Last night, as a I enjoyed the company of a few of my comrades, someone asked "What's the biggest challenge of being a father?"
For me, the biggest challenge is supporting a mother. Don't get me wrong, I know that bringing up a child is a massive task, so please don't think I'm underestimating or under-rating it. Also please don't read anything about my wife out of this statement!! No, the point is that I can love a child as a father; give them cuddles, protect them, play with them, listen to them, lots of things. But how do you look after a mother? Some loads are hard to lift- I'm out most of the day during the week, and I don't have the equipment needed to feed, and to some extent comfort, babies when they're young. I can support, facilitate, encourage and be present and available. But it often feels weak and insufficient. For me, this is the biggest challenge.
We also discussed more direct matters to do with interacting with our children. How we communicate, how we handle and express our emotions.
We also realised that, as fathers, we form part of our children's image of God.
That got us thinking.
The challenge is two-fold.
One: We are commissioned to show our children the type of unconditional, ever patient, ever believing, ever freeing, ever empowering, ever hoping love that God has for us.
Two: What we do end up demonstrating can be a bridge or a barrier to our children realising God's character and interacting with Him consciously in their lives.
That was a bit heavy.
We talked about "society", and how our young generations really need to have more contact with adult men as positive influences and models.
The thing that struck me the most, though, was that we had the conversation at all.
Here's the challenge. To engage with the real stuff- not concepts and ideas. The reality of plain regular daily grind recognising that what we do, and the little interactions, matter in some kind of transcendent way.
Difficult mess is our medium. Let's talk about it.
