Vinayak: Parenting - An Assignment With God-Sized Dimensions

A few months after we lost our sweet firstborn son, Mirari Eden – who passed away shortly after birth from a life limiting diagnosis, I felt called by God to quit my work. Confirmed repeatedly through Scripture, faith-based books, prayer, and circumstances, the call was clear and undeniable, and so, in obedience, I resigned from my job, and stepped into a season of unemployment until further direction from God. About 2.5 years later, Aphoreo was born into our family, and I naturally stepped into the role of a stay at home father. Now, another two years on, with the birth of Theodulos, I continue in that role – caring for our children full-time. 

Being a stay-at-home parent has been the most demanding assignment I have ever undertaken. 

Physically, it is demanding because everything that needs to be done adds up to a lot. This includes changing diapers, preparing meals, cleaning up my children and cleaning up after them, ensuring their safety and the safety of their surroundings, being present and intentional in playing with them while also taking those opportunities to guide and teach them. 

Emotionally, it is demanding as it forces me to face my own negative emotions, which get amplified through daily circumstances. For example, it is hard for me to feel joyful and significant when I repeatedly engage in what feels like mundane activities to me but not to my children. Other times, I wrestle with feelings of guilt when I feel like I am either being too disciplinarian or too permissive, or when I’ve reacted in anger and impatience when my children are being disobedient. 

Socially, it is demanding because my schedule is now limited by my children’s schedules and therefore there is less time and flexibility to invest in friendships and personal hobbies. 

In addition, our culture views children as an obstacle to personal fulfillment. It places a higher significance towards more measurable achievements such as career growth, breadth of travel experiences, personal beauty and fitness, rather than the “achievement” of raising children, which is hard to measure, and often involves denying oneself. 

Burdened by these challenges, I was left wondering, does spending time with my children have a deeper meaning and purpose? When God gave Adam and Eve the mandate to be fruitful and multiply, what meaning and purpose did He have in mind for those who would dedicate their time to raising children? 

In a book Christine and I recently read, Experiencing God, the author writes, “God wants a watching world to come to know who He truly is. He does not call you to get involved in His activity merely so people can see what you can do. He will call you to an assignment that you cannot accomplish apart from His divine intervention. God’s assignments have God-sized dimensions.” This quote spoke to my lived experience as a parent and made me realize that parenting our children is one such assignment. This assignment has God-sized dimensions, and cannot fulfill its purpose of bringing others to the true knowledge of our God apart from God’s divine intervention. One of the ways the experience of parenting accomplishes this purpose is by demonstrating how God uses this experience to powerfully transform us into Christ-likeness. Below are some of the ways in which I have experienced the potential for such a transformation. 

(1) Our children can teach us how to forgive others as Jesus has forgiven us and called us to forgive others. As a comparison, when I am wronged by someone, I either try to run away from them or try to hurt them back. But when I wrong Alphie, I notice that he tearfully turns toward me, the perpetrator of his hurt, to seek reconciliation. This reflects the forgiveness and reconciliation that Christ sought for us: that while we were still sinners and the initiators of the wrong and conflict in our relationship, Jesus sought us by stepping into our world, and reconciled us to Himself at a great cost to Himself. Another contrast between Alphie and my forgiveness is that my forgiveness is often conditional. It depends on the offender being genuinely repentant. And even then, I have a hard time letting go of the hurt, leading to only partial forgiveness. But Alphie’s forgiveness is granted immediately, he can let go of the hurt, he does not hold any grudges, and therefore, the relationship is fully restored. I have learned a lot about Jesus’ forgiveness while parenting Alphie. 

(2) Our children’s ability to play imaginatively can teach us how to cultivate the imagination required to hold onto the hope in our future glory, especially in the midst of suffering. In John 16:33, Jesus said - “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” Suffering such as mental and physical illness, death, loss of a loved one, hurt and alienation from others, are all unavoidable troubles of this world. In the midst of these troubles, the Christian hope lies in envisioning our future glory - a reality that is not yet materialized, but one day assuredly will be. In Philippians 3:14, Paul imagines winning the prize towards which his whole life is straining towards. In 1 Corinthians 9:24-27, Paul imagines being declared victorious like the winner of a racing or boxing competition would be but receiving a crown that lasts forever. In Hebrews 12:3, the writer says that Jesus’ imagination of the joy of our reconciliation to Himself strengthened Him to endure the cross and scorn its shame. The apostle John in the book of Revelation invites us to imagine our glorious future, a life devoid of death, or mourning, or crying, or pain due to the passing away of the old order of things (Revelation 21:4). Parenting Alphie has helped me cultivate my imagination. Alphie loves his guitar and mini trash cans, and when these are not around him, he easily imagines other household items to become these items. He has imagined blueberries, clothes hangers, fly swatters, and dental floss to be his guitar and using these, delivered wonderful musical performances. He has imagined storage bins, play bins, a grocery cart, and basically anything with storage capacity into his trash cans and has imagined emptying them onto our floor whenever his imagined trash truck comes to pick up his trash. Children’s minds are filled with imaginative play ideas; their boundless imagination and creativity invites us to not only observe and join in the fun, but also to cultivate our own imagination towards envisioning our future glory in Jesus. 

(3) God uses the experience of parenting to mature us emotionally. In the parable of the bags of talents (Matthew 25:14-30), a man entrusts his wealth to three servants - to one he gave five bags of gold, to another two bags, and to another one bag, each according to his ability. In this parable, the first two servants double what was entrusted to them, whereas the third servant buries what was entrusted to him and returns back the one bag of gold when the master returns and settles accounts with them. In a book, Changes that Heal, the author writes, “The third servant took his gold away from experience, away from where time could affect it. He hid it in the ground. Therefore, time was not affecting the gold, and time was not making it grow. This is what sometimes happens to us. We take different aspects of our person out of time, that is, out of experience, and they remain exactly as they were when they were buried in ‘bad time.’” In other words, when our childhood circumstances cause certain developmental needs to get bypassed, those childhood needs remain hidden until they resurface later in our life in other forms. God uses parenting to uncover any such buried developmental needs into His own redemptive time, and invites us to partner with Him towards emotional maturity. Parenting my children has often brought out feelings of anger and impatience within me that I have come to recognize are more reflective of my own unresolved issues than with my children’s behavior. I’m learning to take these moments as invitations to be curious and to ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to me what hidden experiences, wounds, or unmet developmental needs these emotions may be surfacing. In this way, I can move forward on the path towards greater maturity and Christ-likeness. God has thus been using parenting my children to parent me. 

(4) The physically demanding and self-giving nature of raising children invites us to consider that day by day we are becoming more like Jesus, who came into this world not to be served, but to serve (Matthew 20:28). This Jesus, who being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to His own advantage, rather he took the very nature of a servant, for our sake (Philippians 2:6-8). This Jesus, the Word who was before the creation of time, in the final moments with his disciples, took off his outer clothing, wrapped a towel around his waist, and washed his disciples’ feet (John 13:1-17), a task reserved for the lowliest servants. I am learning to remind myself that serving my children and family is not a waste of time, or devoid of significance. Rather, it’s quite the opposite - moment by moment, it is transforming me to become like Jesus. 

From these examples provided, I hope that I’ve given a glimpse of how parenting, despite its challenges, is one of the most meaningful, purposeful, and impactful endeavors God can invite us into when we understand parenting as God intended and view it through the lens God provides us with in the Bible. The author of Experiencing God continues, “To get from where you are to where God is requires significant adjustments in your life. These adjustments may relate to your thinking, circumstances, relationships, commitments, actions, and beliefs.” For those of us who have been tasked with the joy and responsibility of parenting, God invites us to make the necessary adjustments in our lives and to partner with Him so that this assignment can fulfill His purpose of bringing about the intended transformation of our lives into Christ-likeness, and through that, to bring the watching world to the knowledge of the true God. My hope, prayer, and encouragement is that we would commit ourselves to this assignment wholeheartedly.