Plans?!!

It was a fair question. 

 

While enjoying a wonderful early Thanksgiving meal with the kids’ family, their grandmother asked me what our plans were for the children.  I had no good answer, and I have been thinking a lot about the question ever since. 

 

She said that she was wondering if we had any regrets.  That’s a much simpler question; these are now our children as much as Samantha and I can’t even imagine regretting that for a minute.  I am thoroughly in love with all of my family.  But, “plans”? 

 

I can’t plan past today.  We are in over our head.  “Mice and men” look like strategic geniuses compared to Mel and me most days.  Still, I have never felt closer to God.  In fact, as a result, I have never been closer to God.  

 

I have some daily goals:  yell less, praise more; scold less, correct more; punish less, discipline more; love more, love more.  Each day, I have little successes and big failures.  But every day I thank God for the challenges and joys of parenting four children.  Each day, I thank God for the church family we can lean on for support and encouragement.  Each day, I thank God for a biological family that is as interested in healing the broken hearts of these children as much as we.  Each day, I thank God for my family that has reached out to love these kids without reservation. And each day, I thank God for my wife, who never realized what she was getting us into and is learning to rely on strength beyond her own. 

 

I have some broader goals:  I want our children to realize that life is not “all about them”; that it is “all about God.  I want them to get the best education that they can, because it helps them establish a paradigm that is outward looking.  I want them to know the peace and security of two loving parents in a home that is structured and overflowing in love.  And I want them to know Christ and the power His resurrection gives us every day. 

 

Ultimately, I just want a front row seat in seeing the plans God has for our family. 

 

Job 42:2

 

 “I know that you can do all things;
       no plan of yours can be thwarted.”

 

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

 

Agape—or at least the best I can do,

Chris