Kept by Abler Hands

My eyes met my husband’s across the living room, wide and a little crazed. We didn’t know if we should laugh or cry at the amount of sheer chaos in the room. These moments keep happening, typically during the hours between dinner and bedtime, when our children go wild and we start dream a little bit of when they are older and less rambunctious. Maybe we even wish it out loud with a groan of frustration.

We know this. The little years are such a whirlwind of energy, of wiping down messes and hunting for lost toys, untangling sibling arguments, reading extra bedtime stories, and trying to keep up with everyone’s frequent needs. We feel this. These days of parenting can be so long and tumultuous, confusing and overwhelming. But mercifully, we also are given this. Warm spots of rest and light within these challenging days—the sweet minutes where we remember to look them in their bright, watching eyes and clutch our chests over how darling they are. And hopefully, we hum our gratitude from thankful hearts, “I can’t remember what it felt like before I became a parent, nor do I want to. Thank you, kind God. Help me to parent them as you parent me. Keep me present, keep them safe.”

As hard as these days run, with the children almost running faster than the passing time, they are still this precious parcel that I keep padded and close to my heart. I delight in their personalities and personhoods, I am honored to raise and serve them beside my husband. Yet I am finding that as long as I have children who still depend on me for every daily thing, who still live under my roof and rules, I am often clinging to the illusion that I am the one keeping them safe and that their future, their leaving me, is lightyears away still.

The truth is, when my mind does tiptoe to the edge of their adolesence and adulthood beyond, I do worry. A few beginning fears tumble quickly into lists of what-ifs. I am afraid that the sins they have seen in their mommy and daddy will shout louder to them than the redemption gospel we spoke, and they’ll have bitter hearts. I worry that their constant interruptions during worship mean that they are not keeping anything in their hearts and they will eventually despise God’s Word. I worry about the influences they will fall under, the friends they will make, the siren songs of the world, and the moments when they will have broken hearts and I won’t be able to scoop them up and hug them tight. I worry for their health and safety. I wonder if they’ll look back on their childhood with fond, laughter-filled nostalgia, or with sad, mourning silence. Will they break generational curses? Will they be wise? Will they love the church of Christ? So much is wrong with the world and with our hearts—will they make their way safely through?

When I lean my thoughts this way, I start to act like I am the one who is their real shelter and comfort, instead of God. In reality, I am only the who represents him, the one who points the way to him. I am pushing aside the truth of who God is and what he has done. I have leaned away from him, I have forgotten. I need to turn around and look back at how far he has kept them. And will he stop now? Of course, their lives are young yet—but if I look closer, I can see the manifold wisdom of God in kaleidoscope colors, even in their few lived years. There is absolutely no reason to shrink back from gazing at the future when the truth remains that the God who spoke them into being, who knit them together in my womb, is the same God who loves them, who is able to save and keep and redeem. He loves my children more than I do. He knows every single word of their story, and calls it good. I am powerless to redeem and save. Bless the Lord.

Even more, I need to look back at the whole story of God’s people. Always, God has been good and has done what is good. His angels warned Lot of the coming fire, coming to consume the enemies of God, and saw him hesitate. His lingering would have been his death, had not the angels taken him and his family by their very hands. (Genesis 19:15-16) Lot had grown enchanted by safety and sin, and could not pull himself away from what had dazzled his eyes and rooted in his heart. God is the God who saves and he will do whatever it takes to rescue his people. And how many times have I seen it with my own eyes? When one of us has been at the end of ourselves, tired of being sin-sick, but unable to escape its hold— only to find the surprise of God being most near, breaking us out of imprisoning cycles, and turning the light of his freeing countenance upon us?  The hymn refrain rises from my heart and all of God’s thankful church: “He is able, he is able. He is willing, doubt no more.”

Even if my worst fears for my children come to pass, that does not change the fact that they can never leave the able and willing hands of God. Scottish Reformer John Welwood wrote these wise words in a letter in 1675: “It is better that [the God of all grace] should hold our treasure than we ourselves…. we think that what’s in our hand is surer, and will be more easily be effective, than what is in Christ’s hand!” While he speaks of grace itself being the treasure that Christ holds, it also makes me praise Him for all else that he holds for me, including the gracious gift of my children. No hands but his will do.

I cannot see what the Lord sees, I cannot know what he knows, I cannot do what he does. I cannot see how the stories of my children end and I cannot know how they will get there, I cannot rescue them from sin and death. But every day, God does all of that. He is in the impossible business of bringing life out of death. He himself even knows death, having laid himself down on the bloody cross, binding himself to us in all of our humanity, sin, fear, grief, and pain – so that he could be a Savior who knows and feels with us. He brought us with him when he rose again, and he will raise us up forever when he comes back to share his glory with us, in that finally united cosmos where death will no more leave its shadow.

May our faithful, keeping God keep my children, and may I trust him more to do it.
Now, and unto life everlasting.