“The day is a blur.
After an agonizing process, I gazed at my infant daughter and was swallowed by something that is impossible to explain: I was instantaneously in love. Never in my life, other than the birth of my other two children, have I been so completely and thoroughly caught up in the passion and glory of life. If someone that instant had demanded I give my life for my child, it would have been the one most completely selfless and effortless act of my life.
My first lesson – and how can it be called that without trivializing the moment?- was that a love existed in me that was raw, pure, and ferocious. My daughter’s dark, delicate eyes consumed me in beauty. I was besotted. But what infused me with such overwhelming love just at that moment? I was not so surprised by instantaneously loving my daughter, but I was stunned by it’s magnitude. I was invaded by love, a love that felt both alien to and exactly like me, but a me that I’d never considered myself to be. All of that came at the same instant that my thoughts were lost in my infant daughter’s gaze.
It dawned on me that moment: This child and my children to come will teach me more than I could possibly hope to ever teach them. Since that moment my life has never been the same. It will never be the same for all eternity, and I have my children to thank.”
Dan Allender – How Children Raise Parents: The Art of Listening to your Family
I love this quote for several reasons.
1. It reflects so well the feelings I personally felt at the birth of my own children.
2. It reminds me of how much I learn from my kids, perhaps more than any other people in the world.
3. It reminds me that communities who find ways to isolate youth from adults are harming the adults as much as the kids. So often we think changing youth ministry is for the kids benefit. But that couldn’t be more wrong. We are the ones who benefit from being with our kids, if we’re paying attention. If we show up. If we are present. They benefit then as well.