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To My Newest Children, With Love

The anticipation of the joyful arrival of our newest children has yielded and given way to the realization of their joyful arrival. Our family of three is now a family of five. Thinking upon the events surrounding the arrival of our two newest gifts from God, I penned these words to my newest children as a sort of paternal plea. While these words were aimed at my children, they are also a summons to my own heart to remember the all surpassing goodness of God.

The Only Two Days That Matter

In a few days, my wife and I will welcome God’s gift of twins with a long-anticipated, long-hoped-for embrace. The drawing near of that day in which our anticipated joy will find its completion means that every day until then is oriented to that day. Rooms are rearranged. Bottles are cleaned. Rest is stockpiled. The future has commandeered the present. This day is different, it’s changed, because of that day.

A New Resource for Families

When God commands Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth in Genesis 1, God is making known that His design and purpose for the whole of His world is the family. God appoints the family, founded by a man and woman united together in the covenant of marriage, to be the fundamental building block of His world. And God appoints the family to be the instrument He uses to complete His purpose for creation—filling it with a people who love Him and love one another. In this way, God intends what is true of families to be true of His world.

J.R.R. Tolkien, G.K. Chesterton, & An Invitation to Wonder

I am afraid we have lost our sense of wonder. The world is ablaze with wonder, and we seem far too unaware, far too blind to the grandeur of God with which the world burns. We are creatures whose appetites for wonder have been dulled by the numbing power of self-dependency. We have tethered our trust to ourselves and thereby removed any possibility to be held captive by anything beyond ourselves. But there is a way to wonder again, and J.R.R. Tolkien and G.K. Chesterton help us understand how.