

I don't enjoy disciplining my children. They suffer and I suffer. I would prefer never to have to do it. But love and peace demand that I do it. If I truly want the best for my children, I must take an active role in curbing that selfish nature. I must teach them the way to live at peace with themselves and others, both through gentle instruction and by enforcing consequences. This is the unpleasant truth of life: that children must be disciplined.

Before I became a parent, I did not know the feeling of being forced to play a role out of love that I would never choose to play otherwise. I had previously done hard things, but none that felt this way. Parenthood has been an amazing education for me; an education I could not have envisioned. I learn so many truths about life, the world, human nature, and amazingly, God. I can look at my kids and see much of what God sees when He looks at us. And sometimes, I understand why He does what He does because I have to do the same with them. And this is a truth I discover: God does what He does with us because He is Our Father. We are parents because we have grown in maturity and wisdom and are able to lead and protect our children. He is Our Father because He possesses Maturity and Wisdom and is able to lead, guide, and protect us... and we are to follow His example.

It sometimes strikes me, the similarity between a parent and God. The feeling I had of wanting to give my children everything good is shared with God. He also wants to give us all good things. But He knows the truth of our human nature. He knows that we, like our own children, would become monsters if left without discipline. For this reason, He also must enforce consequences. The truth that we need guidance is not new to me. Even as a child, I recognized pettiness, selfishness, and immaturity in the adults around me. I saw even then, that adults did many things wrong. Being a parent did not teach me that adults made mistakes. What being a parent has taught me is how God feels about that discipline. Having children has taught me just how much He loves us. Knowing my own limitations, I have awe at the thought that He wants to lavish on me gifts far greater than my own limited mind can imagine. This is the great truth that my journey through parenthood has recently revealed to me.

Another great truth came alongside that revelation: God has made a way to overcome the limitation of human nature. While I will never be able to give my children everything, God one day will. Hebrews tells us that "For the joy set before Him, [Jesus] endured the cross." What was that joy? Us. We are that joy. He did not have to be crucified. No one could have laid a finger on Him if He so chose. But, instead, He chose the cross, He chose the future joy, He chose us. Right now, we are limited by human nature. But when we die, when we are resurrected and join Him in the place we know as Heaven, we will no longer be selfish creatures prone to corruption. Jesus overcame our corruption. What an amazing thought: that God created a way to lavish all the gifts He wants on us without fear of what we will become. And what an amazing thought that He will one day shower us with gifts, with blessings.

I sometimes have a hard time understanding heaven. I have difficulty understanding why He would want to do this for us... why He has gone through all this trouble to make a way for us to be in a place like Heaven with Him. I sometimes feel like there must be a "catch," as though somehow Heaven will not be all that we can imagine, that somehow it cannot be as great as it sounds. But being a parent shows me another story. By loving my little ones this much, with the limitations of a wicked human heart, I can glimpse for an instant the amazing love He has for us. If God loves me the way I love my children, and in truth He loves me more than I myself am capable of loving, then Heaven makes perfect sense. In fact, Heaven is brilliant, and God has put a glimpse of it into the heart of a parent.

What an honor I have, to be both a parent and a child of the Father.

Praise God, from whom all blessings flow. Praise Him, all creatures here below. Praise Him, all you His heavenly host. Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen.