sixteen
Sixteen. Sixteen delightful summers of sunshine, sweat and adventure. Sixteen twinkling Christmases of wonder and anticipation. Sixteen years on this wild ride called parenting. How is the sweet baby girl with the rosebud lips now a gorgeous, sixteen-year-old young woman? By God’s loving kindness, Brian and I have had the privilege of parenting three amazing children, and our beloved Scarlett has the distinct honor of being the firstborn—an honor that comes to her loaded with both priceless perks and annoying realities.
From the beginning, Scarlett garnered steadfast love and attention. She is not only the first of our children, but she also holds the esteemed position of eldest grandchild on both sides of the family. If ever there was a spoiled baby, Scarlett topped the list. Grandpa and Pop were instantly smitten, and Grandma and Grammie were promptly wrapped around her chubby little finger. Not to mention how her Daddy’s eyes spilled over with tears when he placed her in my arms for the first time. Be still my heart.
Scarlett didn’t sleep much in the womb, and she certainly did not make up for that lost sleep when she emerged from it. She was a firecracker from the start. She refused to follow the Babywise plan I so diligently perfected in my mind during the months leading up to her birth. Her favorite place to sleep was in a sling across my chest, a device long ago recalled due to its inherent risk of suffocation. Praise the Lord it was permissible when this girl was an infant—I think that sling single-handedly maintained my sanity for the first three months of her life!
Of course, Scarlett was just the cutest, smartest, funniest, and most loving baby ever to toddle across God’s green earth, but she also gave us a rude awakening to the sacrifices that define parenting. The unfettered schedule of an independent, twenty-something couple came to a crippling halt with fussy nights, frequent nursing, inconsistent napping and near constant worry.
As all parents know, the firstborn child is the perpetual guinea pig. Naps and meals occur on a strict, unchanging schedule. The firstborn does not receive her inaugural taste of sugar until she’s five, she doesn’t hear a curse word until she’s 10, and R rated movies are saved until 18. (Unlike the baby of the family, who might be served chocolate by a generous older sibling before he’s even drinking cow’s milk, blurts out “what the f&%” at the playground when he is still incapable of running without tripping over his own two feet, and has seen the entire Star Wars saga by the time he hits double digits.*) With the firstborn, we have a tendency to hover, which can have its benefits, but unfortunately tends to produce unintended complications. She may know she is loved, but she repeatedly feels smothered.
Every firstborn experiences the tension associated with having parents who are learning on the fly. Thankfully, our God is defined by grace, and He dumps it on us by the armfuls as we try to figure out what in the world we are doing. Scarlett has proven to be a joy to parent. I am not saying it’s all been puppy dogs and ice cream, but I am endlessly thankful that we have the honor of raising this particular girl.
We are far from perfect parents, but God has used our sixteen-year journey to sanctify us—we have grown in ways only made possible through the trials and the triumphs of parenting. I pray our children leave our home knowing we did our best to raise them to know the Lord. I am often reminded of how He instructed the Israelites in this matter in Deuteronomy 6:4-9. This passage is part of a daily Hebrew prayer known as the Shema.
“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”
Ultimately, God is the One who calls our children to Himself, and they can freely choose to accept His great gift of salvation. We can be signposts pointing them in the right direction, but we cannot deliver them to the destination. We can spoon feed them truth, but we cannot force it down their throats. We can provide guardrails along the way, but we cannot strap them down in our beliefs.
This is the place where we, as parents, become acutely aware that we are not holding the reins. Some of us even learn for the very first time that we never actually were. We are, however, riding along beside them, encouraging them to hold the course and acknowledge that the Lord is in the lead. As we journey with them, we can pray, and we can teach truth.
As Paul exclaims, “In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory” (Eph. 1:11-14).
May we be a people who unswervingly point the rising generation to the Giver of Life, the One who graciously grants us this beautiful inheritance! What a precious gift it is to be a parent. I am endlessly grateful for sixteen years and counting.
*Lest you falsely think that the “baby of the family” examples point directly to John, I must inform you they do not! They are creative renditions of events shared to me by friends, based loosely on true stories, with enough collective mass to ensure that quite a large number of people experience similar mishaps and loosened rules!
God’s beautiful creation given to our family.
