Blessing the Children

Fun, fun, fun yesterday evening as Rebekah and I took care of Micah and Liam Black, while Kelly and Tim headed out for a six-hour date. (these cell-phone pictures are grainy, but they do help tell the story)

Tired, tired, tired yesterday evening as Rebekah and I realized that - while we may still be cutting-edge mentally and we may still be growing spiritually - physically we're pretty much all washed up!

So we took the kiddos to a high-school girls basketball contest (Who knew that scoring points was such a small part of the game!). It was actually a lot of fun. One of our church youth, Shelby Dale, was up for her "senior send-off". Shelby actually did score points, and grab rebounds, while helping her team to a very important "W".

Liam only lasted a quarter before trying to out-yell the spectators, so we took the party back to the kids' house, where we spoiled them some more until Liam's bedtime. Then Micah and I drove back to our house to feed and walk Scout - Scout LOVES the presence of small fry.

Rebekah and I don't exactly have the stamina we had when our kids were little! There's a reason young people have babies and the rest of us just pitch in and help sometimes. Apart from my right shoulder nearly separating due to Liam's gravitational excess, there was the sheer constant-ness of kids. Every time we do this we're reminded of how systemically exhausting it is to raise children.

Having small children grow up in our home was well worth every wonderful moment of constant overwhelm - but taking care of them, and stimulating them, and teaching them, and planning, and worrying, and guiding their little lives and so much more amounts to a mammoth effort we easily forget after just a few years.

The point of this post is to remind us to do everything we can to support and encourage young families. We can pray for them, listen to them, share our stories, make sure they have the level of support they need in the community, lobby on their behalf.

We can love them with the pro-active, healing, life-giving Jesus quality of love.

• People were bringing little children to Jesus to have him touch them, but the disciples rebuked them. When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it." And he took the children in his arms, put his hands on them and blessed them. - Mark 10:13-16