My son, David, was telling me of that moment last week when the nurse handed his newborn baby girl, Stella, to him. His wife, Kayla, had been in labor for hours. I don’t pretend to know what she had been through, but I do know something of the feelings—pride, humility, awe, wonder, and relief— that cascade on dad at once when the nurse first introduces a him to his child. I’ve had two by birth and two by adoption. When a dad takes that one into his arms as his own, it’s bound to melt the soul of even the most austere of dads.
“Can I hold her?” David asked the nurse.
“Of course! She’s yours,” she said.
“Of course! She’s yours,” those words sunk in my heart, too.
I remember that moment for me. How could I forget? I felt like asking, “Does an owner’s manual come with this?” I wanted to brag, “Yes! I’m the man!” and at the same moment confess, “I’m so small. I’m not sure I’m up to this.”
But mainly, it was joy, pure joy.
“I’m choking up even as I’m thinking about it, Dad,” David said, his voice breaking as he unsuccessfully held back tears.
It’s a moment for a parent to grasp, hold, and recount as a momma or daddy jumps on board the parenting roller coaster for life.
“Yes, she’s yours, David,” I think I told my son.
“But, then again, she’s not. At least, not completely.”
But I didn’t say that to him, not then. It will come to him soon enough, I’m sure.
Our children belong to the Lord; we only have them “on loan.”
Or as Kahlil Gibran said it in his poem, “On Children”:
“Your children are not your children.
They are sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you.
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.”
We don’t “own” our children. They are unique, each one being their own person. Although we bring them into the world, and although we definitely have a tremendous influence on them, we do not determine who they are.
With Christmas only a few days away, I think of Joseph, the legal or earthly father of Jesus. Jesus’ conception, according to the gospel accounts, was like no other. According to the Gospel of Luke, Jesus was conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary. The gospels indicate that Joseph was not only a “righteous man,” and a considerate husband, but also a father who was involved in the life of his child, Jesus. He and Mary took Jesus to the temple for his circumcision and the Passover celebration when Jesus was twelve. Although Jesus got left behind on the return trip, it was likely not a result of parental neglect. It was common for children to travel back with the parental clan. You get the sense that when they found that Jesus was not with the family, mom and dad frantically rushed back to find Jesus. “Where’s Jesus? In the temple? Of course, he is.”
Jesus was where he was supposed to be: in his Father’s house. I wonder if Joseph pondered that—just as Mary pondered the mystery of Jesus’ birth (Luke 2:19) —as they traveled back to their home in Nazareth.
And then, Nazareth wasn’t Jesus’ real home, either.
Perhaps along the road, in the caravan, with Jesus once again safe and secure by his side, Joseph looked at his child, Jesus, and thought of Jesus as his but not his, even as he felt God nodding his approval at Joseph’s efforts, for he was doing what God expected him to do as a parent, pointing his son, the Son of God, in the right direction.
As mommas and daddies, that’s about all we can do: point them in the right direction. And love them with all our heart, through all of life, with its many hills and valleys, for unlike Jesus, our children, like us, won’t be perfect. And so, earthly parents that we are, we savor the words, “Of course! She’s yours,” even as we know deep inside ourselves that a child’s eternal destiny is beyond our grasp.