April 18, 2007
Being a brand new grandfather is a happy and sometimes emotional experience. Occasionally I will see Liam asleep in his crib, looking of course like an absolute angel, and I cannot resist saying a prayer that God will keep him safe and grant him a life with more joy than sorrow. Isn't that what we all want for our children and grandchildren? Sometimes I put it this way: a life with a maximum of love and a minimum of fear.
Sometimes our fondest dreams about what life can be are crushed soundly by the realities of the moment. The 32 young students who died in Virginia earlier in the week may start out as statistics, but when you start thinking and praying about them you realize that each one had a father and a mother, grandfathers and grandmothers, aunts and uncles, all of whom prayed that they would have happy and safe lives. You know that those family members are pulling out those old pictures of a baby in a crib, and you feel the tears running down their cheeks as they ask what happened to the innocent baby that they loved so much. And you can't help but pray, perhaps somewhat selfishly, that your own child or grandchild will be spared the harshest cruelties of this life.
There is much that I don't understand about that old Bible story in Genesis where God asks Abraham to sacrifice Isaac upon the altar. But this much I get: there came a moment when Abraham realized that Isaac did not belong to him, but rather to God. He had come from God as a gift, and eventually he would go back to God as a child who is returning home. He would return to that one place which is totally safe, where there are no more tears, where there is a maximum of love and no fear at all.
I do not write this as some kind of poor consolation for those families who lost children, but rather as encouragement for the rest of us. Much will be written and spoken in the upcoming weeks about keeping our children safe. But ultimately our world is not a safe place, and there are no guarantees for ourselves or our children. The only real home we have is our heavenly home, and the only real safety in life lies in our belief in a God that, with open arms, will someday welcome us into that home in spite of our sins and failures.
If you want to give your child or grandchild the gift of a life lived with a maximum of love and a minimum of fear, give them the gift of faith. Live it out in front of them. Let them know that it is more important than making the team or going to the "right" college or making tons of money. Like Abraham, give them completely to God, and trust them to the only One who can truly keep them safe.
