Here are some excerpts from the first chapter in Sacred Parenting that I think open it up to the heart of the matter right off:
Why have children? Sadly most of us end up having kids for superficial reasons. Yet these motivations, as noble as they may sound, are still narcissistic at the root, based on an ideal notion of children and a romanticized view of what family life is really like.
Before long I discovered what every parent has discovered: babies come to us as sinners in need of God's grace and as dependent human beings demanding around-the-clock care. This reality will melt sentimentality and our romanticized notions of family life before we reach the end of the very first jumbo pack of Pampers!
We need something more concrete, something more eternal, to see us through the challenges of parenting. The best reason to have kids - the one reason that will last beyond mere sentiment - is so simple that it may not seem very profound: God commands us to have children (Genesis 1:28).
In other words having children isn't about us - it's about him. We are called to bear and raise children for the glory of God.
Here's a thought: Let's accept that both marriage and parenting provide many good moments while also challenging us to the very root of our being. Let's admit that family life tries us as perhaps nothing else does; but let's also accept that, for most of us, this is God's call and part of his plan to perfect us. Once we realize we are sinners, and that together, as a family, we are to grow toward God, then family life takes on and entirely new purpose and context. It becomes a sacred enterprise when we finally understand that God can baptize dirty diapers, toddler's tantrums, and teenagers' silence in order to transform us into people who more closely resemble Jesus Christ.
