Parenting Makes Us Happy (Because It Makes Us Holy)
It also makes us very, very sleepy
John Wesley believed that holiness was essentially the same thing as happiness. Living a life of self-giving, sacrificial love, or at least attempting to, is not a way to be happy, according to Wesley it’s actually the only way to be happy. In parenting I’m discovering, diaper by diaper, day by hectic day, that this is wonderfully, painfully true.
I have three sons at the age of five and under— at times they are like little minions, wreaking havoc and chaos in our home, and at other times they are innocent cherubs, genuine signs of the beauty and majesty of God’s goodness. Often they waver between these two in a matter of seconds, back and forth, wrestling and screaming and singing and playing and even praying at times in the midst of it all. It’s an amazing gift to witness how they are growing and learning. It’s also an immense burden and sacrifice.
My wife and I often get to the end of the day and fall into our La-Z-Boys, look at each other, and say, We did it! We made it through another day. And then we pat ourselves on the back, maybe watch a TV show if we have the time, and then we gear up to do it again the next day. And again. And again. And again.
My mom and many other friends and family often look wistfully at me and my wife, and they say, you know you are going to miss these days when they are all grown up and gone. And undoubtedly this is true—there is a sweetness to this time of life that you almost don’t want to write or speak too much about, because you might ruin or tamper with it in description. This time really is precious and brief, guarding and loving and feeding and teaching and discipling these little guys. And we can already feel the pull of the world and its woes on our oldest, just in Kindergarten. I often wish I could freeze the clock, slow it down, and find time to simply be grateful for where and when we are (I’d also like this superpower for nap-taking as well…)
But parenting is also amazingly hard, just in the sheer chorus of “do it again” that each day brings. Get the kids socks and shoes on, they take them off, put them on again, they want different kinds of socks, finally get them on, then you strap them in the car, get them in their car seats, get to where you’re going, take them all out of their car seats, hold their hands so they are not smooshed by a truck in the parking lot (they don’t want to hold hands and you force them to so they start crying), get them in a shopping cart, refuse to buy them things, endure tantrums in public spaces, patiently try to calm them down without letting them get what they want so they don’t become a tiny dictator, get them back in the car, kill some time at a playground, discover via your sharp sense of smell that the middle son has had an accident, scrub poop out of his pants in a park bathroom, find new pants in the car, strap them all back in the car seats, drive them back home while they are screaming, get their shoes off, clean their hands, feed them supper (a journey in itself), read them books, endure the saga of bedtime, and on and on and on and on…a constant drumbeat of need and responsibility, inescapable, ongoing, unceasing.
It’s amazing how all of this changes you! There is something profound, something life and heart-changing about the constant responsibility, care, and love that parenting requires. I didn’t know how selfish I was until I got married; I didn’t know how impatient (and still selfish) I was until I had children! Teresa of Avila says that your heart is a fortress with many rooms, and God wants to occupy all of them.1 Your children, I’m finding, shine a spotlight on the parts of your heart that you have not let God move into yet. They hold a battering ram to your stubbornness and pride, and they wear you down by their genuine and constant need for you to be better than you are, or at least better than you feel you are.
I’m coming to the realization that being a father, or a mother, striving to do it well, is essentially a lifelong practice of holiness. I’m preaching right now through 1 Peter and we are specifically talking about the call to holiness: Peter reminds the churches that in the same way that God commanded Israel, God now also commands the church: “Be holy as I am holy.” What the Jews learned from Moses is that we practice holiness not only when we go to a sacred space (temples, synagogues, sanctuaries), but we practice holiness best in our homes and daily lives: in common things like cleaning dishes, preparing food, adorning doors, washing clothes, and yes, especially in how we raise our children. It’s in those everyday tasks where faithfulness is most needed. We are set apart, holy, not in where we find ourselves on a holy day, but much more in how we bring our holy day into our everyday.
One of the great influences of the Wesleyan movement on my life is its insistence that God not only wants to forgive us, but also transform us, to take our hearts of stone and replace them with a heart of flesh, a loving, kind, and courageous heart. And this happens as we daily and consistently go to the means of grace, these practices and places where God has promised to show up and offer himself to us. If we go to where the streams of living water are (prayer, scripture, worship, fasting, constant communion, holy friendships, etc.), God will quench our thirst and change our capacity for love (another way of saying, make us more holy).
I’m learning that God has given parenting to me and my wife as a gift of grace and a means of grace. In the everyday act of caring for these little people dependent on us, we are learning again the posture of what it might look like to depend fully on God.
And we are also learning that when we give of ourselves consistently, daily, and unceasingly, what God brings us is joy. The person I am becoming through being a father, by God’s grace, is more joyful than I can ever remember being. I’m not carefree like I was in my youth, I’m not without worries or fears (parenting has increased those for me, because love increases our concern for our beloved); but the depth of joy and love I’m discovering is larger than I’ve ever known. I am in awe of the sheer, undeserved gift of life that my wife and I get to steward and love and watch grow in our home.
Whether or not you are a parent, there is an opportunity, always, everywhere, every day, to serve and love someone else as Christ served and loved you. This is called practicing holiness. May we long for it, persist in it, and be surprised and grateful for the happiness it brings. The baby may cry through the night, and the next night, and the one after that…but for the joy that comes in the morning, it is worth it.
From Dallas Willard: “Teresa urges us to start on the path to transformation by “considering our soul to be like a castle made entirely out of a diamond or of very clear crystal, in which there are many rooms.” We are meant to occupy every room or “dwelling place” with God, and thereby to become the radiant beings which he intends. Teresa makes clear what lies half-concealed upon the pages of the Bible and in the lives of the “great ones” for Christ—that I am an unceasing spiritual being, with an eternal destiny in God’s great universe. We may be far from God’s will, but we must know “that it is possible in this exile for so great a God to commune with such foul-smelling worms; and, on seeing this, come to love a goodness so perfect and a mercy so immeasurable.”
The “rooms” in the interior castle are ways of living in relation to the God who made us and seeks us.” (https://dwillard.org/articles/introduction-teresa-of-avila-selections-from-the-interior-castle)